PURPOSE OF STUDY
A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Aims
The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:
- know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
- gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
- gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Learning Questions
Autumn Term
- Who had the best claim to the throne in 1066?
- Why did William win the Battle of Hastings?
- How did William secure control of England?
- What was life like in a Medieval village?
- Why was the Church so important in the Middle Ages?
- What made a good Medieval monarch?
Spring Term
- Why did people go on Crusade?
- How did the First Crusaders make it all the way to Jerusalem?
- What was the Reformation?
- How much did religion change under the Tudors?
Summer Term
- What were the causes and main events of the English Civil War?
- What kind of person was Oliver Cromwell?
- How did the power of the monarch change between 1660 and 1760?
- How can we learn about the history of Monkseaton?
Autumn Term
- What changes took place during the Agricultural Revolution?
- What impact did the Industrial Revolution have on cities?
- How did the Industrial Revolution affect living and working conditions?
- Did people think of the Chartists as a success?
- How did the British Empire develop?
- Was the Empire ever a force for good?
Spring Term
- What were the causes of the First World War?
- What caused people to “join up”?
- What was life like in the trenches?
- Does Haig deserve to be remembered as a butcher?
Summer Term
- What were the effects of the First World War?
- What were the causes and main events of the Second World War?
- How far were people’s lives on the Home Front affected by war?
- Was the Holocaust inevitable when Hitler came to power?
- How should Jewish resistance to the Holocaust be remembered?