History

Intent

At Dilton Marsh C of E Primary School we believe that high quality History education provides the foundations for understanding the world around us. Through our History curriculum at Dilton Marsh we aim to engage children and young people in investigating questions about people and events in the past, which helps them to better understand their own lives today, the contested nature of knowledge and prepares them for the future as more informed citizens

Our school vision is:

Together, we strive to provide a safe, nurturing and challenging environment within our Christian ethos of kindness and respect.
We share a passion for life-long learning and strive for the best for ourselves, others and the World.
Children are encouraged to become independent, curious and resilient learners with the ability to learn from their mistakes and accept challenges.

“For Nothing is Impossible with God.”
Luke 1 : 37

Through our school vision, we strive to have children who ‘have a passion for life-long learning’ and ‘curiosity’ to question the world around them. We want our children to challenge their thinking and know that possibilities are endless.

History learning and teaching at Dilton Marsh follows an enquiry-based approach teaching essential subject knowledge whilst emphasising the importance of allowing enough time and opportunity for pupils to master key subject skills and challenging outcomes through investigating focussed content at greater depth. 

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.

Planning for history is a process in which all teachers are involved to ensure that the school gives full coverage of, ‘The National Curriculum programme of study for History 2014’ and, ‘Understanding of the World: ‘People and communities’ and ‘The World’ in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Humanities (History and Geography) are taught over alternate terms throughout the year to ensure sufficient time to delve deeper into a Key Question for the term. Working as Historians, children answer Ancillary Questions to enable them to answer the Key Question using a range of high quality resources.

Our History curriculum places emphasis on the progression of critical thinking skills and oracy with pupils increasing their ability to confidently and appropriately use subject vocabulary, historical terms and language balanced with developing increasing levels of knowledge and understanding of subject content, concepts and chronology. We aim to offer every child the opportunity to experience history first-hand through a range of visitors, trips and local experiences. Therefore, the curriculum is tailored and individually planned so that it can be effectively taught using the infrastructure we have in place and so it can meet the needs of all our pupils. We aim to stretch and challenge the most able and develop the independence and confidence for the less able learners to all meet their full potential and beyond.

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure children not only acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge linked to the history curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives.

All children will have:

• A wider variety of skills linked to historical knowledge and understanding,
• A richer vocabulary which will enable to articulate their understanding of taught concepts.
• High aspirations, which will see them through to further study, work and a successful adult life.
• A curiosity for the world around them which will enable them to be inquisitive and question new concepts which come their way.