History Rationale
History is important as all around us; it helps to ignite curiosity about the past in Britain and the wider world. Through finding out about how and why the world, our country, culture and local community have developed over time, pupils understand how the past influences the present.
History enables pupils to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. It allows an understanding of their place in the world and in the long story of human development.
History Curriculum Design
At The Forwards Centre our aim is to deliver a history curriculum that:
- stimulates, motivates and engages pupils who may have missed significant parts of their education and who may have had a negative experience of learning, in order for them to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of the world around them;
- enables all pupils to experience academic success - ensuring that no child is disadvantaged due to their academic level, SEND need or what point on their educational journey they are at or what time in the year they arrive, by having a “climbing frame” to achieve clear ambitious end points.
At The Forwards Centre we aim to help pupils gain a secure knowledge and understanding of their immediate history, that being their family and location; Britain’s past and that of the wider world. The curriculum has been designed to:
- allow pupils to make links between current and previous learning;
- make comparisons between different historical periods, places and societies;
- develop chronological knowledge and understanding from the Stone Age to present day.
At The Forwards Centre we want pupils to be curious to know more about the past and to have the skills required to do this by working and thinking as historians and developing historical skills. We recognise that it is not enough for pupils to just learn a series of facts about the past. We aim to enable pupils to:
- research and interpret evidence, experiencing and using a range of different sources,
- think critically – weighing up what they have found, asking questions about this, and drawing their own conclusions,
- develop the ability think empathetically – putting themselves in someone else’s shoes
- work independently or collaboratively, to ask, as well as answer, historical questions and
- make reasoned decisions and have the necessary skills to construct historical arguments from their point of view, based on evidence and different sources.