History
Studying history enables children to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of the past of Britain and the wider world. History inspires pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past, enabling us to learn from these past events to help make a better future. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, examine evidence, evaluate arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps children in their understanding of the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as developing their understanding of their own identity.
In Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 we aim to give the children an understanding of the past and present and of how things change over time. We do this through stories and drama, by looking at changes in the local environment and by looking at artefacts. Work is practical and builds from things in living memory to more recent historical periods and is often based upon an historical event or story.
In Key Stage 2, as the children study the main periods of history including the Victorians, the Romans and Ancient Greece they move learning onto using a wider variety of historical sources of evidence, and begin to consider how life in the past has impacted life today. Children may visit local museums or places of interest such as The Verulamium Museum in St Albans. Children may also use computers to carry out research using the Internet and learn through historical scenarios and re-enactments.