History
At Bredbury St Marks, we have been working on a brand new curriculum completely tailored to our children and our school with a heavy local focus.
The children are at the heart of our curriculum. They are enthusiastic learners and have a real love for learning about their world. We lay the foundations for the children to question and think more deeply and are starting to develop the curiosity to ask how and why question.
Their knowledge and experiences beyond their immediate environment can be very limited but we have found when we offer them a glimpse into the wider world and their curiosity and thirst for knowledge become a key driver for their learning.
We are incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by so much local history from the Bronze and Iron Age to the present day and we are using the opportunity to celebrate all these local treasures.
The way we teach history will be based around 6 golden strands which are:
- Chronology
- Signigficant individuals
- Tools and Technology
- Invasions and settlements
- Trade and Raw Materials
- Working like a Historian
Once the children move into Year 4, they will start to branch out to the wider world history and ancient civilisations.
Our History Curriculum is very bespoke to meet the needs and build upon the strengths of our children at Bredbury St. Mark’s. We aim to give the children an accurate and balanced ‘window on the world’.
The curriculum is designed to always develop the children's identity and sense of belonging to the area they live in and a clear understand that History is not an abstract concept, but it involves events, places and people around them.
We also want our children at St. Mark’s to ‘always stay curious’ and foster that curiosity by introducing them to the world around them and the wider world by allowing them the opportunity to think around a subject, ask questions and want to find out more.
EYFS lay strong foundations in the children understanding of History as a story whether it be their own personal history, history seen through story books or special events of people we celebrate. Moving into Key Stage 1, the curriculum aims to develop the children’s sense of their local History and that things didn’t always look like they do today. The Local studies have been carefully chosen to illustrate day to day life in the past. They will also look at History through the narrative of special events and significant people. All the while, developing their skills as Historians and learning about how we know about the past not just what we know about the past.
Through Key Stage 2 we aim to introduce the History of the United Kingdom initially through a local context- what evidence is there of the time periods in out locality before placing in a national or international context. The children will also stretch their understanding of chronology through the study of time periods spanning Pre-History, through to Ancient Civilisation and British History to 1066 and beyond but wherever possible links will always be made to their locality. They will continue to work like Historians so we can equip them with the disciplinary knowledge to study History beyond their time at primary school. We want them to be able to evaluate, make judgments and have their views and ideas valued.
We want our children to have a very strong sense of Chronology as they move through History curriculum, and this forms the start of every unit of learning. We want our children to be confident discussing and recalling dates and events form a variety of time periods studied.
We are incredibly proud of this curriculum and are rolling it out this academic year of 2023/24.