History

Here at Corby Glen our aim when teaching history is to stimulate our children’s curiosity in order for them to develop their knowledge and understanding.  Through the history curriculum, our children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of the past in Britain and the wider world.  We inspire children’s interest to learn more about how and why our local community, country, culture and the wider world have developed over time. History enables all children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. What they learn through history can influence their decisions about personal choices, attitudes and values. We teach our pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, consider arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time. 

We aim to ensure that all our children:

• know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
• 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
• gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

How is history taught at Corby Glen?

In KS1 children will be taught:

• to develop an awareness of the past, using common words and phrases relating to the passing of time. 
• to know where the people and events they study fit within a chronological framework and identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods. 
• to use a wide vocabulary of everyday historical terms. 
• ask and answer questions, choosing and using parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of events.
• to understand some of the ways in which we find out about the past and identify different ways in which it is represented.
• changes within living memory. Where appropriate, these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life
• events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally for example, the Great Fire of London, the first aeroplane flight or events commemorated through festivals or anniversaries
• the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods for example, Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria, Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong, William Caxton and Tim Berners-Lee, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and LS Lowry, Rosa Parks and Emily Davison, Mary Seacole and/or Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell
•  significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

In KS2 our children will be taught:

• to develop a chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, establishing clear narratives within and across the periods they study.
• to note connections, contrasts and trends over time and develop the appropriate use of historical terms.
• to  regularly address and sometimes devise historically valid questions about change, cause, similarity and difference, and significance.
• to construct informed responses that involve thoughtful selection and organisation of relevant historical information.
• to understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources. 
• changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
• the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain
• Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots
• the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor
• a local history study
• a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066
• the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer; The Indus Valley; Ancient Egypt; The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
• Ancient Greece – a study of Greek life and achievements and their influence on the western world
• a non-European society that provides contrasts with British history – one study chosen from: early Islamic civilization, including a study of Baghdad c. AD 900; Mayan civilization c. AD 900; Benin (West Africa) c. AD 900-1300.

What should my child be achieving in history?

In Reception your child will be working towards the following Early Learning Goal:

People and Communities: Children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members. They know that other children don’t always enjoy the same things, and are sensitive to this. They know about similarities and differences between themselves and others, and among families, communities and traditions.

The documents below show what we aim for your child to achieve in history at the end of each year group from Y1 - Y6.