Our Vision for History

The aim of history teaching here at Brookland Junior School is to stimulate the children's interest and understanding about the life of people who lived in the past. We teach to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. We aim to teach your child to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. Through this, they learn to value their own and other people's cultures in modern multi-cultural Britain and, by considering how people lived in the past, they are better able to make their own life choices today.

At Brookland Junior School, we aim to ensure that the children understand the chronology of history. With this, the affects of such pieces of history, for example- what happened before? What came after? What was the impact of that particular piece of history? It has become clear that children respond better to the teaching of history once it has been put into context. Thus, in our school, we teach children to understand how events in the past have influenced our lives today; we also teach them to investigate these past events and, by so doing, to develop the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem solving.

History teaching focuses on enabling children to think as historians. We place an emphasis on educational trips and visitors to extend the children’s understanding of the themes we teach. This allows children to examine historical artefacts and primary sources whilst stimulating interest of the past. We focus on helping children to understand that historical events can be interpreted in different ways, and that they should always ask searching questions, such as 'how do we know?', about information they are given. 

History is taught across three half terms every academic year. Throughout our historical units, your child will have the opportunity to show off their English skills in an extended piece of writing, where appropriate. This will allow your child the chance to write in different genres and understand how to transfer their writing skills across the curriculum. 

Knowledge Organisers

Knowledge organisers are a summary of the key facts and essential knowledge that pupils need about a unit of work or a curriculum subject. They can be a valuable tool for both children, staff and parents as they set out their expectations of what pupils should learn about a topic – and to clarify their own thinking around what is important.

Please find personalised knowledge organisers for each topic in each year group, below: