History

At Ladysmith Junior School, we believe that history should stimulate the children’s interest and understanding about people of the past; those who came to and shaped Britain as we know it, and those civilisations from the past who impacted the world on a larger scale. Within this, we want the children to develop a thorough understanding of how these people have affected and shaped our local area over time and how they influenced our lives today.

Key Stage 2 follow a chronological approach from ‘The Stone Age’ in Year 3 to ‘World War 2’ in Year 6. The curriculum is designed to ensure repeated and meaningful opportunities to build on prior knowledge and comparison of periods of time is maximised.

For example, in Year 3, both the Ancient Egyptians and late Stone Age to Bronze Age are comparable. In Year 4 children decide whether Britain was better to live in during Roman rule or the Anglo Saxons and Vikings and in Year 5, children learn about 2 ancient civilisations. In lower Key Stage 2, there is a greater emphasis on understanding chronology and when things happened. In upper Key Stage 2, children begin to ask more complex questions about the past with increasing detail and scrutiny and develop their own opinions and rationales behind historical events, cultures and beliefs. They become more analytical with sources of evidence and apply disciplinary knowledge on a more frequent basis. The children learn about social, religious and cultural history and their impact on those people or civilisations.

The key strands within these are the structure of society, the life of a child and how religion impacted daily life. These key threads, which can overlap, help the children to develop a full understanding of life in the past. Each unit is carefully planned with an overarching question which branches into different lines of enquiry (sub-questions). This provides the children with varied and enriching opportunities to learn about a time period in depth whilst exploring continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity and difference. Children are guided as they develop their historical enquiry, critical questioning, exploration of historical events, people and artefacts and begin to critically evaluate the validity of sources of information. In each unit, children begin their learning on each subject by exploring chronology of that period in depth and compare to other civilisations of that time. They spend time looking at and exploring artefacts of that period to develop their enquiry skills and begin to create a picture of that period.

Children are given the opportunity to demonstrate any prior knowledge at the beginning of the unit before completing a post unit Justification of Opinion task to draw together their chronological knowledge, critical thinking and understanding of social, cultural and religious elements, our key threads of learning, in one task. Our children will have a thorough understanding of history chronologically, the impact various peoples have had on Britain and our locality and some of the biggest legacies left by ancient civilisations. They will develop critical questioning of people and events of the past and understand their significance in history. Our children will leave Ladysmith having experienced a knowledge rich history curriculum whilst having the skills and disciplinary knowledge required to be an effective historian