History at Orchard Meadow
Our Intent
The history curriculum at Orchard Meadow helps our pupils develop historical skills and knowledge, by considering how people lived in the past, how to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern Britain and make them better equipped to make their own life choices today. By stimulating our pupils’ interest in and understanding of people and events from the past it helps them develop a sense of identity and cultural understanding based on their historical heritage.
As with all subjects in the Orchard Meadow Curriculum, choices about content have been carefully considered and 'stress-tested' against our curriculum drivers. For example, pupils develop an understanding of social change in Year 6 through the lens of our respect driver. In Year 1 pupils learn about individuals such as Neil Armstrong who strove for greatness and demonstrated ambition.
Local context is also important as we passionately believe pupils should have knowledge of how their community has been shaped by significant events and individuals. Therefore, pupils study about Empress Matilda, imprisoned in Oxford Castle; the foundations of modern Blackbird Leys and the car factory of Morris Motors; and the neolithic peoples of Uffington and their famous White Horse. These are just some examples of how we connect pupils with their past through our history curriculum.
See a summary of what Orchard Meadow pupils study below:
An overarching enquiry question binds each unit together and links back to our drivers. Each unit then has a question to act as a stimulus for the unit.
Implementing our vision
Understanding chronology is a critical historical skill and you will see how this is built into curriculum units and when they are studied. In Early Years the focus is on recognising change over time and the fact that the past might have been different from the present. Find out more about how history is taught in EYFS here. From Year 1, more complex historical skills are developed progressively with opportunities in each unit for 'deepening' activities that take learning even further.
Please click here to view our History Curriculum overview to find out more about what our pupils study and how curriculum content is mapped against core historical skills.;
Our History Roadmap shows how content is built progressively;
And, Our History Skills Progression document shows how historical skills build over year groups from Nursery to Year 6.
We are committed to delivering our curriculum effectively against the 5C's: content, creativity, compassion, community and cohesion. See the individual unit plans ('5C's documents') below which detail lesson content, core and deepening skills and how each unit is linked to our drivers and enquiry questions. Knowledge Organisers summarise key learning and are shared with pupils and parents at the start and end of the unit.