“History is who we are and why we are the way we are.”
David McCullough, American historian
“History gives answers only to those who know how to ask questions.”
Hajo Holborn, German-American historian
History Leads in school – Miss E McCabe and Mrs G Hockings
Curriculum Intent
Toner Avenue’s Curriculum is designed to provide a broad and balanced experience to all children, accessible to all, which widens their lived experiences, enhances their feeling of self-worth and power and promotes a life-long curiosity and love of learning. We want to motivate and support pupils to take responsibility and ownership of their learning, making links and considering their role within the wider world. In Early Years, we encourage and support children to experience the world around them and their own lived experiences. Throughout Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, we aim to link topics of knowledge, build upon and develop existing skills through coherent planning and sequencing of lessons, and support pupils in using these skills and knowledge to make a positive difference to the world around them. We want to enable our pupils to live as responsible, aspirational young people who see themselves as ‘able to’ make a difference.
Curriculum Implementation
Toner Avenue’s History Curriculum is designed to provide children with an understanding of the world before them and the world around them. This is done through a range of topics aligned with the National Curriculum. In Foundation Stage, this is achieved through children discussing events from their own lives and their own history, as well as the lives of parents and grandparents. In Key Stage 1, this is done through study of key individuals or events which have shaped the past. In Key Stage 2, a broadly chronological approach is used to ensure children have an understanding of the concepts of chronology and concurrence, and can apply these to their understanding of different historical periods and events. Substantive concepts are introduced through our four Key Concepts – Community and Culture, Conflict and Disaster, Exploration and Invention, and Hierarchy and Power. Children should be introduced to these concepts and use them to make links between things they have studied. Disciplinary concepts are used as drivers for curriculum design.
Curriculum Impact
At Toner Avenue our principal aim is to develop pupil’s knowledge, skills and understanding in history and we use a variety of teaching and learning styles to achieve this. We believe in whole-class teaching methods and combine these with enquiry-based research activities.
We aim for the pupils to be able to:
- know and understand the history of Britain and her islands
- 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
- understand the methods of historical enquiry
- 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.
Remember, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
