At Valence, our History curriculum inspires curiosity about Britain’s past and the wider world. Children learn about key decisions in our history that have shaped how our country is governed. Our curriculum fosters the ability to think critically and communicate ideas confidently.
Intent
At Valence, our History curriculum inspires curiosity about Britain’s past and the wider world. Children learn about key decisions in our history that have shaped how our country is governed. Our curriculum fosters the ability to think critically and communicate ideas confidently.
We provide opportunities to discuss and evaluate the past, allowing children to formulate their own questions and lines of enquiry. As an ethnically diverse school, we ensure that our curriculum is inclusive and representative of our pupils. Our curriculum covers a wide range of periods, cultures and significant people in history, including people of colour.
We offer a historical curriculum that is accessible to all Valence children through high-quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet the individual needs of children, covering all the skills outlined in the National Curriculum through broad, challenging and inspiring topics of study. By the end of Year 6, children have the cultural capital to be successful in History in their Secondary school.
Implementation
- Early Years Foundation Stage framework. 'Understanding the World' involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.
- In KS1 and KS2, we follow a topic-led approach to our curriculum. We have topics throughout the year being driven by History or Geography.
- High-quality personalised teaching that is appropriately differentiated to meet individual needs.
- High-quality informational texts are available for children to access in the classroom and library.
- We use knowledge, skills and vocabulary progression grids to ensure an age-appropriate, breadth and depth of curriculum coverage.
- Where appropriate we use historical artefacts, visitors, workshops and visits to excite our children and provide a variety of approaches to enable them to find out.
- We use knowledge organisers for each unit of study.
- Our Subject Leaders are given regular time to ensure resources are kept up to date, monitor subjects across the school and create action plans.
- Our curriculum is chronologically sequenced to help pupils understand the concept of societal changes over time.
- Children complete an end-of-unit quiz for assessment of key knowledge.
