History at Eastway
History Intent
At Eastway, we aim for our history curriculum to be:
- Well Designed and Delivered, fulfilling the requirements of the National Curriculum. We lay the foundations needed for successful learning through the robust delivery of our Easter Matters Early Years Curriculum which is tailored to pupil's needs
- Knowledge-Rich so that children build deep historical knowledge that they return to and build upon as they move through school
- Closing the Gap: we carefully check children have the prior learning they need to be successful in a lesson and take action to support them fill any gaps they may have. We also check how well they are acquiring new knowledge in the lesson to adapt the lesson to their needs and provide additional support or challenge for children who need so that all children achieve our ambitious learning focus.
- Develops the skills of working as a historian such as questioning the bias in a source of evidence
- Bring Learning to Life as children have real-life experiences of history in their locality, reflecting the history that has been part of Wirral's story. This includes a focus on the the Vikings, Port Sunlight, New Brighton as a holiday resort at the turn of the century and the role Liverpool played in the Transatlantic Slave Trade
- Develop children as active, independent learners who are Ready, Respectful, Responsible
- Love learning about history!
History Implementation at Eastway
To achieve these aims, we have carefully mapped out exactly what children learn in each year group, the summary of this is shown below:
More importantly, we have mapped out exactly what knowledge will be covered in each year group so that children can recall what they have already learned and build upon it. This helps your child change their long term memory of key ideas in geography as ideas are regularly returned to and deepened.
Our progression of knowledge maps children's learning all the way from EYFS to KS3 so that we can be confident we are preparing your child well for the knowledge they will need when they go to secondary school.
It is also important that your child develops their historical vocabulary and ability to work like a historian. We have also mapped these out so your child makes progress in these areas each year too.
Your child's class teacher then plans their history unit, carefully checking that your child has retained what they have learned previously and then builds upon this knowledge with new learning.
We will send a copy of this knowledge overview home and will also upload it to your child's class webpage so that you know what they are learning in school each half term.
Teachers use resources from the Plan Bee scheme of work which provides quality resources for your child
In our history lessons at Eastway:
- Each lesson should take the form of answering a question to focus on the importance of using historical skills in their line of enquiry.
- The sub questions, which should make up one lesson, should be used to solve an overarching question set at the beginning of each half term.
- Children should be explicitly taught the necessary history skill involved in each lesson
- Lessons to be recorded in the children’s topic books which can be shown in a range of forms
- History lessons explicitly named on the daily whiteboard timetable
- Feedback within lessons
- Focus on developing pupils’ secure understanding of chronology as well as improving their thinking and knowledge in history.
- The opportunities to make comparisons and discuss their findings.
- Historical vocabulary taught and used accurately –modelled by staff members- to make pertinent and valid statements (Key words displayed on Working walls).
- Reflection time to evaluate the significance or reliability of evidence and sources.
- Developing skills of hypothesising, questioning and investigating.
- Opportunities to solve the questions that children have set themselves.
- Draw conclusions and communicate their findings.
- Teacher to be moving around the classroom targeting questions to move every child’s learning forward- ensuring a level of challenge and progression for all.
- Adults giving feedback as children work and children responding in green pen. Marking work after the lesson should be avoided.
History Impact
To check your child has learned what we have intended them to, we set short tasks within lessons to see how much your child has understood and adapt our lessons from their to meet their needs. We use knowledge checkers with key facts for each lesson to help focus children's minds on the important parts of the lesson and to assess whether they have understood these.
To get a picture of what your child is retaining over time, we use the prior learning checks at the beginning of each lesson, complete quizzes at the end of each week, look at the work they have completed in their books and complete end of unit impact summaries. These reviews of learning are completed by their class teacher, our history lead and our SLT
We will let you know how your child is getting on in history in their end of year report and will give you opportunities to see their work in books throughout the year. If you would like any further information, please contact your child's class teacher or contact the school office.
