I teach in Year 6. I have been a teacher for over 28 years, predominately in Key Stage 2. I joined Mayflower in 1999. In 2004, I enjoyed taking a secondment to teach in a British school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I returned in 2006 and have stayed here ever since! I am History subject lead which I find extremely interesting. Teaching Year 6 can be such a rewarding experience. Year 6 students are at an exciting stage where they’re developing more independence, critical thinking skills, and confidence. Seeing them grow in both academic abilities and as individuals is incredibly fulfilling. Outside of school, I am a big Leicester City Football Club fan and I love to cheer them on, home and away. I also enjoy taking part in pottery lessons, baking cakes and going on city breaks.
Intent, Implementation and Impact
Through the History curriculum at Mayflower we strive to inspire a curiosity within our children to learn more about the past. We aim to develop an understanding of British, world and ancient history. We work to develop an understanding of chronology as well as a knowledge and understanding of how the local area has changed over time. The children are given the opportunity to examine, interpret, and critically evaluate a variety of sources in order to make deductions about the past. They are taught to think and behave as historians and archaeologists. They are also taught about the significance of different historical periods, key historical figures and how History has influenced their lives today. The children are also encouraged to pose their own historical questions. We investigate how and why the world has changed as well as what we can learn from the past to make the future a better place. British Values are woven into the History curriculum promoting values such as democracy. They are taught to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the diversities of societies and relationships between different groups. We aim to inspire the children so that they have a lifelong love of History through visitors and school trips.
The National Curriculum is used to plan and deliver the teaching of History at Mayflower in a systematic and progressive way. Our History curriculum has been constructed around key enquiry questions to enable children to make connections, revise and recap previous History units. Using pictures, photographs, film clips (primary and secondary), key vocabulary and historical evidence as a starting point, pupils are encouraged to discuss and reason with curiosity what they are presented with and how this can be interpreted. Having studied historical evidence, children are encouraged to react to History and use this knowledge to discuss, present, debate, re-enact and write using historical facts and from a critical perspective. This embeds and consolidates pupils’ understanding of History and its impact on people. In the wider, broad and balanced curriculum, pupils are exposed to a range of stories and poems from different historical periods with the intention of deepening their knowledge of History further. At Mayflower, historical learning is made significantly more memorable due to our carefully planned trips and our visitors who are able to share their experience to help children deepen their historical knowledge even more.
Pupils at Mayflower make progress by increasing:
their knowledge about the past (substantive knowledge/facts)
their knowledge about how historians investigate the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts (disciplinary knowledge/skills)
Historical Skill
Key historical skills teach the children how to be ‘historians’.
Second Order Concepts
Each topic/unit of work has a main overarching enquiry question and smaller supporting questions. As well as substantive knowledge/facts and disciplinary knowledge/skills, key historical, or ‘second order’ concepts, are central to the history curriculum. They are the tools historians use to analyse and evaluate the past. They help organize subject knowledge and shape the questions historians ask. They include:
Cause and consequence: How events are linked by reasons and outcomes
Continuity and change: How events in the past change and remain the same over time
Historical significance: How important events and people were in the past
Similarities and differences: How events and people are similar or different
Historical Threads
We have identified a set of key historical concepts that we have called Historical Threads. Children will repeatedly revisit these concepts throughout their time at Mayflower from EYFS/Year 1- Year 6. Our Historical threads are:
Power (monarchy and government)
Invasion and settlement (empire, trade, migration and exploration)
Society (culture, religion and beliefs)
Legacy (impact on modern society) By referring to these concepts in teaching and learning, pupils are able to make links between their learning from one unit and year group to another, as well as use this knowledge to make connections with the present day and their own lives. Each unit will not include every 'thread', but over a year, children will visit each one at least once. We want the children to be able to make links between these concepts over the course of their time at Mayflower.
Local History Understanding our local history is extremely important and it is embedded into the history curriculum at Mayflower. In Year 2 the children learn about the history of Evington Park and Evington village. In Year 3 the children learn about the wider Evington area, including Crown Hills and the General Hospital. The children also look at local heroes such as the Burnaby family and Arthur Wakerley. In Year 6 the children look at the impact of the Windrush generation on a local and national level.
Impact
Within history, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry-based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning to help children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the school. Our history curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to develop progression. Children are able to talk openly about their learning, and begin to make links between the substantive knowledge in History and the skills they will utilise to develop historical enquiry independently.
Assessment
We measure the impact of our curriculum through:
Termly assessment of key skills and knowledge
Review of previous learning at the beginning of each lesson.
Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice)
Marking/review of written work in books
Assessment in History takes place during lessons through feedback provided by staff. As per our feedback and marking policy, this is most effective during the lesson. Formal assessments are made at the end of each term, and these are submitted to the Head Teacher, determining attainment, progress, and the overall impact of the syllabus on all our children. They are measured against age-related expectations across the syllabus, using a 4-point system, as follows:
Working below Key Stage
Working Towards Age-Related Expectations
Working at Age-Related Expectations
Working at the Greater Depth Standard
Differentiation helps all teachers to ensure that the children’s needs are being met through lesson content that is matched to their needs. Adaptations are also made to ensure that our SEND children can gain access to all lessons, with a strong focus on disciplinary and substantive knowledge, as opposed to the literacy and numeracy skills we may expect of them to access it. In this way, low outcomes in literacy and numeracy do not have to equate to low outcomes in History.
Golden Threads and Curriculum Enrichment
History makes a direct contribution to the Golden Threads that all curriculum subjects promote. A good understanding of History will deepen the children’s understanding of why the Sustainable Development Goals can bring equality and sustainability for all. By learning about historical social justice movements, they will recognise how change can be affected over time. To truly understand History, children need to conduct fieldwork, on-site, and often outdoors, giving them knowledge of how people used to live, and an informed understanding of what drove them to behave in the way that they did. Our curriculum will deepen the children’s understanding of the world around them and some of the challenges people face. By learning about the past, and making links to the present day, the hope is that the children can see how we can shape the future.
The Journey of the Child
Through carefully planned and progressive units that reference prior learning and prepare children for future learning, we can chart a child’s journey through our school from their entry in the Orchard, all the way through to the end of Year 6. Please tap on the following link to see how our children experience History at Mayflower, and how this links together, helping them to develop their own worldview.
Curriculum in Action
Talking about the curriculum is far less effective than actually seeing it in action. We love to capture our children’s engagement with the History curriculum, both in the classroom and our local community. For more information, please tap on the following link:
