Brunswick Primary School, Somerhill Road, BN3 1RP

01273 711816

Brunswick Primary School

Achieving success with determination and joy

History

Subject Intent 

Developing thoughtful, holistic, curious, children through an enquiry based, child-centred History curriculum who have a deep sense of worth and belonging. Flexible thinkers who are equipped to embrace change and shape their future.  Using the key skills of History to make excellent progress.  

Key Drivers  

Purposeful ​ 

Our children will have the vocabulary, knowledge and skills necessary to explore, develop and achieve in History 

Aspirational ​ 

Our children will explore History through varied authentic stimuli and respond in a range of creative ways, making purposeful links to other areas of learning. ​ 

Personal ​ 

Our children will question and reflect on History and its impact on their real-life experience. ​ 

Universal ​ 

Our children will learn how History impacts locally, nationally, and globally and makes a difference to modern life. ​ 

 

Our History Curriculum 

At Brunswick, children are exposed to a rich and diverse history curriculum allowing them to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.. They learn about significant individuals, empires and events including the sinking of the Titanic, the moon landing, the Ancient Greeks, World War Two and Boudicca. We use our local surroundings to support the teaching and learning and make links between the past and the present. 

Our history curriculum teaches children to: 

  • develop a sense of time, helping children to grasp how time is measured and to see that some things change quickly, others slowly.  
  • work out how and why events happen. 
  • consider what it was like at different times in the past. 
  • understand that there are some things about the past we can know for sure and others we can never know.  History has to be constructed from the pieces of the jigsaw that are left behind.  
  • use evidence to reach balanced points of view realising the need to check and to cross reference.  

 

Learning and teaching follows an enquiry-based approach. Each area of history taught has an overarching enquiry question and each lesson within a term has a smaller question for the children to investigate and answer. Children’s knowledge is built week on week in order for them to answer the overarching question. Children enjoy this approach as it encourages them to think deeply about their learning and build individual opinions based on knowledge and historical interpretation.  

 

Each learning sequence aims to develop one or more of the following skills:  

  • Understanding of Chronology 
  • Historical Enquiry 
  • Historical Interpretation 
  • Understanding of historical themes e.g., cause and effect, power 

 Teachers enable children to critically think about changes that have happened and make inferences about the past using different resources such as artefacts, books and pictures. Children are encouraged to draw balanced conclusions from their enquiries and identify common themes and concepts.