We Are Historians!

'A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.'

Marcus Garvey

Our History Vision

At St Mary's, we are passionate about history, and we want our children to love the subject too. We recognise the importance of the study of history as we know history is all around us and is in the heart of our everyday lives. 

Our young children find the world an exciting and interesting place. Naturally, they are inquisitive and ask questions about the world around them. At St Mary's, we believe in igniting, encouraging and supporting the children's thirst to know more. By developing the skills to use historical evidence in order to find out how and why the world, Britain and Chesterfield have developed over time, they will come to understand how the past has influenced the present and may influence the future. This will enable our children to develop a context for their growing sense of identity and a chronological framework for their knowledge of significant events and people. The coherent knowledge, skills and understanding gained during their learning will influence their decisions, attitudes and values in their later lives.

Our History Curriculum

Our aim is to provide a broad and balanced history curriculum within our Catholic community and to provide many opportunities in which the children can 'Let their Light Shine'. 

We do this by teaching our topics in terms throughout the year in Key Stages 1 and 2 so that children can achieve depth in their learning. The topics also provide a context to aid their understanding of the history-related ‘Quality Texts’ which they study during their English lessons. Our topic choices are informed by: the national curriculum; the context of school locality; opportunities for cross-curricular links and the desire to build a chronology of eras (people and events) throughout their time at primary school. 

We use www.keystagehistory.co.uk as a basis to help plan most of our topics as we believe it best supports our teaching of the substantive concepts (which are the key facts/knowledge to be learned) and the disciplinary concepts (the history skills we focus on which include: chronological understanding; characteristic features; causes and consequences; change and continuity or enquiry, evidence and interpretations). 

These concepts that the children will acquire and develop throughout each topic have been carefully planned and structured to ensure thorough coverage and progression within and across year groups throughout the school. The planning of these concepts also ensures that prior knowledge links can be made whenever possible as our goal is for our children to know more and remember more.

In addition to the sequence of topics taught throughout the year groups, Remembrance Day is commemorated by all at St Mary's every year. Black History Month is also celebrated annually as we believe that learning about how Black individuals have shaped our society today encourages children to celebrate diversity and recognise the importance of racial equality. 

Furthermore, we also incorporate and explore 'ad hoc' history topics based on current affairs, such as the Queen's Jubilee and the Coronation of Charles III. 

History in EYFS

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) at St Mary's follows the 'Development Matters in the EYFS' guidance which aims for all children in reception to have an ‘Understanding of the World; people and communities, the world and technology’ by the end of the academic year. 

History in Key Stages 1 and 2

Within Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 at St Mary's, lessons begin with effective feedback and retrieval questions based on prior learning. This gives them a solid foundation to build on with their new learning and enables them to make links across their learning. Following this, there will be planned opportunities where the children will be encouraged to ask perceptive questions such as 'How do we know?'. They will have opportunities to study artefacts and weigh evidence (primary and secondary sources such as documents, photographs, maps, videos etc). They will be encouraged to sift arguments, think critically and develop perspective and judgement. All of this will be achieved through whole class discussions, Kagan team tasks, partner work or individual work.

All teaching caters for the varying needs of all learners and because our school encourages a growth mindset, all children will have access to all lessons and will be challenged at an appropriate level (support or adapted tasks will be provided where necessary). Additionally, to enrich our history curriculum and the children’s learning experience, we plan for effective use of visitors and educational visits (to places such as Creswell Craggs, Southwell Workhouse, Eyam and other places within our school locality). 

Our History Timeline

At the start of each topic, the children are guided towards the whole-school timeline on the corridor. The timeline has been created to help the children understand how all of their learning throughout their history lessons at St Mary's is linked. Therefore, their visit enables the children to place the new topic in context with previous learning and will help the children to develop further chronological understanding. 

Our History Knowledge Organisers

At St Mary's, we understand how important it is for children to see the 'bigger picture' throughout a topic. We believe this supports the children in transferring knowledge gained during lessons to their long-term memory. Therefore, we use knowledge organisers for each topic as a retrieval tool and also as a curriculum development tool to help build the student's confidence and knowledge.

Titanic 1.pdf
Titanic 2.pdf

Our History Working Walls

At St Mary's, we believe in supporting our children in a variety of ways. As well as having access to the knowledge organisers in their books, the children will also have access to the 'Working Wall'. These interactive displays will be added to during lessons to support independent working and learning. A variety of ingredients may be added, such as key vocabulary, facts, timelines, analysed images or sources of evidence, a copy of the knowledge organiser, artefacts and anything else relevant to their learning. 

Our History Learning

Through careful organisation, implementation and assessment of our St Mary's history curriculum, we aim for our children to foster an enthusiasm and sense of curiosity about the past as they progress into secondary school and into their future.

Therefore, by the time our children leave St Mary's, they will be able to use key vocabulary and understand historical concepts (both substantive and disciplinary) to articulate the events and people that have shaped the world we live in today. 

Evidence in history books shows we have a broad and balanced history curriculum in place. Evidence also demonstrates the children’s acquisition of concepts and shows that tasks meet the needs of different learners.

Peer-assessment Challenges in History

We monitor the children's learning in several ways. Effective Assessment for Learning (differentiated, open-ended questioning) is used at different points in each lesson to monitor learning. Because of the use of regular questioning, any misconceptions are highlighted and can be addressed meaning that all children can access the history curriculum and stay on track to meet their end points.

Peer-assessment challenges have also been designed to teach children how to provide quality historical answers to questions which arise from historical sources of evidence. 

These tasks are carried out once a topic, are focused on a strong visual stimulus, are linked to the core concept for the topic and have been mapped out in order to assess the disciplinary concepts on a regular basis.

The children independently have an opportunity to show their understanding about a given source of evidence. Following this, they are provided with a 'steps to success' grid which shows them how they can improve their answer. The children then assess their work with their partner and are given an opportunity to up-level their work.

Our History Museums

At St Mary's, the children thoroughly enjoy learning about history and enjoy showing their learning in a variety of ways. Since our lessons have been designed to focus on particular aspects of an era, each year group has the opportunity to choose one of their topics to create a child-led 'museum' (enabling the children to further explore features of an era that are not covered within school). The children are challenged to produce a homework project about a 'new' aspect of that era. These projects, which are decided by the children, may take the form of PowerPoints, quizzes, 3D models, posters, demonstrations etc. During these end-of-term museums, the children have the opportunity to become expert museum guides and share their knowledge with the museum visitors (which include other year groups in school, parents, grandparents and carers).

What Our Children Say About History at St Mary's...

Year 2

"History is something good or bad that happened in the past, and we learn to do things better."

"I love history because I like learning more."

"We learn about famous people and places. We learn new things."


Year 3

"History is something important that happened in the past. It is sometimes cruel but interesting."

"You learn about interesting things from different times in the world."

"It's good to see how we evolved into what we are. We learn something new every lesson, and we share our knowledge."


Year 4

"History is stepping back in time to learn about the past."

"You do great activities and fun things. It's fascinating."

"We get to go on trips related to the topic."


Year 5

"We learn about the amazing (and sometimes small) things some people did to change the world. We look at evidence and it shows us about things we should do and not do."

" I enjoy working with partners in history because we get to share our own facts and learn about each other's knowledge and understanding of it."

"I enjoy learning new facts about the world before we were on the world. I also enjoy being a detective and using clues to find things out."


Year 6

"History is things that happened in the past that were important and changed the world."

"You can see how things were back then compared to now. It is important to respect things we have now."

"It is really interesting, and you can ask loads of questions. It is my favourite subject as it expands my imagination."