At Emsworth Primary School it is our intent to deliver a high-quality history education that will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. We equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift 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.
The implementation of our curriculum is through an enquiry based approach and at Emsworth Primary School we employ the Hampshire ‘Six Step’ model in our enquiry led history curriculum. Teachers ensure that children are engaged in history though challenging enquiries that require the children to develop the use of their thinking skills to extend their own knowledge and understanding. Their ability to investigate, consider, reflect and review events of the past will enable them to develop a detailed understanding. The children are encouraged to use their understanding of change and continuity, similarity and difference, cause and effect, chronology and significance to interpret events and developments. They will ask and answer challenging historical questions that make links between events, developments, people and periods in the past.
Six Step Enquiry
Step 1: Teacher motivates pupils to want to learn and scopes the enquiry:
Hooking them in, whetting the appetite This can be done through:
Setting the puzzle, making it real, exciting, a problem that needs sorting/laying down a challenge…
Scoping the enquiry Slow reveal ïUnder the cloth Predict the story from the cover
Left luggage mystery
Step 2: Children collect information in interesting and varied ways:
Picture or text sources Artefacts Interviews Visits
Timeline stories Information run Treasure hunt Gallery
Step 3: Children make sense of ideas and process the information by:
Filling in grids, Sequencing cards or pictures Sorting, grouping, rejecting/retaining
Venn diagrams Big point little point Spectrums
Step 4: Children draw their own conclusions, making their own meaning:
They advance reasons, perhaps linking and prioritising them They begin to recognise what is
significant They shape their ideas and demonstrate understanding, perhaps through:
Role play History Mystery Living graph Post-it challenge
Step 5: Their understanding is checked, developed or refined by:
Introducing new ideas, materials, perspectives Curve ball Hall of Fame
Across the Ages
Step 6: Pupils create their final, imaginative product:
Pupils demonstrate their understanding in imaginative ways ïStamp collection
Pop-up museum Commemorative plaque
The impact of learning history at Emsworth Primary School is that through history lessons, we challenge, motivate and involve all learners. Teachers encourage children to develop a growth mindset, accepting that they may not have all the answers but determinedly strive to draw their own conclusions.
Curriculum Map
|
Autumn Term |
Spring term |
Summer Term |
Year 1 |
Changes in Living Memory: Toys |
Queens |
Significant event beyond living memory: The Great Fire of London |
Year 2 |
Significant Individual: Neil Armstrong |
Significant historical event: Titanic |
People or places from the school's locality: Castles
|
Year 3 |
Changes in Britain from Stone and to Iron Age |
Roman Empire and the impact on Britain |
|
Year 4 |
Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots |
The Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England |
Local Study: Changes in Portsmouth |
Year 5 |
Achievements of the earliest civilizations: Egypt |
Changes in an aspect of social history: Crime and Punishment. |
|
Year 6 |
Ancient Greece |
Non- European society: The Maya |