"The school’s reading curriculum, including the phonics programme, is highly effective. It underpins and supports pupils’ learning in all other subjects."
Learning and Curriculum

History

Statement of Intent for History

The History curriculum at Masefield is designed to create a bridge between today’s world and the myriad fascinating worlds of the past, which automatically provokes questions from pupils. Tempered and channelled correctly, its study can turn this naturally occurring curiosity into the development of tools every pupil needs in order to be able to express their thoughts and positively engage with the world around them.

At Masefield, History is taught as a discrete subject in order that the development of knowledge and skills is taught meaningfully and explicitly. Naturally, links are made to other areas of the curriculum but this does not dilute the quality and entitlement of high quality History teaching.

 

History Curriculum

The school’s long term plan for History sets out the content of teaching within in each year group. This is supported by the school’s History progression document which demonstrates learning outcomes within each strand of development within a History unit. Short term planning details how this content is developed over a series of lessons within the unit of work.  The organisation of the History curriculum provides structured opportunities for pupils to:

  • gain a coherent, chronological knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world

  • develop a deep understanding of history, by connecting new knowledge with existing knowledge

  • contribute to a connected network of ideas and knowledge across the curriculum

  • develop and appreciate the cultural capital that they need to succeed in life

  • engender an appreciation of human achievement and an understanding of its development

  • be introduced to the language and vocabulary of History

  • be introduced to key historical skills such as oracy and argument

  • make reasoned arguments about historical influences on current development and sustainability issues

  • explore how the actions of people in the past have led to some of the global problems we face today

  • understand the impact their choices can have on the future

  • develop knowledge of other societies, cultures and beliefs

  • understand the impact values and beliefs have on the decisions and actions of individuals, organisations and governments, made today

  • understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups

  • explore their own identity, values and beliefs.

History Curriculum

 

History Policy

History Policy

 

Knowledge Organisers for History

Below is an example knowledge organiser from each year group for History:

Year 1 - The History of Bolton

Year 2 - Significant People

Year 3 - The Stone Age

Year 4 - The Romans

Year 5 - The Anglo-Saxons

Year 6 - The Vikings

These are sent home each half term as part of the curriculum overviews. EYFS Knowledge Organisers can be found in the EYFS tab.

 

High quality texts underpinning our History curriculum

History is promoted throughout our core lessons at Masefield which means knowledge and vocabulary is consistently being revisited throughout the curriculum. We use high quality fiction and non-fiction texts to inspire our children to create high quality pieces of writing, encourage the love of reading and embed their History skills further.

Our Award Winning Provision for History

Quality Mark for History Gold Status - Achieved November 2024

Knowsley Junior School - History Quality Mark
The History Quality Mark is awarded to schools that demonstrate a relentless passion to ensure effective learning and achievement through inspiring teaching that engages all pupils consistently across the school. The Gold status recognises how our personalised History curriculum reflects the diversity of our school whilst carefully meeting the needs of all our children. To enrich the pupil’s experiences, History at Masefield does not stop in the classroom as a systemic and coherent range of historical experiences is available to all pupils across the different years of the school.

Other Relevant Information

Below you will find more information relevant to the teaching of History at Masefield Primary School.

 

In order to promote the love of History for our children, we offer fantastic out of classroom experiences so the children have the chance to witness history ‘in real life’. These include trips and workshops within each year group where the past is brought to the classroom or external visits where they make history come alive. Some of the trip and workshops we do at Masefield are: Victorian Workshop at Tatton Park in Year 2, a Samuel Crompton Workshop at Bolton Museum in Year 3, a Romans trip to Chester in Year 4 and a trip to Jorvik in Year 6.

 

When carrying out pupil voice within our school, pupils have stated that our history lessons are engaging and inspiring. This enthusiasm is encouraged to be taken home where children take part in different home learning activities involving their families and further developing their historical skills and knowledge.

Our history curriculum that has been thoroughly written, equips our children with the ability to ask insightful and historical questions, to think critically about an issue and continually develop their skill of using a range of sources of evidence to support their knowledge. History helps pupils to have compassion for different people’s lives, accept why something has changed over time and learn to compare their lives to people of different times.

Through our history lessons being taught explicitly, our children will understand why it’s important to not repeat the mistakes of the past but also why our past is important as it has shaped our lives today.

At Masefield, we use every opportunity to encourage and support learning; this includes our environment through school. Our history displays show some of the wonderful learning taking place, key vocabulary linked to the individual topic, questions to encourage the children to think historically and we also have a detailed timeline displayed in our playground.

To support the teaching that takes place within our school, each topic has a labelled box of wonderful resources to engage pupils and support interest within their curriculum. We also receive project loan boxes from Bolton Museum which include a variety of different artefacts to bring learning to life.

 

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