History
Statement of Intent
At Barley Mow Primary School, we want all children to have an understanding of our past and how history can shape the future. We want our pupils to be curious about the past. This will equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh up evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement. It will help them gain an understanding of the complexities of people’s lives and the process of change, as well as understanding their own identity, their place in society and the challenges of their time.
Our school bases the core work in history around the National Curriculum which aims to ensure that all pupils:
- Know and understand the history of Britain 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 history of the wider world: ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of non- European societies; achievements and follies of mankind.
- Gain and employ a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as “empire”, “civilisation”, “parliament” and “peasantry”.
- Understand historical concepts such a 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 constructed 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, political, religious and social history, and between short and long- term timescales.
