History

Intent

The history curriculum at Bellingham Middle School draws from, and makes full use of, the immediate and wider local area, enabling children to develop a deep understanding of the rich history of their locality. Topics are informed by the national curriculum and are sensitive to pupils’ interests, as well as the context of the local area.   Key concepts are carefully sequenced so that students are able to develop skills such as asking inquiring questions, analysing information and conveying their views in a methodical and structured way. These skills are honed and developed progressively through the curriculum so that we create historians who are confident in communicating their views, both in writing and orally.  Our History curriculum immerses students in a range of cultures and creates an enquiring and critical outlook on the world, with skills that can be applied in other subjects and in their future.  The history curriculum at Bellingham Middle School is carefully planned and structured to ensure that current learning is linked to previous learning and that the school’s approaches are informed by current pedagogy. In line with the national curriculum, our curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • Know and understand the history of Britain as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world; 

  • Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; characteristic features of past non-European societies;

  • Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’; 

  • Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses; 

  • Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed;

  • Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.

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