History

Intent 
At Ladysmith Junior School, we follow the National Curriculum to structure and shape our teaching of history. We believe that a high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world, helping them to better understand the complexity of modern life. As such, we want our children to develop a curiosity about the past and an understanding of how history shapes the world we live in today. Through engaging and carefully planned lessons, pupils become thoughtful historians who ask questions, analyse evidence and explore different perspectives.   

Throughout the school, pupils develop the key historical disciplinary knowledge of: 

• Sources and evidence
• Historical interpretation
• Cause and consequence
• Continuity and change
• Similarity and difference
• Historical significance

The curriculum in Lower Key Stage 2 is organised chronologically and focuses on British history from the Stone Age to the Norman Conquest. This enables children to build a secure chronology and understanding of how the nation of Britain emerged. The Upper Key Stage 2 curriculum extends children's knowledge into different areas of the world, such as the Mayan Empire and the Shang Dynasty, as well as looking in depth at particularly significant events in British history, such as the Battle of Britain. This enables children to draw deeper historical comparisons and develop increasingly diverse persepectives. 

Throughout the curriculum, learning references our substantive concepts, which we share with the Infant School. These are the 'big ideas' of history, which when revisited in a range of different contexts support children to develop connections, enabling them to increasingly apply their knowledge in unfamiliar contexts to draw meaningful conclusions. Across the curriculum, links are made to local history to develop children's concept of their own unique place in the world.

What do history lessons look like at Ladysmith Juniors?
At Ladysmith Junior School, we use our progression map to make sure that our lessons build year on year and lesson on lesson. Our curriculum is organised chronologically to enable repeated and meaningful opportunities for children to build on their prior knowledge and make informed comparisons between different periods of history. To further support children to continue to build on their existing knowledge, each lesson begins with several carefully selected rewind questions.

We use schema, which contains text and images to describe the key knowledge they will acquire during the sequence. We use schemas to support dual coding of new information, supporting pupils to remember more, and make stronger connections with what they already know. This helps children to commit their new learning to long term memory.  The schema is revisited at the beginning of every lesson, prompting the children to recall their new knowledge regularly. Below is an example of a schema used in Year 5:

We adopt an enquiry focused approach to learning in history, which develops our pupils as young historians. Through enquiry, our pupils not only build subject knowledge and understanding but become increasingly adept at critical thinking, the use of specialised vocabulary and in grasping our overarching substantive concepts. We structure learning in history through big question led enquiries about relevant historical topics, places and themes. Our learning and teaching in history is interactive and practical, allowing opportunities for pupils to work independently, in pairs and groups of various sizes, both inside and outside of the classroom. Wherever possible, we provide our pupils with contemporaneous historical evidence to analyse and from which to reach conclusions and make judgements.

How do we make sure that every child succeeds?
Our curriculum aims to be inclusive for all so our planning is carefully adapted to make sure it can be accessed by all of our children and they all have an opportunity to demonstrate their historical understanding.

We continually assess the children throughout our teaching and, if any are in danger of falling behind, we offer additional support. Additionally, we assess at the end of each unit and address any misconceptions the children may have.