At Garden Fields we encourage all children to actively participate in stimulating and engaging activities, to enable them to develop these skills and become true historians. By doing this, all children should be equipped to think critically, understand cause and consequence and appreciate their place in the world as it changes.

More specifically, children at Garden Fields will:

• Develop a sense of time, placing events, people and changes within a chronological framework, using appropriate vocabulary;
• Acquire knowledge of the characteristics of people living in particular periods, including their attitudes and beliefs and their social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity;
• Analyse reasons for/results of events studied, making links across and between periods;
• Identify different ways in which the past is represented.
• Examine, compare and interpret different sources of information;
• Pose and answer historical questions, using appropriate vocabulary;
• Communicate their knowledge in a variety of ways.

The History curriculum will achieve its aims by:

• Allowing the children to study a range of times, places, people and events, including local history.
• Giving the children opportunities to study in a variety of ways, including: practical activities, investigations, curriculum displays and first-hand experience through fieldwork, visits and workshops.
• Fostering a sense of enquiry in all pupils, encouraging them to ask appropriate questions about the people, places and events they study.
• Using, and encouraging the children to use, subject specific vocabulary in the correct contexts in their spoken and written work and in displays.

History is taught through topics within the Primary Curriculum, following the Curriculum Maestro scheme, to each key stage on a regular basis. However, teachers are encouraged to make links with other areas of the curriculum wherever possible to enrich the children’s experience. Each topic the pupils learn about will build on the generic skills of enquiry as they move through the school. Progression in History will involve increasing the depth of study and the development of pupils’ reasoning skills when backing up judgements. Differentiation and support will be provided to optimise each child’s opportunity to progress in a way which is suitable for the individual child.

We measure the impact of our History curriculum in a variety of ways. Summative assessment throughout the course of lessons is conducted through discussions, quizzes and written and non-written activities. Pupils’ books are reviewed and there is an opportunity for dialogue between teachers to evaluate progress. We also use pupil voice to identify how the children feel they are being developed as historians, and to inform us of things we can improve. Regular checking of resources and any required CPD is also an important part of ensuring that the quality of teaching of History at Garden Fields remains high.