Intent 

Our aim at Roman Hill Primary is to provide the children with a wide and diverse history curriculum within their primary education to enable them to become skilled and knowledgeable historians. The intent of teaching history here at RHPS is to stimulate children’s interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past, while equipping them with transferable skills for their future studies and careers. 

We teach children the sense and skill of chronology and historical context alongside an understanding of local history and heritage, particularly within EYFS. This is then developed to allow comparisons with other cultures throughout history and more global focus as children move up through the school. Our aim is to ensure the children have both a deep historical knowledge and the skills to think like a historian. 

Implementation 

At Roman Hill Primary School we follow the National Curriculum, following the CUSP curriculum. The CUSP curriculum ensures knowledge is frequently retrieved and built on, with all pupils retaining knowledge in order to successfully progress to the next year group and beyond. The CUSP curriculum is designed to support working memory and cognitive load theory, giving the pupils the best possible opportunities to retain the information. More information regarding the program can be found here: History | CUSP (unity-curriculum.co.uk). 

Across the key stages history teaching focuses on enabling children to think like historians, placing an emphasis on examining local artefacts, primary and secondary sources and encouraging children to draw conclusions from the evidence they have seen. We give children the opportunity to visit sites of historical significance and give them the opportunity to develop their knowledge through a range of experiences; trips, visitors/workshops and whole school history days.  

For pupils with SEND the curriculum is adapted to meet their individual needs. Scaffolding offers small-step support for pupils that prompts their thinking to allow them to access the next step in learning. This could include, but is not limited to: visual resources, questioning, modelled examples, group work, adult intervention, mixed-attainment partners. Knowledge notes and organizers are used to support learning and retention with prompts to support cognitive load and working memory. 

Impact 

As a result of our history teaching, children are engaged and enjoy history, they also have a curiosity about the past, both locally and globally. Children see how their learning relates to previous learning and their own experiences. Children learn vocabulary to support their understanding of history and can use it in context when discussing their learning. 

Assessment is conducted through a combination of teacher assessment, cumulative quizzing and self and peer assessment, it informs the next steps in learning and allows teachers to identify gaps in knowledge as appropriate before the next stage in the pupils’ learning.