History

Intent

At St Mary and St Michael Catholic Primary School, we place our children at the heart of everything we do and offer them an engaging History curriculum where every child has the right to high quality teaching and learning opportunities that help them develop a range of Historical knowledge and skills. 

Our aim is to provide children with a broad History Curriculum, enabling them to develop a sense of time and an awareness that events that happened long ago or in other countries can affect our lives today.  Children should have the opportunity to understand chronology, study significant Historical events and significant Historical figures.  They should have the opportunity to explore Historical themes, studying how and why something evolved and changed over time.  Their studies should include ancient civilisations and British Pre-History. 

At St Mary and St Michael we aim for each child to:

• Have a chronological understanding of the world and their place within it.
• Have the opportunity to explore events, people and changes in the past.
• Have the opportunity to ask questions about the past.
• Understand how individuals and groups of people have shaped the world around us.
• Understand why the past can be interpreted in different ways.
• Use historical documents and artefacts to learn about the past.
• Have the opportunity to communicate their ideas in a variety of different ways. 
• Be able to make comparisons between different places and time periods.

Statutory Requirements

Statutory requirements for the teaching and learning of History are laid out in the Bailiwick of Guernsey Curriculum, The History Entitlements document and in the Development Matters document for Early Years.

History - Bailiwick Curriculum Aims

Learners should build secure knowledge of the following:

1. How the present has been shaped by the past, through developing a sense of chronology, exploring change and continuity over time, and understanding why and where things happened.
2. How and why places and environments develop, how they can be sustained and how they may change in the future.
3. How identities develop, what we have in common, what makes us different and how we organise ourselves and make decisions within communities.
4. How people, communities and places are connected and can be interdependent at a range of scales.