Intent

At Phoenix Infants the history curriculum is designed to be multicultural, sequential and exciting; sparking pupil’s passion and inquisitiveness about the past. Therefore, the curriculum provides specific subject knowledge and facts about the past and the skills needed to make connections and language and links between the past and present.

We aim for children to leave Phoenix Infant Academy with an awareness on the vocabulary related to the passing of time. They are able to use this in their discussions, both verbally and written, of events and significant people in history. We aim to enable children to ask and answer questions, choose and use parts of stories and other sources to show that they know and understand key features of events. Our curriculum seeks to reflect the diverse nature of our student cohort and interests, with a focus on local history.

There are opportunities built into the long term plan for the curriculum to be enriched through historical visits, visitors and events held in school.

Implementation

In the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), history is taught through the Specific Area, Understanding the World, and is made up of 3 aspects: The World, People and Communities, and Technology. Children begin to learn that as they grow up they are increasingly able to do more things for themselves independently, and this emerging knowledge and understanding can be used to explore crucial early historical skills. Early years history should provide opportunities to expand the children's knowledge and understanding of events, people, and changes in the past and develop children's investigative and interpretive skills.

At Phoenix Infant Academy, Cornerstones Curriculum is used to deliver a KS1 curriculum that builds pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills over time; delivers clear expectations on what pupils will know and be able to do with their historical knowledge and skills at curriculum ‘end’ points; and does so within the context of our specific school community.

Through such projects as Year 1's 'Childhood' and Year 2's 'Movers and Shakers,' key aspects and concepts, such as chronology, cause and effect, similarity and difference, significance and hierarchy, are revisited and developed over time. All projects also develop historical skills based on evidence and historical enquiry. The choice of historical periods follows the guidance set out in the National Curriculum, with specific details relating to significant events and individuals chosen to present a rich and diverse account of British and world history.

Teachers use a variety of teaching and learning styles in their history lessons to develop pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding in history.

We believe children learn best when:

• They have access to, and are able to handle artefacts
• They go on visits to museums and places of interest
• They have access to secondary sources such as books and photographs
• Visitors talk about personal experiences of the past
• They listen to and interact with stories from the past
• They undertake fieldwork by interviewing family and older friends about changes in their own and other people’s lives
• They use drama and dance to act out historical events (suffragette workshop – year 2)
• They are shown, or use independently, resources from the internet and videos
• They are able to use non-fiction books for research
• They are provided with opportunities to work independently or collaboratively, to ask as well as answer historical questions.

We recognise that there are children of differing abilities in all our classes, and so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children. We achieve this through a range of strategies which are adapted by expected outcome and support from peers or adults.

KS1 Knowledge and Understanding

The children’s understanding and knowledge of historical facts will be broadened through the teaching of the following key concepts: 

• chronological knowledge and understanding
• history of the wider world
• understanding of abstract terms
• Historical concepts
• Continuity and change
• Cause and consequence
• Similarity and difference
• Significance
• Historical enquiry
• Interpretation of history and historical perspective

Impact

Through providing our pupils with a high-quality, well planned and informative curriculum, all pupils will have an increasing and developing awareness of the past, including major historical events and significant people. They will have an understanding of the history of the local area in which they live. They will be able to explain how historical events have impacted and shaped out current world using subject specific vocabulary. Our children will have developing critical and analytical thinking skills to be able to make informed and balanced judgements about the past. Children are to retain prior-learning and explicitly make connections between what they have previously learned and what they are currently learning due to the structure of the curriculum. Most importantly, children will have enjoyed their history curriculum and want to continue learning more about the past.

 

experiential learning

We pride ourselves on the historical experiences and provision we offer our children. These include educational visits to Eton, Windsor and London and engaging historical activities within lessons.

Our curriculum documents can be viewed below.

For further information, please contact History Lead, Mrs Sara Hester, on 01753 521888 or post@phoenixinfants.uk.