At St Michael’s Nursery and Infant School, we shape our history curriculum to ensure it is fully inclusive to every child. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for History; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum that encompasses the British Values throughout; ensuring the progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to study life in the past.

Intent

At St Michael’s, we aim for a high quality history curriculum which should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about the history of Britain and how it has influenced and been influenced by the wider world; to know and understand about significant aspects of the history of the wider world; of changes in living memory and beyond living memory; to learn about the lives of significant people of the past; to understand the methods of historical enquiry and be able to ask and answer questions.

We want children to enjoy and love learning about history by gaining this knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits.

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in history, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout our Infant School. History is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum.

At St Michael’s, we ensure that history has the same importance given to it as the core subjects, as we feel this is important in enabling all children to gain ‘real-life’ experiences. For example, we visited our local ‘Helena Thompson Museum’ when studying childhoods in the past.

This also links to the importance we put into our ‘Remembrance Week’, giving the children a true sense of history.

Early Years

As part of the new Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage children in Reception and Nursery at St Michael’s will begin to learn about History through Understanding of the World (People and Communities) this will also link to Communication and Language (Understanding and Speaking).

The early learning goals at EYFS are very much focused on the memories of the child. It may be that they are asked to remember a special event or routine or custom for their family. They may talk about differences between different family members or different generations.

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children at St Michael’s Nursery and Infant School are equipped with historical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 2 and for life as an adult in the wider world.

We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about history, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future.