Wimborne First School & Nursery

History

History Intent Statement:

“History does not give us a program for the future, but it can give us a fuller understanding of ourselves, and of our common humanity, so that we can better face the future.”

– Robert Penn Warren

Intent:

At Wimborne First School and Nursery, we have designed our Geography curriculum with the intent that it will inspire the children in our school to become inquisitive, curious and questioning learners. We want our children to gain a deep understanding of how the past has impacted our lives today and how it has shaped society as a whole. We aim to cultivate and grow our children’s knowledge of the lives of people who lived in the past.

Our curriculum will reinforce the key learning behaviours of our Wimborne Learning Rangers and will inspire the children to study patterns, make comparisons and most crucially, ask and answer their own questions about a variety of concepts, people and events of the past. Our curriculum will teach the children key skills that are transferable across many subjects of the curriculum and aim to ensure that these will continue with them throughout their academic lives. This will happen through the delivery of thought-provoking lessons that ignite the children’s curiosity and a range of opportunities to visit places of historical significance in our local area to develop their understanding and passion for the subject.

Implementation:

History across the school in is taught in ‘unit’ blocks throughout the year. This is to enable the children to achieve depth in their learning and build a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of overarching processes as well as key concepts. All learning will begin with a ‘flashback’ to establish prior knowledge. This will provide opportunities for the children to improve their recall and continue to build connections in their learning. Teachers understand that this is key to ensure children build the vital concept of a mental timeline.

The progression of the curriculum ensures that children gain both substantive and disciplinary knowledge and that there is a progression of skills that build clearly through each year group. We have identified ‘key concepts’ that draw on links with other subjects across the curriculum to help children make links between content. Throughout each unit teachers will model key vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning and extra opportunities are given to scaffold the learners during pre-teach and catch-up sessions that take place weekly across the school. This will enable the children to make links and connect these ideas to the larger concepts in a wider sense.