History

At Brookmans Park School we intend to provide pupils with a high-quality education in History that stimulates our pupils' curiosity of the past and equips them with the skills to think and act as an historian such as to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement to gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.  At Brookmans Park School we provide our children with a range of life experiences and expand their understanding of the world they live in.  We believe it is important for children to develop a sense of identity through learning about the past and to know how history has shaped their own lives. In addition, local area studies in every phase mean our pupils leave Brookmans Park School with a deeper understanding of their own locality and community.

We teach these skills through a well-planned, progressive History curriculum and through the wider curriculum areas.  Our History lessons are based upon our termly topics to ensure a high level of engagement and enthusiasm.

To support learning of History, we provide our children with a variety of well-planned opportunities:

• Opportunities to handle original and replica artefacts in the classroom to stimulate discussion and inference skills.
• Access to primary sources through museum loan boxes.
• Access to a wealth of secondary sources such as photographs, pictures, websites, books.
• Opportunities to visit museums and historically important sites and venues.
• Visitors talk about their personal experiences of the past.
• Interactive workshops with historical experts to enable the pupils to immerse themselves in rich first hand experiences of life in the past and gain relevant knowledge.
• High quality topic-linked books in English to support depth of knowledge.
• Use of drama, dance and music to act out and perform relevant historical events.
• Art lessons to support further understanding and expression of the topic.
• Undertaking of fieldwork by asking questions of their parents and other family members about their experience of the past.
• Celebration of current historical issues eg. Black History month, International Women’s Day, Coronation.
• Assemblies to celebrate famous people and current affairs and history in the making.
• Unhomework opportunities linked to history topics.
• House competitions linked to History knowledge.