History

The aim of history teaching at St. John Fisher Catholic Primary School is to stimulate the children’s interest and understanding about the lives of people who lived in the past. We teach children a sense of chronology and through this they develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. History teaching focuses on enabling children to think as historians. We place an emphasis on examining historical artefacts and primary sources. We focus on helping children to understand that historical events can be interpreted in different ways, and that they should always ask searching questions, such as ‘how do we know?’, about information they are given.

This year we have begun to teach history as part of a thematic curriculum where by children experience an understanding of how learning links across a range of subjects. The teaching of history also contributes significantly to the teaching of English in our school by actively promoting the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Additionally we use History also supports mathematics as children learn to use numbers when developing a sense of chronology. Children also learn to interpret historical information presented in charts and graphs. In our school history teaching makes an important impact to citizen and PSHE education by teaching about how Britain developed as a democratic society. They learn how society is made up of different people from different cultures.

In KS1 pupils learn about:

  • Changes within living memory
  • Events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally [for example, the Great Fire of London]
  • The lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods [for example, Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale and Edith Cavell]
  • Significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

In KS2 pupils learn about:

  • Changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age
  • Tthe Roman Empire and its impact on Britain
  • Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons and Scots
  • The Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor
  • A local history study
  • A study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends pupils’ chronological knowledge beyond 1066
  • The achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and a depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer; The Indus Valley; Ancient Egypt; The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China
  • Ancient Greece – a study of Greek life and achievements and their influence on the western world
  • A non-European society that provides contrasts with British history –Mayan civilisation.

Useful Websites:

Key Stage 1:

Key Stage 2: