Menu
Applications to join Nursery Class for September 2024 are now open. You can find a link to our application form in the admissions page. Please contact the school office to arrange a visit to our Nursery Class.
Home Page

Achieving Success Together

Welcome

Headteacher: Mrs V. Campos

History

Intent, Implementation and Impact

 

Intent

Our aim at Boxmoor is to encourage pupils to develop an appreciation and understanding of the past. Our historians will also be able to explain clearly how these sources give us an insight about how people around the world used to live. Pupils will be taught to make links between these areas of learning, with the aim of developing engaged, motivated and curious learners that can reflect on the past and make meaningful links to the present day.

 

Implementation

Our History curriculum (see below) has been designed to cover all of the skills, knowledge and understanding as set out in the National Curriculum. Staff will model subject-specific vocabulary, knowledge and skills relevant to the learning to allow children to integrate new knowledge into larger concepts. Previous learning is references and the build upon as children move through the school. Children take part in a rich variety of activities to build their skills and knowledge. 

 

Impact

At Boxmoor, Pupil voice shows that pupils are confident and able to talk about what they have learnt in history using subject specific vocabulary. Pupil voice also demonstrates that pupils enjoy history and are able to recall their learning over time. Pupils work demonstrates that history is taught at an age appropriate standard across each year group with opportunities planned that is inclusive of all pupils. 

 

 

HISTORY

Learning history at Boxmoor Primary School is all about bringing the past to life for the children.  The National Curriculum has been divided up amongst the year groups with respect to appropriateness of content at different ages and natural curriculum links with other subjects.  We have recently worked collaboratively in order to include four extra units focussing on the movement of people and diversity in society. 

We focus our teaching for each history unit on an overarching question that we revisit at the end of the teaching.  This is in order for the children to now answer the question posed using the knowledge they have gained.  Each unit will also endeavour to make links with our local area and population where this is relevant. 

Embedded in each unit is:

  • the gaining of subject specific vocabulary,
  • an understanding of how the past is similar and different to how we live today,
  • an understanding of chronology, both in relation to events studied through that unit and in relation to how the unit fits within the chronology of the units they have previously studied,
  • the opportunity to ask and answer questions,
  • the opportunity to explore a range of sources of information and to question their validity.

In each unit, to supplement the learning we provide, we try to include a visit to a historical site or museum, invite visitors to share their knowledge and include replica artefacts to handle in the classroom.

The following are the units that the children currently learn within each year group and each overarching question:

Year group

Unit

Question

Early Years

Me and my world

What is the story of me and my world?

Early Years

What a wonderful world

What makes our world wonderful?

Early Years

Oh the places we’ll go!

Where have I been and where will I go?

Year 1

Changes within living memory:  Toys

Are my toys better than my grandparent’s toys?

 

Year 1

Significant people in our locality:  John Dickinson

Can you make paper like John Dickinson?

Year 1

Changes within living memory: Cowper Road

What is the oldest building on Cowper Road?

Year 2

A national event beyond living memory: The Great Fire of London

How did the Great Fire of London change London?

Year 2

Significant individuals in the past:  Mary Seacole, Edith Cavell, Florence Nightingale.

Which nurse do you most admire?

Year 3

Changes in Britain:  Stone Age to Iron Age.

Is The Flintstones movie accurate?

Year 3: 

Achievements of early civilisations:  Overview of four civilisations, plus an in depth study of the Egyptians. 

If you were a pharaoh, how would you rule?

Year 3

Local History Study:  The Box Moor Trust

What do you think Boxmoor will look like in 100 years?

Year 3

Migration study:  Hemel Hempstead

What is the biggest change that has happened to Hemel Hempstead?

Year 4

Migration study:  Britain.

What has made Britain such a popular country to live in?

Year 4

The Roman Empire and its impact on Britain. 

Would you sign up to be a Roman soldier?

Year 4

An aspect of British history beyond 1066:  The railways. 

Why was Boxmoor chosen as the place to build the world’s first passenger train station?

Year 5

Britain’s settlement by Anglo Saxons and Scots.

The Anglo Saxons:  Did they have the right angle?

Year 5

The Vikings and their impact on Britain.

Vicious Vikings: Are they really that bad?

Year 5

A non-European society that contrasts with British history:  Mayan Civilisation.

Could you live like a Mayan?

Year 5

Migration study:  The Windrush Generation.

What could be better than sun, sea and sand?

Year 6

An aspect of British history beyond 1066:  World War 2.

War, what is it good for?

Year 6

Ancient Greece.

How groovy were the Greeks?

Year 6

Migration study:  Slavery

Slavery?  Shame on us?

 

If you, or someone you know, has knowledge or experience connected to one or more of the units that we study please contact the history coordinator, who would be pleased to welcome further contributions to our learning. 

 

 

Whole School Museum made for History Mystery Day - Which item's description is a lie?

Top