History
Becoming Historians
At Primrose Hill, we believe a high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim to inspire our pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past by bringing it to life in exciting ways. Our history curriculum has been specially designed to meet the needs of our pupils while adhering to the National Curriculum. Teaching at Primrose Hill aims to equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.
Some of the topics our children will encounter are:
- How important was Ibn Battuta? (Year 2)
- Emmeline Pankhurst - Law-Maker or Law-Breaker? (Year 4)
- How have Crimes and Punishment changed since the Anglo Saxons? (Year 6)
History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups. Our broad History curriculum at Primrose Hill encourages the children to gain a sense of their own identity within a social, cultural, economic and political background. We encourage our children to build on previous knowledge that they have been taught before and use this to construct a historical understanding of events over time.
Our Vision
At Primrose Hill, we aim to:
- Foster in children an interest in the past and to develop an understanding that enables them to enjoy all that history has to offer;
- Enable children to know about significant events in British history, to appreciate how things have changed over time and understand how Britain has influenced the wider world;
- Develop children’s sense of chronology and understand how they fit into the framework of the past, present and future;
- Understand how Britain is part of a wider European culture and to study some aspects of European history;
- Develop children’s knowledge and understanding of historical development in the wider world, including ancient civilisations empires and past non-European societies;
- Help children understand society and their place within it, so that they develop a sense of their cultural heritage;
- Develop children’s enquiry, investigation, analysis, evaluation and presentation skills;
- Enable children to ask historical questions and create their own structured accounts, including narratives and analysis;
- Encourage the use historical vocabulary in context;
- Support children to gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts;
- Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequences and use them to make connections.
Black History Month
Every year at Primrose Hill, we dedicate time to teach a range of topics related to Black History Month. Every year group plans a range of activities to support the current theme and to teach an important event or significant individual from black history. This is built upon year by year, from early years to year 6. With planning a bespoke curriculum, black history is also embedded within what we teach regularly. For example, children in year 1 are taught about Mary Seacole when they learn about nursing in the past and children in year 5 read Journey to Jo’burg as a class reading book.
Memory Makers
As part of our curriculum offer, we organise a range of Memory Makers to develop our children’s cultural capital. We do this by visiting a range of settings such as Ordsall Hall, Manchester Museum and the Imperial War Museum all within our local area. We also plan for visitors, including virtual visits from Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole.
During the Summer Term, children across the school participate in our local humanities project featuring The River Irwell. This project has been planned specifically to teach our children about the local history and geography of The River Irwell which is right on our doorstep. Every year group, from nursery to year 6, will visit a part of The River Irwell and will learn in depth about a particular topic. Take a look at our selection of E-Books which showcase our children’s learning (links are contained on the right-hand side of this page).