History

History

Our vision

At Hobletts Manor Infants and Nursery School, history helps children understand the past and how it has shaped life today. Children learn about people, events and changes within and beyond their own experience. We want them to become curious about the past and to begin considering how we know about it.

What children learn

In Nursery and Reception, children explore their own personal histories. They talk about how they have changed, order familiar events and compare past and present through photographs, stories, objects and family experiences.

In Years 1 and 2, children learn about:

• changes within living memory;
• significant events beyond living memory;
• the lives of significant individuals;
• significant people, places and events in their locality; and
• chronology, cause, consequence, similarity and difference.

Children use artefacts, photographs, written sources and contemporary accounts. They learn that sources can tell us different things about the past and begin to ask and answer historical questions.

How learning develops

Learning moves from familiar experiences towards less familiar times, people and places. Children develop an increasingly secure sense of chronology and use subject vocabulary to describe the passing of time.

Teachers make explicit connections with earlier learning so that important knowledge and concepts are revisited and remembered. Cross-curricular links are used where they strengthen historical understanding, while history retains its distinctive subject content and methods.

Inclusion and enrichment

The curriculum introduces children to people and experiences representing different genders, ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds. Visual resources, practical experiences, adapted recording and floor books help every child, including children with SEND, demonstrate historical understanding.

Visitors, older people sharing memories, non-fiction books, assemblies and local experiences bring the past to life.

By the end of Year 2

Children can distinguish between the past and present, place familiar people and events in chronological order and recall important knowledge from the topics studied. They can use sources to find out about the past, ask relevant questions and communicate their ideas using appropriate historical vocabulary.