Intent

At Southwood, we aim to provide high-quality history education which will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We hope to inspire pupils' curiosity to know more about the past. Our history curriculum equips pupils to ask questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.  We hope, that through our history teaching, pupils will understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

We have developed a curriculum that builds a chronological and coherent exploration of Britain and the wider world.

EYFS and KS1
The order of topics within this key stages allows children to learn about things before their living memory as well as be able to make simple comparisons between different time periods and people. 

KS2
The order of topics is chronological starting with early civilisations around the world and Britain, and leading up to the 20th Century in Year 6. 

Implementation
At Southwood, we believe history should be led by enquiry. Each topic across the history curriculum centres around one key question which encourages children to explore to develop their knowledge and skills. 
 

How we will structure our learning:

- A topic overview which clearly outlines the knowledge, vocabulary and skills to be learned and developed.

- A structure of lessons which encourages inquiry, exploration, play and discussion.

- Access to a variety of sources and artefacts

- An emphasis on relating new knowledge to those learned in previous years (everything is connected)

- An opportunity for experiences outside of the classroom to develop and deepen children's understanding

Impact

By the end of each key stage, pupils will have a clear understanding of the time periods in which they have studied as well as how they are connected to those they have studied before, both chronologically and through their significant people, developments or changes. The quality of children's learning is assessed throughout and at the end of each unit. Where there are gaps in children's historical skills, future units offer the opportunity to continue developing these. Where there are gaps in key historical knowledge of a time period, these will be recapped in each future unit (specifically dates and comparisons) to support further learning.