Introduction
- A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
- It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past.
- Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
- History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Aims of the Clavering Curriculum for History
The Clavering Curriculum for History aims to ensure that all pupils:
- know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world;
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind;
- gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’;
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses;
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed;
- gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Clavering Learning Foci for History
1. To understand chronology.
2. To investigate and interpret the past.
3. To communicate historically.
4. To build an overview of history.
Topics studied in each year group
Year 1:
Changes in living memory: How and why are our toys different from those in living memory? (revealing aspects of change in national life) (4)
Changes in living memory: How and why are our holidays different from those in living memory? (revealing aspects of change in national life) (4)
Significant historical figures: Why do we remember Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole? (8)
Year 2:
Changes in the last hundred years: How and why have household objects changed in the last hundred years (revealing aspects of change in national life) (4)
Event beyond living memory: What was the Great Fire of London and how do we know about it? (6)
Significant historical figures and local historical figure and events: Why do we remember Captain James Cook and Neil Armstrong? (6)
Year 3:
World history 1: What can we find out about the achievements of the ancient Egyptians from what has survived? (8)
British history 1: How did life change in ancient Britain from the New Stone Age to the Iron Age? (3)
British history 2: What was the impact of the Roman invasion of Britain? (5)
Year 4:
British history 3: What motivated the Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Scots to settle in Britain? (8)
British history 4: How did the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for power affect the Kingdom of England? (8)
Year 5:
British history 5a: Introduction to the First World War (1)
British/Local history 5b: Why do people in Hartlepool still remember the 1914 bombardment? (7)
World history 2: What was everyday life like for the Mayan people (c. AD 900) and how did this compare to life in Britain at this time? (8)
Year 6:
World history 3: How have the ancient Greeks’ achievements influenced the western world? (8)
British history 6a: Introduction to the Second World War (1)
British history 6b: What was life like for children and women in the UK as a result of the Second World War? (7)
Notes:
British history in Key Stage 2 is taught chronologically.
The number in brackets indicates the approximate number of hours assigned for each unit (not including any associated educational visits).