History
Intent
Our overall intention is to nurture and develop our six qualities of learning which enable all children to shine…for life! We nurture and encourage creative, kind and resilient learners who are reflective, inquisitive and determined in all they do. Our intention is for learners at St Levan to know more and remember more in History by learning about chronology, evidence and the impact of events in history.
To think like historians, learners at St Levan focus on our three subject specific characteristics which are:
Chronology
- I understand chronology
Evidence
- I look at evidence to answer important questions
Impact
- I understand the impact events can have
These three characteristics are woven throughout our History curriculum and are built upon as children progress through the school. This ensures that children acquire the skills and knowledge they need to succeed, expressed in concepts and language with which they have already become familiar.
We interconnect learning opportunities with an enriched environment to promote a love of learning and the outdoors.
History at St Levan is taught through termly topics which make full use of our history-rich local area. Pupils learn from real experiences with visits to historical sites and museums as well from visiting performers who help to bring the subject ‘alive’.
We ensure children are supported within a kind and caring community which enables them to progress and flourish.
Implementation
We provide an engaging, characterful and balanced curriculum for all.
Our inclusive curriculum is carefully planned to allow for progress for all pupils in our two mixed age classes. We recognise the challenges of teaching a progression within a subject to a mixed age class and, having undertaken our own research and consulted subject specialists and organisations, developed our own pedagogy and created what we believe is the best fit for our setting. With a commitment to the removal of barriers to learning and participation, we offer high quality teaching and appropriate differentiation to meet the needs of all. Using our rolling programme (see our Curriculum Offer page), we teach History through termly topics and focus on chronological understanding, historical enquiry, knowledge and interpretation.
Topics are carefully sequenced to allow pupils to make connections between times in history.
Please find below our History Curriculum Progression documents as well as how we adapt our History curriculum to meet the needs of all pupils:
Assessment
At St Levan, we use assessment in three different ways across all subjects.
Assessment for learning (AfL)
This assessment is formative, ongoing and informs classroom practice and future planning. Through careful observation, listening and questioning, teachers glean what learners know and can do and plan next steps accordingly. For example, in History, a child at the beginning of KS2 may look at a piece of evidence and state what they think it shows, a next step could be for children to consult other pieces of evidence to see if the sources agree.
Assessment as learning (AaL)
This assessment is about how pupils self-regulate their own learning and develop metacognitive skills. Through structured peer and self-assessment activities, pupils understand their own needs as a learner and reflect on their own next steps. By taking ownership of their own learning, this can help pupils to know more and remember more. For example, in History, pupils may self-assess against their WALTs and WILFs and highlight what they can do.
Assessment of learning (AoL)
This assessment is summative, at the end of a topic and usually involves an elicitation activity based on the historical concepts covered. The concepts the assessments will address are sequenced alongside the topic progression to ensure areas are given equal assessment weighting. Teachers may use a picture, object, text, question, map etc. and use questioning to draw out the pupils’ responses in order to gauge their understanding of what has been taught. An example of this, is KS2 pupils studying a picture and considering how they know it was painted during WWII, using subject specific vocabulary, and chronological understanding to help them explain.
Our history Curriculum is planned to enable progression and build on and embed current skills working towards the expected National Curriculum outcomes. Our termly assessments in history enable us to identify gaps and trends in the curriculum and pupil attainment. We also measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: pupil discussions and interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice), governor monitoring and photo and video evidence of the pupils' practical learning.
These conversations with and children, scrutiny feedback, observations, discussions with colleagues and evidence of the children’s work collected continuously throughout the year enable the subject lead to document and support the progression of the children and the subject across the school.