History

At Robert Blair, we aim to stimulate children’s curiosity and a love of History, to enable them to develop a coherent chronological understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.

For an overview across all year groups, please see our Whole School Curriculum Map 2023-24

Throughout our History curriculum, we teach a deep understanding of chronology and the impact of different time periods on our society today. Children learn to understand the complexity of people’s lives in the past; through studying the achievements of significant individuals, civilisations and empires, this allows them tto understand the democratic, multicultural society of Britain today.

Click here to see our History vocabulary ladder

Our History lessons encourage children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, develop perspective and judgement in order to develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem solving.

Aims

To develop an understanding of the the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative from the earliest times to the present day, explaining how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
To develop an understanding of how significant aspects of the wider world such as the ancient civilisations of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome have influenced Britain.
To gain and deploy historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ’empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’.
To understand and apply historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarlity and difference and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically valid perceptive questions and create their own structured accounts from the perspective of significant individuals in the past.
To understand methods of historical enquiry, thinking critically about the intetrpretation of the evidence to make historical claims, contrasting arguments to how the evidence has been constructed.
To gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts through different periods of time to make connections between local, national and international.

Impact

When our children leave us, they will:

Have developed a deep and broad knowledge of local, British, ancient and world history
Be equipped with the skills that enable them to ask questions, think critically, weigh evidence and arguments and develop perspective and judgement
Understand the historical concepts of chronology, change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference, significance of events and their impact on the future.
Use historical terms and vocabulary accurately and effectively.
Know how to use a wide range of historical sources to enable them to research their own lines of enquiry.
Be curious to know more about the past and instil in them a positive attitude to learning.
Have a respect for diversity, social responsibility and a sense of how events from the past have shaped their future.