History

At Bywell Junior School we recognise the value a high-quality History curriculum can offer to our pupils. It should aim to inspire a curiosity and fascination about Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Through a rich and diverse breadth of study across the year groups, pupils will become equipped to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh up and debate the validity of evidence, study sources and develop judgements.

As well as developing a strong sense of chronology, through visual timelines in our classrooms, our History curriculum aims to improve decision making, enhance a sense of right and wrong and what is fair as well as allowing children to identify or show compassion to cultures and civilisations from the past. Our History curriculum aims to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum, which encompasses both the British Values and Bywell’s own Core Values throughout. We ensure progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills and an understanding of primary and secondary sources.

We want children to enjoy learning about History by teaching engaging, thought-provoking lessons, immersive activities, drama and use of artefacts. However, opportunities will also be provided, where possible, to bring in additional visitors in to school, have History themed days and provide meaningful educational visits all designed to stimulate the children’s curiosity about the past and how that past influences the present and shapes the future.

• Teachers are confident that all the National Curriculum objectives are being taught and there is clear progression throughout each year group.
• Medium term planning is reviewed to ensure that knowledge based catch-up lessons are planned for and learning opportunities executed regularly.
• Some History units are now taught by Mrs Brown during PPA slots. Other topics are still taught by class teachers. All History topics are taught in chronological order throughout the year.
• Key questions are included to challenge understanding. Evidence and sources are analysed to provoke historical thinking.
• Children will retain what they have learned throughout lessons and during different parts of the academic year. Quizzes will further capture learning to ensure children retain what they have learned
• All staff are confident with the processes in place to engage pupils in learning History at Bywell.
• History is displayed across school in displays with a progressive timeline visible in every class.
• Learning walls are used in classrooms to display key vocabulary. These are referred to in lessons to support learning. Photographs of these displays are kept as evidence.

• Memory quizzes are regular and consistent throughout school. Children can see impact of regular quizzes and how their scores are improving. During topics, scores for all but a handful of children improve from the start to the end of a topic. This is sometimes highlighted in red. LA quizzes have been amended slightly to ensure a better selection of multiple choice answers.
• Working walls are developed and are becoming increasingly more detailed with specific content. This is evidenced in large scrap books for each year group.
• Book scrutiny conducted in June. There was a good variety of activities present in all books with some differentiation evident in LA books. There was some good discussion and role play opportunities to deeper understanding with a variety of good questioning to develop historical thinking. There was evidence of writing opportunities built in to the planning (especially further up school).
• Learning objectives are written as questions and are being followed in each year group for each topic.
• Pupil Voice carried out at the beginning of July. Children as a whole continue to enjoy the History Units. Year 4 talk very favourably and have retained a lot of knowledge about World War 2. Year 5 enjoy the Crime and Punishment topic, especially the ‘Time travelling’ aspect.
• Work books continue to be neatly presented across all year groups.
• Corridor and classroom displays are being maintained at a high standard, with key vocabulary, informative posters and samples of children’s work. These are used as evidence in scrap books.

• Curriculum overview has been adapted to allow some units of History to be taught by PPA teacher. This frees time for other units to have more coverage. As a result, lessons have been updated and adapted to provide more effective in-depth coverage of units of work, with some emphasis given to more creativeness in some of the lessons.
• A book look was carried out which showed initial units of Autumn work are coming to completion. Generally work was well-presented, followed the key objects in the planning and showed a variety of activities and progression of certain skills through the year groups.
• Recording pre and post unit memory quizzes is ongoing.
• A pupil voice was conducted with children very enthusiastic about History in school. Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Mayans were particular favourites amongst the sample of children I spoke to. A few new topics were suggested which is something which could be explored. Children were positive about having timeline lessons at the beginning of each topic. When asked what activities they liked the most, children said making collages, death masks and school trips which have linked to a unit.

• Recording of Pre- and post- unit memory quizzes is improving allowing for a quantitative method of measuring progress for individual pupils. Children can have a choice of answers at the top and write which word goes with which definition. This eliminates the potential for children getting the quizzes wrong simply because this misunderstood how the quiz works, rather than a lack of subject knowledge.
• Children are engaged with History as shown in a quick book look carried out. Children are talking positively about History and demonstrating work in Class assemblies and some school trips have a History theme to them.
• A new History unit has been planned for Year 4. This was based on the pupil voice carried out earlier in the year. The children asked why we study World War 2 but not World War 1. I felt this was a really good question and definitely something that could be included in our curriculum to give the children greater understanding and context to the 2^nd World War whilst teaching them new things about the 1^st World War. The new topic covers key events and concepts across both wars with some comparison between the two. One or two lessons from the World War 2 topic have remained but many have changed. This has been launched this half term for the first time. It is important that children have a say in their History learning.
• Work has started on ‘Black History Week’. This was again a really good idea which came out of the pupil voice. Children asked why we don’t look at Historical contributions of black people. Black History Month is in October and we are going to have ‘Black History Week’ to acknowledge this. I have outlined 12 black people from history who have made a significant contribution or been highly influential. Each class will be given one person to teach their class about for that whole week. There will then be a coming together at the end of the week for all classes to showcase work about their person. This will work in a similar way to ‘Interfaith Week’ which we do to celebrate different religions in each class for a week. This will give the children some cultural references from History and extra exposure to History other than their three units each year.