History

History

From September 2023, we have adopted the Opening Worlds humanities curriculum for History, Geography and RE.

Opening Worlds curriculum and its associated teaching approaches will secure the highest possible quality of education for pupils. This is because the curriculum ensures that the subjects reflect the wide reference and academic practices, outside of school, to which they refer. In addition, the material is organised so that pupils use earlier material to access to later material and so that pupils start to see how everything connects within a subject.

Opening Worlds has strongly recommended that the material is taught in sequence because each part makes the next part much more understandable. Numerous words that are explicitly taught and practised in Year 3 are then taken for granted in lessons in Year 4-6. If children do not have the secure knowledge of the content and vocabulary of the Year 3 curriculum this is likely to slow progress and limit enjoyment.

All key stage 2 children have, therefore, started with the Year 3 Opening Worlds curriculum. As a result of moving from the school’s previous curriculum to Opening Worlds, the school has identified a small number of content gaps. These have been noted and will be addressed through our choice of books that are used in English and read to children.

Our rationale and curriculum intent

At Oldmixon Primary School, we are committed to ensuring that knowledge is learned carefully, methodically and in a well sequenced manner in order for children to develop Historical skills and cultural capital. The focus of our History curriculum is for all children to develop a secure sense of chronology in order to gain a secure understanding of British History and that of the wider world.

Our curriculum encompasses powerful knowledge and deep learning. In KS1, knowledge is gained through a topic, which includes six investigative key questions, built around a knowledge organiser of key vocabulary, key dates and events whilst addressing the key historical concepts of: cause and consequence, significance, perspective, continuity and change and similarity and difference. Every History lesson includes a retrieval activity, which are designed carefully, in order for children to recall their learning in a variety of ways including quizzes, explaining functions of objects and ordering key dates. Central to our approach of teaching History is ensuring that children are able to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement. Through rich learning experiences, visits and artefacts, children will become confident Historians!

In KS2, as part of our Opening World curriculum, our coherent and well-sequenced curriculum ensures that material is organised so that children use earlier material to access later material so that children see connections within and between subjects. The curriculum is ambitiously broad in scope, meticulous in rigour, highly coherent and carefully sequenced so that children are able to understand new content, arrive with curiosity and recognise a wide range of technical vocabulary. Through powerful storytelling, explicit vocabulary teaching and retrieval, children will use the concepts of continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity and difference and significance in order to make connections, draw contracts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts including written narratives and analyses. They will practise the methods of historical enquiry, understand how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

Progression grid

ELAN History progression NEW.pdf

History and Geography curriculum coverage

Check out these virtual tours! History Museums
Anne Frank’s House	Take a look around and discover the secret annex where Anne Frank hid for more than 2 years during WWII and where she wrote her diary.
Boston Children’s Museum	Walk through the Boston Children’s Museum for 3 floors of fun, thanks to Google Maps!
British Museum, London	British Museum London: While there’s no walkthrough experience, the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies are just a couple of things that you're able to see on a virtual tour of the museum.
National Museum of Anthropology	Visit the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and dive into the pre-Hispanic history of Mexico with 23 exhibit rooms full of Mayan artefacts.
Natural History Museum	At the Natural History Museum in London, find answers to your big nature questions and uncover the history of life on Earth, from the smallest insects to the largest mammals.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History	Take a room-by-room tour of select exhibits and areas within the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, including past and current exhibits. This virtual tour also features a handy map, so you can move between floors easily and select the exhibits you specifically want to see.
The Vatican Museums and City	The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica and Raphael's Room, are just some of the sites you can see on the Vatican's virtual tour of their 7 museums. Here’s a 360^oexperience of Vatican City itself, including St. Peter’s Square.

Year 2 exploring some Victorian seaside artefacts.

Our Year 5 Historians have been studying Viking Artefacts as we begin our Viking Topic.

Viking visit!

Year 5 had a very interesting visitor, an actual Viking! He taught the children about how Vikings lived, punishments and told fascinating stories. What an amazing start to their Viking topic!