At Richard Alibon our history curriculum is a fun and interesting way for children to find out about the past and develop their historical knowledge of the UK and the wider world.
While we deliver the aims of the national curriculum our children will enjoy historical re-enactment visitors coming into school and visits to historical places of interest . We use Virtual Reality and online experiences to visit places and time, like the Ancient Mayan Civilization in South America, that we cannot get to in person. We encourage the children to work and think like historians and archaeologists; historical detectives who investigate clues to the past to draw conclusions. We ask pupils to link the different time periods they have studied to help them remember more and make connections between different eras of the past.
Our history curriculum delivers the aims of the history national curriculum, which are summarised below, to ensure that all pupils:
- know and understand the history of the UK as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world:
- gain and use a historically grounded understanding of terms such as ‘empire,’ ‘civilisation’ and ‘parliament’
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections,
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims,
- gain historical perspective by understanding the connections between periods of history
At Richard Alibon will deliver this by teaching 4 key concepts
Investigate and interpret the past – recognising that our understanding of the past comes from an interpretation of the available evidence
Build an overview of world history – an appreciation of the characteristics of the past and that these features are similar and different across time periods as well as an understanding that life is different for different sections of society.
Understand Chronology – an understanding of how to chart the passing of time and how some aspects of history happened at similar times in different places
Communicate historically – using historical vocabulary and techniques to convey information about the past
These 4 key concepts will be revisited during each topic and each history lesson so that children build up their historical knowledge through continual repetition, recall (retrieval practice) and building on existing knowledge.
As pupils develop these concepts in a range of contexts, they develop the ability to be independent learners, using the key historical skills they have gained to analyse, question and compare sources of evidence to form their own judgements about the past.
Each Unit of work will usually include the following themes so that they are revisited and built upon for each unit of work. This will provide continuity of learning and allow the children to revise and extend previous learning.
- Working like a historian or archaeologist
- Religious beliefs
- Life and experiences of rulers
- Life and experiences of everyday people
- How the time period came to an end
Each unit will help the children consider:
- Historical cause, consequence and motivation
- Comparison: similarities and difference/ continuity and change
- Analysing and making judgements
- Understand historical concepts (like empireand rebellion) while deevloping their historical vocabulary
- Significance
Additional documents to support our History curriculum at Richard Alibon can be found below:
Our history skills progression document
Nursery and Reception Scheme of Work
Year 2 History Medium Term Plans
Year 3 History Medium Term Plans
Year 4 History Medium Term Plans
Year 5 History Medium Term Plans
Year 6 History Medium Term Plans
