History

At Chalfont St Peter Infant School, we aim to provide high-quality History education which will enable pupils to gain knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Children are encouraged to develop curiosity to know more about the past. Children are given every opportunity to understand the challenges of the lives of people in the past and the process of change. Pupils are taught to develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time.

       Programmes of Study include:  

• changes within living memory
• events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally (eg. the Great Fire of London)
• the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods (eg. Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell)
• significant historical events, people and places in their own locality. 

Intent

• to foster in children an interest in the past, and to develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer
• to enable children to know about significant events in British history, and to appreciate how things have changed over time
• to develop a sense of chronology
• to help children understand society and their place within it, so that they develop a sense of their cultural heritage
• to develop in children the skills of enquiry, investigation, analysis, evaluation and presentation
• to develop the cross-curricular use of history in other subjects

Implementation

We use the national scheme of work as the basis for our curriculum planning in history, but we have adapted this to our local context, building on the successful units of work already in place. We place an emphasis on examining historical artefacts and primary sources. In each Key Stage, we give children the opportunity to visit sites of historical significance. We encourage visitors to come into the school and talk about their experiences of events in the past. We recognise and value the importance of stories in history teaching, and we regard this as an important way of stimulating interest in the past. We focus on helping children to understand that historical events can be interpreted in different ways, and that they should always ask searching questions, such as ‘how do we know?’, about information they are given.

Impact

Children demonstrate their ability in history in a variety of different ways. For example, by acting out a famous historical event. Teachers will assess children’s work by making informal judgements as they observe pupils working during lessons, checking use of vocabulary and pupil feedback. On completion of a piece of work, the teacher assesses the work and uses this information to plan for future learning. Written or verbal feedback is given to the child to help guide his or her progress.

 At the end of a whole unit of work, the teacher makes a summary judgement about the work of each pupil in relation to the National Curriculum level of attainment, and records the children’s grades. We use these grades as a basis for assessing the progress of the child, and we pass this information on to the next teacher at the end of the year.