HISTORY

At Thaxted Primary School, History is a practical and engaging subject which motivates and inspires our children to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain's past and that of the wider world. We teach our children to ask questions, think critically, weigh up the evidence, sift through arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. This is all achieved in History lessons that focus on developing historical skills and the children working as historians by carrying out enquiries. Through the teaching of History, we endeavour to teach children to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

History is taught across KS1 in three-year cycles and in KS2 in four-year cycles. This ensures that all children are taught all the learning objectives in the National Curriculum and progression is clear as the children move up through the year groups. The planning of learning always begins with the skills and knowledge that need to be taught and then enrichment opportunities are carefully mapped to match our topics and embed this learning. This equips our learners with the resilience, creativity and confidence to progress to their full potential.

GEOGRAPHY

Our intent is that our teaching of Geography will inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Our teaching should equip children with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As children progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time. Geography lessons focus on developing geographical skills and children working as geographers. We intend for our children to have real life experiences and learn about geography in an active and creative way. The planning of learning always begins with skills and knowledge that needs to be taught and enrichment opportunities to apply learning are carefully mapped.

When planning the learning of Geography and History, we are also thinking about how we can nurture our 6Rs (Respect, Reasoning, Resilience, Responsibility, Reflection, Resourcefulness) which are lifelong skills that we want to promote for all of the children at Thaxted Primary School.