Mission Statement:

Through the Holy Redeemer, we seek to grow in faith and love, to become great people who make a difference in our world.

Our aim:

The aim of history teaching is to inspire the children’s interest and understanding about what people’s lives were like in the past including pre-historic and ancient times. A rich history curriculum should be motivational and delivered passionately, whilst teaching skills of: perceptive questioning, critical thinking, weighing the evidence, sifting through different arguments, and developing perspective and judgement. British history aims to shape the children’s identity and cultural understanding of themselves in order to compare this to other cultures and their history such as Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece. They will learn how relationships formed, how empires expanded and dissolved as well as whole civilizations vanishing. All of this is underpinned by our whole school focus on Building Learning Power and on developing higher order thinking, with a particular focus on spoken language and vocabulary and on resilience and risk-taking; identified as key needs within our school context.

Intent

Through a historical narrative, children can understand who they are and where they come from, whilst comparing this to other cultures and therefore they are more than likely be able to embrace a modern, multicultural Britain. Based on historical past events domestically and globally, e.g. war and invasion leading to democracy, they can consider what impact this had on people and better inform their choices today.
In Key Stage 1, children will learn about ‘The Great Fire of London 1666,’ which shows how this event changed lives as well as the housing industry forever. Furthermore, they will learn about significant historical people from Christopher Columbus to Florence Nightingale.
In Key Stage 2, Year 3 children will learn about their British origins in the Stone Age through to what the Romans and in Year 4 they explore what the Vikings did for us. In Year 5 children are immersed in worlds of Ancient Greece and Egypt, extending this in Year 6 through their study of the Classic Maya period, before returning to the modern era in their study of the Victorian era and World War II.
Throughout our History Curriculum, four themes are addressed and revisited (Civilisation, Culture and Beliefs, Lives of Children, and Society). This allows children to build a complex schema of historical understanding in these key areas, where their learning each year builds on that of previous years.
We also teach them to investigate these past events and, by so doing, to develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem-solving. Disciplinary thinking is developed through disciplinary concepts of: cause, consequence, change & continuity, similarity & difference, historical significance, sources and evidence, and historical interpretations.
The aims of history in our school are to:
• Children develop an interest in the past and to develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer;
• Enable children to know about significant events in British history and to appreciate how things have changed over time;
• Develop a sense of chronology;
• Use historical vocabulary and develop comprehension;
• Know and understand how the British system of democratic government has developed and, in so doing, to contribute to a child’s citizenship education;
• Understand how Britain connects to the wider world as well as offering a chance to study some aspects of European and Global history;
• Have some knowledge and understanding of historical development in the wider world;
• Help children understand society and their place within it, so that they develop a sense of their cultural heritage;
• Develop children’s disciplinary knowledge of how to: 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.

Implementation

History Planning
Our History Curriculum is rooted in the National Curriculum programmes of study relevant to the subject and is informed by good practice from the Ofsted Subject Review (July, 2021) and resources and guidance provided by the Historical Association.
In our long term planning, we take the objectives for each Key Stage and plan a series sequential lessons that focus primarily on our four School History Themes. These lesson objectives are the Golden Nugget objectives that must be taught, in order for the children's substantive knowledge to build progressively across the school. Other areas of History may also be taught, depending on time. Where possible, and effective, cross curricular links are made. Historical educational visits, school-based workshops and other enrichment activities, play an important role in deepening children's understanding through incidental learning.
Holy Redeemer, is extremely keen to accommodate local history studies as part of the National Curriculum coverage. In the local area we have links to medieval history as well as modern history. Teachers consider use of local topics: e.g. the Almonry museum to study ‘The Battle of Evesham’, ‘The Commandery’ to study Oliver Cromwell or ‘Croome Court’ to study World War II, through RAF Defford. There is even a British King buried in Worcester Cathedral.
Our medium term plans give details of each unit of work for each term, including Golden Nugget objectives, additional objectives, enrichment opportunities and vocabualary.
History Teaching
Each class teacher creates their own plan for each lesson, as part of the sequence of learning identified for the topic.
History teaching MUST focus on teaching explicit history substantive and disciplinary knowledge, as well as being used in a cross curricular way to deliver English or other subject objectives.
History teaching focuses on permitting children to think as historians. The examination of historical artefacts and primary sources should be used, where possible. Where this is not possible, photographs and films are used. In each Key Stage we give children the opportunity to visit sites of historical significance.
Visitors are welcomed into school to talk about their own experiences of events in the past. Where generations are being lost to time, films of interviews are used. 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 and through which children deepen their understanding of the period in which the story is set, via incidental learning.
We focus on helping children understand that historical events can be interpreted in different ways and that they should always ask searching questions, such as ‘what evidence supports this theory?’ about information they are given as there may be alternative explanations to events as technology develops.
We recognise the fact that in all classes there are children of widely-different abilities in history and we seek to provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child.

Impact

Children’s work in history is assessed by making informal judgements during lessons, the work in their books and their participation in visits to educational settings.
Once the children complete a piece of work, teachers assess understanding and progress, and use this information to plan for future learning.
The Senior Leadership Team and History Co-ordinator are responsible for monitoring the standard of the children’s work and the quality of teaching in history. They are also responsible for supporting colleagues in the teaching of history, for being informed about current developments in the subject, and for providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school, and reporting to Governors.
Monitoring of the subject is done via looking at children’s work, talking to pupils and use of teacher assessment information. Current monitoring shows that children enjoy their History lessons and that over time they know more and can do more in History.

‘We cannot teach people anything,
we can only help them discover it within themselves’
Galileo Galilei