History

Statement of Intent - History

At Clifton Hampden Primary School we aim to foster pupils’ curiosity about the past as they learn about the lives of people and communities in the past, both in Britain and the wider world. We want children to understand how history, relationships, cultures, religions and diverse societies from the past have shaped the present. We aim to develop historical skills such as asking perceptive questions, analysing evidence from primary and secondary sources, thinking critically and creating arguments for and against and debating ideas. Our curriculum delivery is designed to promote a sense of chronology so that children develop a sense of history and when key events took place.

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.