Learning & Curriculum
History
The History curriculum at Masefield is designed to create a bridge between today’s world and the myriad fascinating worlds of the past, which automatically provokes questions from pupils. Tempered and channelled correctly, its study can turn this naturally occurring curiosity into the development of tools every pupil needs in order to be able to express their thoughts and positively engage with the world around them.
At Masefield, History is taught as a discrete subject in order that the development of knowledge and skills is taught meaningfully and explicitly. Naturally, links are made to other areas of the curriculum but this does not dilute the quality and entitlement of high quality History teaching.
The school’s long term plan for History sets out the content of teaching within in each year group. This is supported by the school’s History progression document which demonstrates learning outcomes within each strand of development within a History unit. Short term planning details how this content is developed over a series of lessons within the unit of work. The organisation of the History curriculum provides structured opportunities for pupils to:
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gain a coherent, chronological knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world
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develop a deep understanding of history, by connecting new knowledge with existing knowledge
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contribute to a connected network of ideas and knowledge across the curriculum
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develop and appreciate the cultural capital that they need to succeed in life
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engender an appreciation of human achievement and an understanding of its development
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be introduced to the language and vocabulary of History
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be introduced to key historical skills such as oracy and argument
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make reasoned arguments about historical influences on current development and sustainability issues
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explore how the actions of people in the past have led to some of the global problems we face today
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understand the impact their choices can have on the future
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develop knowledge of other societies, cultures and beliefs
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understand the impact values and beliefs have on the decisions and actions of individuals, organisations and governments, made today
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understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups
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explore their own identity, values and beliefs
Our Award Winning History Provision
In Progress
The History Quality Mark is awarded to schools that demonstrate a relentless passion to ensure effective learning and achievement through inspiring teaching that engages all pupils consistently across the school. The Gold status recognises how our personalised History curriculum reflects the diversity of our school whilst carefully meeting the needs of all our children. To enrich the pupil’s experiences, History at Masefield does not stop in the classroom as a systemic and coherent range of historical experiences is available to all pupils across the different years of the school.
History Curriculum
At Masefield Primary School, History is a subject that our children are passionate and inquisitive about. Our ambition for a high-quality, tailored history curriculum ensures our children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of the history of the wider world, as well as Britain’s past and how that has impacted the life we live today. This allows our children to develop knowledge about how historians investigate the past, knowledge about the past and an understanding of chronology.
Throughout their learning journey here at Masefield, children have the opportunity to explore the history of their local area which creates a sense of community and belonging. This case study also allows children to develop a cultural understanding and are respectful of where they grew up. We aim to provide our pupils with experiences and opportunities to make sense of an ever-changing world.
Experiences beyond the school – bringing History to life for our children
In order to promote the love of history for our children, we offer fantastic out of classroom experiences so the children have the chance to witness history ‘in real life’. These include trips and workshops within each year group where the past is brought to the classroom or external visits where they make history come alive. Some of the trip and workshops we do at Masefield are: Victorian Workshop in Year 2, Samuel Crompton trip to Hall I’ Th’ Wood in Year 3, Romans trip to Chester in Year 4 and trip to Jorvik in Year 6.
High Quality Resources – making learning meaningful
When carrying out pupil voice within our school, pupils have stated that our history lessons are engaging and inspiring. This enthusiasm is encouraged to be taken home where children take part in different home learning activities involving their families and further developing their historical skills and knowledge.
Our history curriculum that has been thoroughly written, equips our children with the ability to ask insightful and historical questions, to think critically about an issue and continually develop their skill of using a range of sources of evidence to support their knowledge. History helps pupils to have compassion for different people’s lives, accept why something has changed over time and learn to compare their lives to people of different times.
Through our history lessons being taught explicitly, our children will understand why it’s important to not repeat the mistakes of the past but also why our past is important as it has shaped our lives today.
High quality resources and texts underpinning our History curriculum
At Masefield, we use every opportunity to encourage and support learning; this includes our environment through school. Our history displays show some of the wonderful learning taking place, key vocabulary linked to the individual topic, questions to encourage the children to think historically and we also have a detailed timeline displayed in our playground.
To support the teaching that takes place within our school, each topic has a labelled box of wonderful resources to engage pupils and support interest within their curriculum. We also receive project loan boxes from Bolton Museum which include a variety of different artefacts to bring learning to life.
History is also promoted throughout our English lessons which means knowledge and vocabulary is consistently being revisited throughout the curriculum. We use high quality texts to inspire our children to create wonderful pieces of writing, encourage the love of reading and embed their computing skills further.