History
The study of the past is important to the understanding of the present.
At Adamsrill we aim to arouse children’s interest and enthusiasm in looking at the past, and promote enquiry and curiosity.
In Key Stage 1 pupils learn about people’s lives and lifestyles. They find out about significant women, men, children and events from the recent and more distant past, including those from Britain and the Wider World. They hear exciting stories from history and use sources of information to help them ask and answer questions. In Key Stage 2 pupils learn about ancient Egypt, the Romans, the Tudors, ancient Greece, and famous people, the Victorians, Britain since 1930, Africa – Benin; Caribbean and American history, and about local history. Pupils also study different sources of evidence, and are encouraged to evaluate their meaning and reliability. Children’s experience of the history curriculum is enhanced through educational visits.
Essential characteristics of historians:
- An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events and context from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes
- The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.
- The ability to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical events derived from a range of sources.
- The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.
- A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
- A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgements.
- A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.
There are four threshold concepts in History.
These are:
- Investigate and interpret the past: This concept involves understanding that our understanding of the past comes from an interpretation of the available evidence.
- Building an overview of world history: This concept involves an appreciation of the characteristic features of the past and an understanding that life is different for different sections of society.
- Understand chronology: This concept involves an understanding of how to chart the passing of time and how some aspects of history studied were happening at similar times in different places.
- Communicate historically: This concept involves using historical vocabulary and techniques to convey information about the past.