“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
— Marcus Garvey.
BWJPS Approach to History
At Bury and Whitefield Jewish Primary School, we aim to seek out the importance of History, which should inspire pupils’ curiosity about the past in Britain and the wider world. 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.
Historical inquiry will help children learn about how the past influences the present, what past societies were like, how these societies organised their politics, and what beliefs and cultures influenced people’s actions. As they do this, pupils develop a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. They see the diversity of human experience, and understand more about themselves as individuals and members of society.
What they learn can influence their decisions about personal choices, attitudes and values. In history, pupils find evidence, weigh it up and reach their own conclusions. To do this they need to be able to research, sift through evidence, and argue for their point of view – skills that are prized in adult life.
History Lead: Mr James Wilde
History topics will be taught in blocks, which will generally cover 3- 4 topics a year, through an hour’s lesson a week. The children will be encouraged to use appropriate historical language and skills and participate in debates and discussions using evidence from events. They will learn about events in living memory and pre-living memory.
Children will build on their historical skills, whilst learning about different periods of time. Retrieval strategies will be built in to each lesson to ensure children are given plenty of opportunities to recall key dates and events.
The ‘Programme of Study’ takes you directly to the relevant pages of the National Curriculum.
The ‘Curriculum Overview’ gives an overview of the units/ topics being covered within the subject. It shows you the year at a glance before describing each unit further (detailing the skills/ knowledge covered in each unit).
The ‘Progression Map’ details the skills and knowledge acquired in each year; highlighting how these progress from Nursery through to Year 6. This document includes a progression of key vocabulary.
The ‘End Points’ document shows the key objectives for this subject (within each year group) that are necessary for them to achieve ‘expected’.
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