History
Subject Leader - Mr. Redmond
Hello, my name is Mr Redmond and since I was a little boy, studying ancient Rome, the Anglo-Saxons or the Vikings, I have always been interested in different aspects of the subject. This passion stayed with me throughout my high school where I eventually did G.C.S.E and A-level history. After this, I was lucky enough to go to Edge Hill University and earn my degree in History and complete my P.G.C.E and before becoming a fully qualified teacher. Mt first teaching post was here, at the wonderful St John Fisher Primary School, where I am now the subject leader of History.
I am pretty new to the role but am hoping to make our school one where the children are as excited to learn about History as I was.
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History at St John Fisher
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Vision
- To create a safe, happy, caring and inclusive school where children, staff, parents and
visitors feel valued, are encouraged to succeed, are treated with respect, love learning and
actively work together to be the best they can be. -
Intent
At our school we understand that History is an opportunity to learn not only about our country and world, but to better understand their own identity and that of others. Recognising this, we aim to teach a high quality History curriculum through a series of exciting topics to engage and enrich the children's learning by:
Using history-based, termly topics and history workbooks to ensure progress through the years is clear
Providing support so that ALL staff feel confident and supported.
Use artifacts and pictures to encourage the children to ask historical questions and make proper enquiries.
Key drivers:
To provide an exciting and engaging History curriculum that is accessible to all
pupils.
To provide a culturally rich History curriculum, relevant to our children so they have
breadth of experience.
To ensure there is breadth, depth and progression in teaching and learning across the
History curriculum, within and across year groups to increase pupil’s knowledge, skills
and understanding.
To have high expectations of all our pupils by providing challenge.
To foster a love of learning about the past and to make every child a historian.
To encourage our children to persevere and aspire to be their best.
To expose our children to a multitude of enrichment through trips, visitors,
enhancements, themed weeks and days to inspire our children and switch them on to
learning and achieving.
Implementation
As previously mentioned it is important to use engaging topics, which will grip the childrens interest. It is also vital that we begin to use local history to show the children how their environment and surroundings have shaped their lives.
As a school we have begun to have a focus on the skills children can develop through their History lessons; thinking critically, weighing evidence and discussing the reliability of sources? When planning lessons these are the types of skills we are thinking about when choosing activities.
Through the use of resources such as artefacts and pictures we will be promoting Historical questioning; who do you think made this? what do you think it was used for? look at this picture, why do you think this happened?
Inclusion
Our school is an inclusive school and in each class there are children with a range of additional needs including ADHD, Dyslexia, Speech and Language, ASD and moderate learning difficulties. Our school recognises that children, with these different needs, benefit from an adapted lesson to allow all children to be successful and access activities at a level appropriate to their skills and needs. Resources are used to cater to the needs of individuals and support provided by staff as necessary. Any pupils with special educational needs are identified and teachers ensure lessons are catered to suit every pupil’s needs through adapting tasks, using resources and staff as necessary. We want all our pupils to apply what they know with increasing fluency and independence.
Impact
Within history, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to help children gain a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the school.
Our history curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression also form part of the units of work.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
- Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
- Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
- Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
- Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
- Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
- Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.
- Marking of written work in books.