Vision for History Learning

INTENT:

At Morda we enable and develop a passion for learning history. We want pupils to become increasingly inquisitive about history, and engage meaningfully with the past.

At Morda children will build their sense of time and chronological knowledge developing a secure overview of the main historical developments and periods.

Our curriculum will enable children to make links between events, draw comparisons and develop their understanding of key concepts such as 'empire' 'democracy' and education.

IMPLEMENTATION

Teachers use the Rolling Planning Frameworks to identify the subject content for each History topic for example KS1 Victorians. Using the History Progression in Skills document below along with the National Curriculum Programmes of Study, teachers choose which aspects of the unit to emphasise. We are members of the Historical Association and teachers use their resources to support their planning.

Their choices are guided by the character of the class, the needs of different groups in the cohort and by the school’s core values of Compassion, Courage and Fairness. For example when selecting an historical figure for the Victorians teachers may choose Mary Seacoal as someone who was courageous, compassionate, a role model for girls and reflective Modern Britain’s diversity.

Teachers then produce a knowledge organiser and duel coding mind-map which informs their plan and contains the key knowledge. The mind map is used by the children to help them remember the key knowledge.

Mantle of the Expert is the primary pedagogical method for History, alongside focused teaching using retrieval practice of elements that don’t fall easily into the Mantle plan.

Mantle of the Expert, causes children to embed memories through the emotional concern and empathy they feel during the imagined experiences they come across as they move through the projects. Using Mantle of the Expert techniques, pupils are inducted into a fictional story which takes them right into the heart of a historical event. Through carefully structured, historically accurate imaginative play, pupils meet historical characters and experience at a personal level, the moral dilemmas, the success and the tragedies of the people of the past. Morda pupils experience the past not as something remote and dry, that happened to people long dead, but as a human experience for which they feel an investment and compassion. As a result of our exciting and immersive curriculum children learn and retain more historical knowledge in their long-term memories.

Outside of the drama, Morda pupils study and analyse historical sources. They learn how historians find out about the past and how they shape their arguments. Children learn to ask questions and analyse evidence. They consider historical events through the lens of the school values of Courage Compassion and Fairness.IMPACT

Pupils learn to make links to other periods in the past, they look for the influence on our present and understand how history will shape our future. Our historical inquiry leads to many rich opportunities for writing and cross-curricular learning.

At Morda, our pupil ‘At a Distance Learning Interviews’ shows that pupils are able to retain and talk confidently about the historical knowledge they have learnt in history, using subject specific vocabulary. They develop a good sense of ‘historical narrative’ and can tell the story of historical periods.

Pupils work demonstrates that history is taught at an age appropriate standard across each year group with opportunities planned in for higher achieving pupils to deepen their learning. Work is of good quality and demonstrates pupils are acquiring knowledge, skills and vocabulary in an appropriate sequence.

By the time they leave Morda, pupils have begun to develop a schema for key historical concepts like monarchy, conflict, religion etc. Our engaging immersive history curriculum leads pupils to become enthusiastic history learners and take this forward into secondary school and beyond. Subject Overview Power Point