History

At Rivers Primary Academy, we are historians!

We want our pupils to love history and we inspire them to aspire to be archaeologists, museum curators, research analysts, archivists or palaeontologists. We want our pupils to remember their history learning and embrace the historical opportunities they are presented with. Through the planning and delivery of our curriculum, we aim to challenge and stimulate their intellect, enabling them to achieve high academic standards.

Intent

Our curriculum develops pupils' aspirations so that they strive to be the best that they can be. We carefully plan the subject knowledge, skills and vocabulary, coupled with specific Aspire character virtues and learner skills, so that our pupils have the tools to be successful in learning and in life. Our history curriculum promotes curiosity and a love and thirst for learning. We aim for children to develop an understanding and interpretation of local, national and global history. It is important that our children develop a sense of time and understanding of history in its chronological setting as well as to develop an awareness that the past shapes the present and future. 

Implementation

Our history curriculum has been carefully built and the learning opportunities and assessment milestones for each year group crafted to ensure progression and repetition in terms of embedding key learning. The progression of knowledge and understanding in history is carefully planned for and is clearly evident. Children are encouraged to lead their own learning, asking and answering their own questions about the world around them. Key knowledge is identified for each unit and is explicitly taught through carefully well-sequenced lessons. Effective assessment strategies are used to inform the planning and teaching of history. Teachers introduce children to a range of age-appropriate history terminology, and they use this confidently. 

Impact

We aim for all of our children to leave Rivers Primary equipped with the history skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at KS3 and for life as an adult in the wider world. Each history lesson starts with a retrieval low-stakes quiz, formed of a question from the previous lesson, previous unit and previous year. These are used to inform the teacher about the impact of the current learning and demonstrate pupils’ retention of previous knowledge. Assessment of the children’s work and their acquisition of knowledge is continual throughout the unit and can be taken in multiple forms such as written work and engagement with disciplinary content. At the end of the unit, children complete a post-learning assessment which is made up of some multiple choice retrieval questions and some longer written response questions to allow children to demonstrate their understanding. Reviews in history include reviewing pupils’ work, learning walks and pupil and staff voice. All of this information is gathered and reviewed. It is used to inform further curriculum developments and provision is adapted accordingly.

At Rivers Primary Academy, we Inspire to Aspire.