History

At Corrie we value the Arts and Democracy as the main drivers of our History curriculum. Topics are carefully chosen in order to stimulate the pupils’ interest and understanding of the past and how it has influenced our lives today. Where possible, teachers aim to deliver practical lessons and plan opportunities for learning in the outdoor environment. Children experience real history through visitors to school, drama, and visits to historical sites such as the Roman wall in Chester and a WWII air-raid shelter. At the start of a topic, pupils are encouraged to ask questions and set up investigations which help to shape the learning of each topic.

History supports spiritual development by encouraging children to ask questions as to how and why events in the past occurred and think about the different possible outcomes. History allows children to understand the religious and spiritual beliefs of different societies and gain an understanding of how religion has shaped significant historical events, causing both wars and co-operation.  History supports moral development by providing children with the opportunity to debate and consider different viewpoints and events in history. It encourages children to discuss moral questions and dilemmas from the past and contemplate the effect they had on ordinary people during that time. History supports social development by encouraging children to think about past societies and their contributions to the world today. Children work in Kagan groups which allows them to develop social skills by working as a team to collaborate on activities, solve problems and discuss historical issues. History supports cultural development by allowing pupils to develop a better understanding of people from different cultural backgrounds and reflect on our own multicultural society through studying links between local, British, European and world history.History encourages children to consider how events in the past have shaped the world in which we live in today.

Aims

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind.
• Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’.
• Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.
• Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.