History

At Starbank School, our young historians will gain a deep, well-rounded and chronologically coherent understanding of local, national and internationally significant periods, events and historical aspects. Our children will leave us feeling inspired and curious to find out even more. We will support our children to do this by building awareness of both their own heritage and that of the wider world, and by equipping them with the essential historical skills that can be used and applied across all domains of history in future learning.

We will deliver an ambitious, motivating and knowledge-rich curriculum that:

• Gives children a deep chronological understanding of the UK and Small Heath, including its interactions with the wider world.
• Exposes children to significant ancient civilisations, empires, and non-European societies.
• Draws connections between different aspects of local, regional, national and international history.
• Develops a wide and deep historical vocabulary.
• Uses and applies important concepts and skills such as cause and effect, similarity and difference, chronology, and interpretation of different historical sources.
• Allows children to understand methods of historical enquiry and develop critical thinking.

This process of knowledge acquisition begins in Key Stage 1 with a focus on the local history of Birmingham, where children learn about local architectural choices, such as back-to-back residential housing. Learning about the immediate world around them is the ideal foundation for later composite learning in Key Stage 2. Children also study the example of Florence Nightingale as being a significant individual from the past who has contributed to national achievements by being the founder of modern nursing. This component learning is undertaken whilst children also build their historical vocabulary and slowly enrich their chronological schema. Children learn to ask questions, use different sources, and begin to understand that the past can be represented in different ways.

In Key Stage 2, children’s chronological frameworks are further developed, at a local, national, and international level. This includes a focus on: The Local History, the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Scots, Ancient Egypt , Mayans and World War 2. Whilst developing this wider chronological understanding of history, our children build and add to timelines through the year groups to ensure they can reference and refer to events from prior learning.

Our children’ historical skills are developed by recognising connections, contrasts, and trends over time, using historical terms, analysing causes and historical significance. The history progression map details the careful long-term curriculum sequencing of these essential historical skills and concepts. For example, In Key Stage 1, our children identify simple similarities and differences between life in different periods. In upper Key Stage 2, children then make detailed observations of differences and changes within and across time periods, evaluating the importance of these changes within the context of wider history.

Our knowledge-rich history curriculum is taught according to the following whole school long term plan for history:

The four strands in the National Curriculum for history are skills and concepts, local history, British history, and Wider World history. Our children are given motivating and inspiring out-of-class opportunities and special experiences to embed essential learning. This enrichment is an essential element of our history curriculum offer. For example:

• Year 1 visit Cadbury World
• Year 2 visit Blakesley Hall
• Year 4 extend their understanding of the History of Birmingham, by visiting the Black Country Living Museum
• Year 5 have an exciting external workshop to learn all about the Romans.
• Year 6 visit RAF Cosford and Holocaust Museum in Nottingham to enhance their understanding of World War 2