Rectory Farm Primary School

Intent

History at Rectory Farm is a powerful guide to preserve the future of humanity by understanding the successes and failures of what came before.

Through our curriculum, we aim to:

stimulate all children’s interest and curiosity about the past by developing their knowledge about British history and the wider world.
Develop our learners mental timeline (schema) by cumulatively building their knowledge of periods and events.
Develop learners’ understanding of key historical concepts, enabling them to note connections, contrasts and trends across time periods.
Teach learners to understand the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups.
Understand their own identity and place in the world, recognising how the past has influenced the present.
Equip learners with a balance of substantive and disciplinary knowledge that will enable them to articulate, critically debate and discuss their opinions and judgements on the past, using a range of evidence to support their arguments.
Instil an appreciation of the work of historians by understanding how historical accounts are constructed, built upon and refuted; inspiring an interest in our learners, that they may pursue in secondary school and future life.

Implementation

Our curriculum has been carefully sequenced to ensure children obtain a solid understanding of key historical concepts and knowledge about the past. This is a knowledge-rich history curriculum, which entwines both substantive and disciplinary knowledge.

The following high-dividend concepts have been identified as:

Conflict
Community
Change
Locality
Culture
Legacy
Trade and
Power (including monarchy)

Our history curriculum goes beyond the expectations of the National Curriculum; it starts in the Early Years with an exploration of pupils’ families and ancestry, gradually evolving through to local history and then expanding to wider historical occurrences which have taken place throughout Britain, Europe and the wider world.
Enrichment opportunities are embedded into our curriculum, providing memorable, meaningful experiences. Some examples of this include:
trips to our local museum in Northampton.
‘History off the page’ visitors.
A Roman banquet and
A Trip to an Anglo-Saxon village.
Learning is progressive and sequential, with retrieval opportunities in each lesson, building and connecting knowledge across terms and year groups. Through repeated encounters with the key concepts, learners can make connections and comparisons across different periods of history and see how they can be applied in a range of contexts. An example of our leadership/ monarchy thread is as follows:

-Year 1, children learn about the key concept of leadership with Queen Elizabeth as a subject.
-Year 3, – Boudicca as a leader of the Iceni people
-Year 4, Egyptians – how Pharaohs were leaders in Ancient Egypt and understand the change of Monarchs in British History.
-Year 5 – Evaluating the influence and impact Walter Tull had as a leader in WW1.
-Year 6 - Evaluating and analysing the influence of leaders such as Churchill and Hitler on our world today.
Strong oracy opportunities support our history curriculum. In every lesson, learners engage in rich discussions, evaluating and offering opinions and ideas about the historical topic they are studying. This ensures engagement for all and the opportunity for children to talk through their understanding, applying subject-specific vocabulary. It also allows teachers to listen in and check this understanding before learning moves on.
History is taught within a supportive environment where respect for the views of others is paramount.
We have high aspirations for all children. Children with SEND are taught alongside their peers, with scaffolds provided, where necessary, to ensure children are supported in achieving good outcomes.

What our children say:

Year Group	What have you been learning about in your history lessons?	What helps you to learn?	Why is history important?
Year 1	· We’ve been learning about Mary Seacole, she was a person who used to be a nurse in the past. Edith Cavell, she was another nurse. She helped people get out of the war. · Shoes in history from Northampton. They used their hands and a sewing machine with a pump.	Writing helps me to learn and talking to my friends. Having objects (shoes) to look at.	So we can learn about things we didn’t know. It helps us with our writing. It’s important to remember people who helped us.
Year 2	Great fire of London (1666), last term we learnt about the Great Fire of Northampton (1675). In London nearly the whole place was destroyed. 6 people were killed but in Northampton 11 people were killed. In London it started in a bakery in the morning. We learned about Neil Armstrong who was the first person to go on the moon. Christopher Columbus, he discovered other countries. 75 days to get there.	Work on display helps us remember.	Because we can get smarter. Because we need to remember people who did important things.
Year 3	We have been learning about the Romans. They had a city. They had loads of armour. They had to fight the Celts. One of them was Boudicca. They succeeded on the 3^rd attempt. The Romans protected Britain. They were before the Anglo Saxons. They were called the Anglo-Saxons because they were named after 2 tribes. We created shields and swords. We read a text about them too. We also learnt about the Stone age. They hunt with spears, and they must kill the animals. They use dung to make animals. BC means before Christ.	Reading texts and watching films. The timeline on the wall. We have a history and geography book to write in now.	It’s important because if things happen again like the World War, we can learn from them. Like how they fought we can learn from them. If there is a drought, we can learn from the stone age people.
Year 4	About the Monarch which is the Royal family. In charge of country and countries. Queen Elizabeth ll. Power of the Monarchy has changed since the Anglo Saxons ended in 1066. We learnt about the Vikings and Ancient Egyptians. We had a Viking feast. We ate vegetable soup.	The timeline in the classroom. Having an Ancient Egyptian day helped. We learned how carve soap, make jars, make bracelets. We also had to make ink and write out names. We listened to stories. This is in our long-term memory.	Learning about the past. So, we know how they lived and what people went through. We can then compare it to our life and realise how difficult it was then. If only I knew this when I became frustrated before.
Year 5	We are now learning about Ancient Greeks. There are 12 Olympian Gods. Hermes and Aries (God of War) were the ones we chose to research. Aries parents were Zues and Hera. They did not like him because he always wanted to fight. Walter Tull. He played for Spurs and Northampton and was a soldier in World War 1. There is a giant memorial of him in the Spurs ground. We used a 10 square diamond. The fact at the top was the best fact about him.	A working wall helps us to remember. It helps to have text to look at too. Having access to computers helps us. Timeline in the classroom.	Because if we were old, we could educate others. People like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King had a big impact on our world today. We shouldn’t forget that. Our life would be very different.
Year 6	When Romans invaded Britain and we are building on our knowledge of Year 3 by studying how leaders like Boudicca and Caesar had an impact on wars in Britain. There are still Roman structures in Britain today that you can visit.	Videos and reading about the period of history. Discussions and talk opportunities. Having time to reflect and take in the information helps us to remember.	History helps us to learn about what happened before our present time. We know about our ancestors that lived before us. If we visit somewhere, we can reflect on something we’ve learned and use that knowledge.

Our history leader in Sam Clark: