God wants me to be the best me I can be in...

History.

The exciting things I will learn in History at St Joseph’s are:

The National Curriculum for History aims to ensure that all pupils:

-know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.

- know and understand significant aspects of the history of 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 and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’.

- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.

- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed

- 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.

The exciting things that take place in History are:

- exciting weekly lessons that are linked into our Geography lessons.

- curriculum days to expand our hands-on learning experiences.

- links to other lessons such as English, Computing and DT.

- high quality resources and artefacts.

Why do I need to know this?

Through learning History, we hope to stimulate the pupils' interest and understanding about the world around them and the lives of people who lived in the past. We aim to teach children a sense of chronology, and through this they develop a sense of identity and a cultural understanding based on their historical heritage. As a Catholic school, we believe that children should learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain and the world. Through considering how people lived in the past, they are better able to make their own life choices today. We teach children to understand how events in the past have influenced our lives today; we also teach them to investigate these past events and to develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem-solving.