Within the Christian context of the Blue School, we perceive History to be an essential part of children’s education, in the development of their thinking and learning skills, enabling them to develop a sense of personal identity and an understanding and respect for other cultures and points of view. It helps them to appreciate the problems of the past and how attempts were made to deal with them. It helps them to understand the bearing that the past has on the present and the future. To be a good historian, children need to know about sources, to gather evidence and to reflect critically on the material they have gathered.
The aims are achieved by:
In the Early Years department we aim to explore history through the area of learning entitled Understanding of the World; People and Communities.
History plays a significant role in an Early Years classroom. Children are encouraged to reflect on their own childhood and those of their parents, access creative resources, appraise and modify their work on a daily basis. Resources are the key to effective practice and children are encouraged to think and work independently.
History is one of the foundation subjects established by the National Curriculum 2014 and children are required to follow designated programmes of study in order to achieve particular levels of attainment. It is important that history receives equal teaching time as geography. In general the subjects are taught in half-termly blocks. The two subjects should be given 1 hour a week of teaching time at Key Stage 1 and 1 hour ½ teaching time at Key Stage 2.
The history curriculum at The Blue School changed as of September 2014. The QCA Scheme of Work is still used alongside schemes from History Interactive and the Historical Association. To aid teachers in using the schemes of work, websites, journal articles, resources and lesson plans are available for each unit. Each individual teacher should use the scheme as a basis for their planning and should identify the most appropriate teaching strategy to ensure maximum effective learning in any particular lesson, ensuring progression across the topic. Pupils are given a range of different learning opportunities within a creative content. It is important that the children are encouraged to investigate, to undertake practical historical analysis and to use drama to re-create historical situations. Teaching methods such as demonstrations, research, storytelling, should also be employed where appropriate.