History

The Intent, Implementation and Impact of our Curriculum

Intent

Children at St Nicholas are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of British History and how changes made over time have impacted our lives today. As the community of St Nicholas is a very diverse one, we feel it is essential that the children’s own home background and experiences play an important part in their learning of History. We feel it is essential that children have a good, solid understanding of the History of the area in which they reside as this will hopefully instil a love of learning History and will encourage them to find out about their own backgrounds.

St Nicholas Catholic Academy holds a very favourable location in the centre of Liverpool. In History, we aim to utilise this to our advantage by using the educational facilities and visits/visitors to enhance our curriculum. It is our aim to ensure all children have at least ONE local enrichment per year for History to enhance and enrich their curriculum. Some of our enrichment activities include: Pier Master’s House at the Albert Dock, sessions run by the museums of Liverpool and Croxteth Hall Park.

The curriculum at St Nicholas aims for children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other subjects alongside developing an understanding of Historical concepts, vocabulary and skills that they can use to pose and answer their own questions.

Here at St Nicholas, we aim to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about their heritage, the changing world and its people which will stay with them for the rest of their lives; to promote the children’s interest and understanding of the impact of historical events and the changes these events have brought into our lives today.

Implementation

At St Nicholas, History is taught discretely from a scheme called Voyagers. The topics taught in each class show clear progression through the year groups and help to support pupil’s development in using Historical vocabulary and critical thinking as this becomes more complex as the children move through the school.

At the start of each topic, children are given an opportunity to explain or revisit their previous learning by completing a ‘previous knowledge’ grid, they will then move on to posing their own questions about the topic as a way of encouraging their curiosity. Further down the school, this will be done as a class, scribed by the teacher/LSA. At the end of the topic, children are given the chance to revisit their learning and their questions. They will then fill in the ‘learn’ part of their knowledge grid to show what they have learned during the topic.

With regards to our high mobility of pupils in school, staff are aware of the need to revisit and recap History learning at the start of each lesson, this is also essential to our aim of encouraging children to embed their learning and understand the sequence of lessons as the previous lessons learning will have an impact on the present and subsequently, their future learning.

As vocabulary is a key area of development for our school, staff are aware of the need to identify, use and explain key vocabulary each lesson and all encourage their children to use this new vocabulary accurately throughout their lessons and in their work.

A high proportion of our learners have English as an Additional Language and this is catered for through our History teaching. Teachers are fully aware of the need for differentiation in History and this is done effectively through the use of varied adapted resources, adult support, questioning and use of visual and practical materials to help support children’s understanding of key events, vocabulary and chronology.

Cross-curricular outcomes in History are specifically planned for, with strong links between History and various other subjects – maths, Science and Geography. The local area is fully utilised to achieve the desired outcomes, with extensive opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice.

With regards to implementing a range of enrichment activities to enhance our History curriculum, we have a number of annual trips organised for each of our year groups. For example, Year 4 visit the Grosvenor Museum in Chester to learn all about the Romans in Britain and the impact the Romans had on our lives today. Year 5 and Year 6 have a visitor into school to enhance their Anglo-Saxon and Viking topics and Year 3 visit Tatton Park to learn all about life in the Stone Age. It is our aim that all classes will have at least one enrichment activity for History each year. All of these will be evaluated by staff and pupils and rebooked or adapted for the next academic year group.

Impact

As children progress throughout the school, we aim for them to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding and an appreciation of their local area (Liverpool) and how it has changed over time.

They will learn to use chronology effectively to place events on timelines and subsequently use this knowledge to support mathematical learning and development.

The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children at St Nicholas are equipped with the essential historical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.

We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about History, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future.

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