At Howard Park our aim is to develop and inspire pupils’ curiosity to learn more about the past. We strive to give children a coherent knowledge of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We want children to develop a chronological understanding of history and recognise how the past links to our modern day.
The aims of our history curriculum are:
- To instil in the children a curiosity and understanding of events, places and people in a variety of times and environments.
- To develop an interest in the past and an appreciation of human achievements and aspirations
- To understand the values of our society
- To learn about the major issues and events in the history of our own country and of the world and how these events may have influenced one another
- To develop a knowledge of chronology within which the children can organise their understanding of the past
- To understand how the past was different from the present and that people of other times and places may have had different values and attitudes from ours
- To understand the nature of evidence by emphasising the process of enquiry and by developing the range of skills required to interpret primary and secondary source materials
- To distinguish between historical facts and the interpretation of those facts
- To understand that events have a multiplicity of causes and that historical explanation is provisional, debatable and sometimes controversial
How We Teach History
The school uses a variety of teaching and learning styles in history lessons. Our principal aim is to develop the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding in history and we use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our history lessons. We believe in whole-class teaching methods and combine these with enquiry-based research activities. We believe children learn best when:
- They have access to, and are able to handle artefacts
- They go on visits to museums and places of interest
- They have access to secondary sources such as books and photographs
- Visitors talk about personal experiences of the past
- They listen to and interact with stories from the past
- They undertake fieldwork by interviewing family and older friends about changes in their own and other people’s lives
- They are shown, or use independently, resources from the internet and videos
- They are able to use non-fiction books for research
- They are provided with opportunities to work independently or collaboratively, to ask as well as answer historical questions.
We recognise the fact that we have children of differing ability in all our classes, and so we provide suitable learning opportunities for all children by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies which are differentiated by task, expected outcome and/or support from peers or adults.
If you would like to learn more about our History curriculum, please look at some of the links below.