Intent

History means to understand events from the past. We aim to ensure that History at Drybrook provides our students with the skills to develop a deep and descriptive knowledge of history through the ages from the 1600s through to the present day.

Our History curriculum at Drybrook Primary aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills to understand and explore historical cultures. Our area is socially mixed, however it is not as culturally and ethnically diverse as some areas of the country. Therefore, it is our aim to equip our students with knowledge of contrasting cultures, societies and significant individuals from the past.

 Through our sequences of learning experiences, students will begin to understand ideas, beliefs, attitudes and experiences of people from the past, ask and answer questions to develop writing and oracy, as well as develop a clear understanding of chronology of key events and the changes that took place over time.

In their lessons, students will view the past objectively and go beyond their everyday experience in the Forest of Dean. This will provide them with an understanding of their place in the world and how past events have led us to how we are today.

We aim to provide our children with a rich understanding of past traditions and how these have shaped the identities of diverse people, groups and nations. We aim to challenge pupils to identify similarities and differences in human experiences across time and place.

Implementation

We implement a curriculum that is progressive in skills throughout the whole school. History is taught on a fortnightly basis as part of a half-termly or termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum.  All learning starts by revisiting prior knowledge both from lesson to lesson but also across the wider curriculum thinking about where things fit in history both chronologically and societally. This is scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. Staff model explicitly the subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow them to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts.