History

At Corsham Regis, we have devised a creative curriculum that allows the children’s key skills to be developed and implemented across the subjects. A theme is shaped through both the teachers’ and children’s creative ideas, allowing and encouraging the children to have an input into and control over what they want to learn.

History is included in this fantastic curriculum.  Children are taught a range of skills through a variety of activities.  These skills are met throughout their school years and develop according to the children’s ability.  They encourage expansion of the children’s knowledge and understanding of time and events in the past, as well as patterns and processes and the effect of historical events on our lives today.

In Foundation Stage, children learn about history through ‘Understanding the World’. They look at the lives of people who are familiar to them; remember and talk about significant events in their own experiences; recognise and describe special times or events for family or friends and look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change.

At Key Stage 1, children learn about the lives of significant individuals in Britain’s past who have contributed to our nation’s achievements – scientists such as Isaac Newton or Michael Faraday, reformers such as Elizabeth Fry or William Wilberforce, medical pioneers such as William Harvey or Florence Nightingale, or creative geniuses such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Christina Rossetti; key events in the past that are significant nationally and globally, particularly those that coincide with festivals or other events that are commemorated throughout the year; significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

At Key Stage 2 pupils build on these skills of historical enquiry, through: a local history study; a study of a theme in British history; learning about changes in Britain from the Stone Age to the Iron Age; the Roman Empire and its impact on Britain; Britain’s settlement by Anglo Saxons and Scots; the Viking and Anglo Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England; early Civilizations’ achievements and an in-depth study of one of the following: Ancient Sumer; The Indus Valley; Ancient Egypt; The Shang Dynasty; Ancient Greece; study of a non- European society that contrasts with British history, chosen from: Early Islamic Civilization; Mayan Civilization; Benin.