History Intent 

Our intentions in History are for children to:

• Have a positive approach to learning about the past.

• Take responsibility for their own learning and challenge themselves to build up a deep level of knowledge, skills and understanding.

• Take an inclusive approach when learning about famous people and different cultures in the past.

• To be determined and to keep going when studying complex historical sources.

• Stimulate creativity and inquisitiveness through enquiry and exploration. We want pupils to develop the confidence to think critically, ask questions, and be able to explain and analyse historical evidence.

At Sandy Lane, we believe that a nuanced comprehension of the past helps children to explain and understand the world around them. Through our history curriculum, we aim to develop children’s historical and analytical skills, so that by the time they leave our school they are able to critically choose sources to explain their personal perspective on a historical person, object or event. We aim for all children to be able to recall key factual information about important time periods and historical themes throughout British and world history. The curriculum is organised around four main themes: Power, Movement, Civilisation and Human Achievements/Mistakes. Lastly, we believe that through their study of History, children will be able to apply historical skills such as analysing and using evidence to form and support their opinions across the curriculum. 

The ‘Big ideas’ for History

These ‘Big Ideas’ are the crucial knowledge and skills essential to pupils achieving and exceeding the expected standard in History. These ‘Big Ideas’ build progressively as pupils move throughout the school. When pupils encounter a ‘Big Idea’, they will revisit other units where they learnt about the same concept to enable them to make connections between different learning and build the schema they need.