At Newby Primary we believe it is vital that children study, understand and have great awareness of how history has shaped the world in which they live. As our intent statement describes, we believe that History shapes culture, culture shapes society and society then informs our understanding of our community, our families and ourselves. The history curriculum at Newby is structured so that as children move in to a new year group, they have one or two periods of history to study in depth across the year. Topics and units have been selected from the National Curriculum to ensure that children receive a high quality and deep historical learning experience, but also so that plenty of cross curricular activities can take place, embedding learning through tangible opportunities. In addition to this, our curriculum is humanity rich and one which supports British Values and SMSC, with great emphasis being placed upon not just learning about historical facts and significant events, but how history has created the world in which children live in today.
Ambition of the Curriculum:
The ambition of the history curriculum at Newby, is for children to receive a historical education which is knowledge rich, stimulating and engaging, and that instils the recognition of just why history is so important to study. As with all learning at Newby, the experiences children learn through are tangible wherever possible with our ambition being that children experience history first hand rather than just learn about it. In this way, children not only learn about experiences of others and of significant events from the past; they relive them giving them valuable tools to compare and contrast events and information using logic and scrutiny to ascertain the reliability of historical texts, artefacts and other sources. Our history curriculum aims to give children a broad understanding of world history, yet in line with Newby’s philosophy of learning we also strive to go deeper into topics to enhance learning and understanding, using our locality to reinforce the learning undertaken. The overall ambition for our children is that they cover a wide range of history study from local to global, becoming ever increasingly aware of key events and figures whilst becoming expertly skilled in the scrutiny, comparison and investigation of history through tangible learning opportunities. Our aim is that children have an understanding of contemporary issues through the lens of History ensuring that we deal with sensitive issues such as ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Skills and Contents
Our History curriculum has been sequenced and designed to ensure children have a good understanding of concepts and skills. These are interwoven within and across year groups to ensure learning is secured in the long term memory.
