History Intent - What is it that we intend our children to learn through History?

At Repton Primary School, we recognise the importance of teaching our pupils coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We also aim to create a historical curriculum that will captivate and engage pupils so they have a depth and breadth of knowledge about a variety of historical eras. Children will be immersed in the History curriculum as part of the Autumn term topic. This enables children to have a deeper understanding of History and to allow the sequence of lessons to flow smoothly to create memorable, thought-provoking learning experiences. Our learning of the past commences in Reception, where children will understand the past through looking at their own lives and other people’s lives. They will also learn about a significant past event through storytelling, books and experiences. This will better prepare children to learn about older events in the timeline of the world for their years at Repton. Teachers from Year 1 to Year 6 will deliver lessons that focus on one historical era during the Autumn term; eras specified in the National Curriculum. Teachers will teach the necessary subject knowledge and cover 7 overarching concepts pertaining to that one historical era; art, beliefs, conflict, childhood, economy, homes and jobs. At our school, we want our children to receive a breadth and depth of knowledge, but also to have consistent knowledge as the children progress in their years at Repton. We believe it is important for children to make connections and links in their learning, so having this schema helps children to construct a clear narrative of history by forming links from EYFS to Year 6.

Our History curriculum is also based around our ‘RPS values’ and we expect children to explore themes around ‘Respect’, ‘Pride’ and ‘Success’ in each of the historical periods that they study throughout our school. This will enable children to understand mentalities and attitudes of people in different civilisations and time periods, but also to reflect on their own values and compare and contrast this with their own values. In developing children’s understanding of the world, and of the values that people have, we believe that this will foster a quality learning environment and create citizens that have a strong awareness with themselves, the world, the past and the present.