'A person without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots'

Marcus Garvey

History Intent

At Shrivenham CofE primary school, we shape our history curriculum to ensure it is fully inclusive to every child. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for History; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum that ensures progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to study life in the past. We aim for a high quality history curriculum which should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about the history of Britain and how it has influenced and been influenced by the wider world; know and understand about significant aspects of the history of the wider world like ancient civilisations and empires; changes in living memory and beyond living memory; learn about the lives of significant people of the past; understand the methods of historical enquiry and be able to ask and answer questions. We want children to enjoy and love learning about history by gaining this knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits.

At Shrivenham, we aim to provide the children with opportunities to:

• Foster an interest in the past and to develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer
• Know about significant events in British history and to appreciate how people’s lives have shaped the nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• Develop a sense of chronology
• Gain and deploy a historically-grounded understanding of abstract terms such as empire, civilisation, parliament and peasantry
• Understand how Britain is part of a wider European culture and to study some aspects of European history
• Have some knowledge and understanding of historical development in the wider world, the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short and long-term timescales
• Develop in children the skills of historical enquiry; evidence based historical claims, contrasting arguments, investigation, analysis, evaluation and presentation.