Swarcliffe Primary School

History at Swarcliffe Primary School

At Swarcliffe, our history curriculum is taught within selected half termly topics. This supports our pupils in developing a wide range of skills, including:

Historical knowledge
Historical concepts
Historical enquiry
Chronological awareness

At Swarcliffe, we understand the importance of being literate and pride ourselves in developing these core skills within a rich and broad curriculum. We expect our children to apply all these skills to the best of their ability in all subjects in our curriculum.

As well as this, we endeavour to interest our children in their learning with a creative and cross-curricular approach. To do this, we use quality texts relating to the topics, which extends the learning opportunities beyond that particular subject area.

EY Foundation Stage

Children in EY Foundation Stage talk about the past and present in their own lives and in the lives of their family members. They look closely at similarities and differences between themselves and others, including looking at other families, communities and traditions.

Key Stage One

Children in KS1 are able to use basic language to describe chronological understanding such as a long time ago, past and present. They are able to understand the different between past and present and are gaining confidence in ordering historical events with the use of a timeline.

At Swarcliffe, KS1 children learn facts about significant historical figures from beyond living memory, both globally and locally. They are able to ask questions about historical events, people and places.

Throughout the course of the year, children gain confidence in retelling stories from the past. Children are given a range of resources to support learning such as books, artefacts and photographs. They look at different types of historical resources and can identify which are more reliable than others.

Key Stage Two

Children in KS2 begin to develop vocabulary to describe chronology and understand the terms century, millennium and BC/AD. They are gaining accuracy in labelling historical events on timelines and can talk about significant events in relation to each other.

In KS2, children begin to understand how the actions of people in the past have affected our lives today. They can recount main global events, including some interesting detail, and use evidence to describe historical features including buildings, clothes and people.

At Swarcliffe, children are encouraged to explore different versions of the same event to identify differences in accounts. They can explain why a source may be reliable or unreliable and can understand that different evidence can lead to different conclusions about the same historical event. As well as this, they can ask specific questions about events relating to who, what, where, when and why.

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