History

In order to teach today’s learners to become tomorrow’s leaders

we must reflect and learn about our past.

Studying History ignites children’s natural curiosity about the past in Britain and the wider world. Through finding out about how and why the world, our country, culture and local community have developed over time, children at Nansledan understand how the past influences the present. History enables our children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. What they learn through history influences their decisions about personal choices, attitudes and values, allowing them to succeed both academically and in character.

History aims:

The National Curriculum for History aims to ensure that all pupils:

•   Investigate, consider, reflect and review the events of the past.
•   Communicate their historical knowledge in increasingly sophisticated ways.
•   Inspire pupil’s curiosity to know more about the past. 
•   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.