History
Our history curriculum aims to inspire our pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. History helps pupils to understand the process of change, the diversity of societies as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Our history curriculum will equip the children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgment.
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.
At SASJ we make sure that the children are aware of the vast local history we have in our hometown of Accrington. The children visit places of historical significance in the local area where possible. The KS1 children visited lots of the memorials in and around Accrington in November and all children at school made poppies for Remembrance Sunday. In UKS2 the children took part in clog dancing and will take part in a special performance with other Lancashire schools. The children also will visit a local mill as part of one of their topics.
Our history curriculum progresses throughout the children’s time at SASJ and the children build up their knowledge and skills as they move up the school. There is a consistent approach to chronology and you will notice all classrooms have the same timeline that is added to when the children learn a new period of time. The children are then able to compare time periods they have previously learnt about and the one they are currently looking at.
