History at Pucklechurch

Our intent

We intend to provide our children with a rich and varied curriculum, which enthuse children to develop a genuine love for learning. Our intention is for every child to aspire to learn more about history, and believe in themselves enough to be able to enquire into our shared past and develop a sense of a cultural heritage.

This will in turn encourage the development of skills and knowledge associated with the subject, involving making connections within and between historical eras and events. We aim to enable children to know about significant events in British history and to appreciate how things have changed over time, to understand how the democratic government has developed, leading to an understanding of how Britain is part of a wider European culture.

We believe that the implementation of wide cross-curricular learning opportunities and experiences support children’s development of conversational skills and a rich vocabulary, levels of engagement, debating and reasoning skills throughout the learning process. Drawing on reading skills will also enable our learners to gain insight into the rich diversity of our world’s present and past.

This impacts on our learners by supporting their development of detailed knowledge, vocabulary and skills which are transferable across the whole curriculum, including writing at length, allowing them to achieve in subjects outside of History.

Our implementation

The history curriculum includes four sections; chronology, interpreting and investigating, knowledge and understanding and relevant vocabulary. Sources and enticing themes support the children to learn key skills in a meaningful and interesting way. Focussing history teaching on key vocabulary and building upon previous knowledge in every lesson, learners to express their understanding in a range of ways. 

Learning will begin in reception as they recall significant events in their own lives including special times with their families or friends and move on to learning about significant changes within living memory as well as significant events beyond living memory such as The Great Fire of London in Key Stage 1. Children will also learn about the lives of significant individuals who have contributed to national and international achievements; examples of such include Neil Armstrong and Christopher Colombus.

In Key Stage 2, children will learn about the changes that took place in Britain from Stone Age to Iron Age. Other areas of history include the Roman Empire with its impact on Britain and the Shang Dynasty leadership. These themes will provide them with opportunities to develop their skills in order to 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.

Our curriculum progressively builds from EYFS to Upper Key Stage 2, with skills being explicitly taught, and planned collaboratively within hubs.

A summary of the skills as they are progressively taught throughout different year groups can be found here: Pucklechurch History Skills Progression 

Our Impact

Children will be able to verbalise their knowledge as well as demonstrate this in a range of activities, including writing tasks and within different subjects. Learners will develop a coherent knowledge of Britain’s past and that of the wider world and demonstrate curiosity about different time periods. Children will be able to use specific vocabulary related to each era studied, as well as historical skill related terms. Pupils will learn to ask questions about historical eras and weigh evidence in a range of sources to make judgements about the past. These analytical skills will be developed across each year group and give learners abilities to apply in future topics of work and across different subjects.Children will leave Pucklechurch ready to apply these skills to further KS3 study. 

Term 5 history:

This term, we are excited to launch into our new hub themes! 

Seacole are investigating the use of plastic and how this has changed over time. 

Armstrong are exploring the impact the significant figure Rosa Parks had on the civil rights movement in America. 

Newton are travelling back in time to investigate how people lived in the Stone Age and the changes that took place duirng these thousands of years. 

King are diving into Bristol history, considering how the port and trade has changed over time. 

​Diversity in History

 Our History curriculum teaches our children about the lives of significant individuals such as Rosa Parks and in Key Stage 2, children discover the legacies of early civilisations from around the world ensuring that they have the opportunity to learn about civilizations from further afield such as Benin, the Shang Dynasty of Ancient China and the Maya. 

To ensure that our children learn about key historical figures who embodied our school values and led by example, we consulted staff, parents, governors and children named our 'hubs' after 4 inspirational people from different fields: Mary Seacole, Neil Armstrong, Sir Isaac Newton and Martin Luther King. 

For Black history month 2023 (with the theme 'Salute our Sisters'), each hub recieved an important woman of colour to learn about! We found out more about Malorie Blackman (the famous writer), Betty Campbell (a well-known community activist and Wales' first black headteacher),

Yesha Townsend (a well-known poet from Bermuda, currently living in London) and Mary Prince (an enslaved person who wrote of her experiences in an autobiography).

Children from our Equities Crew presented facts and knowledge about these inspiring women in our collective worship for the school to learn more. 

 Historical enquiry and chronology

Within our hubs and classes, we give children opportunities to enquire about their upcoming theme, and to reinforce our learning with our enquiry and hub boards. Here are some of our latest timelines and working walls we are creating with the chilldren as we progress through our current history theme of work.