Enjoy achieving together…to be the best that we can be!
Curriculum Intent
Our pupils learn best through experiential learning and our history curriculum supports and promotes this. At Usworth Colliery, we aim to bring history alive for the children. We believe that learning history is not merely remembering when events happened but the study of how to be a historian. This underpins our approach to the subject, where historical skills are taught explicitly and knowledge is imparted through investigation and application of these skills. Through this approach, our children will develop more critical thinking skills, learning how to ask good questions and weigh up evidence. We invite history specialists to share their knowledge and enthusiasm, visit places of historical interest to widen children’s experiences and explore primary and secondary sources hands on in order to engage them and enrich their learning. Through studying local themes and people, our children are encouraged to appreciate their own place in the world and the events that have led to this to help instil a sense of pride in their heritage and community. Through the experiential approach, pupils are offered a curriculum which is exciting, engaging and ambitiously designed to develop values that will serve them throughout their school life and beyond – to be curious, respectful, flexible and critical in their thinking.
History in the Early Years Foundation Stage
In the Early years Foundation Stage, history forms part of the ‘Understanding the World’ category. Through engaging with photos and stories, the children will begin to make sense of their own life story and that of their families. They will be guided to develop an understanding that things have happened in the past, including before they were born. Through discussion and role play, pupils are regularly encouraged to ask questions and use the language of time to find out about events in each other’s lives. Investigation of historical photographs, books and artefacts, will allow the children to begin to identify similarities and differences between the past and the present. This will be supplemented by a number of high-quality texts, which deal with changes over time for different people from different cultures. Simple sequencing skills will be developed through offering the children the opportunity to sequence different events and begin to develop their critical thinking skills. A number of trips in the local area will encourage the children’s interest in the topics and will guide them to begin asking questions about the past. All of these will help give the children an introduction to the key skills they will be practising and applying in KS1 and beyond.