At St Adrian’s, we strive to make history a curriculum full of curiosity and enquiry. Our intent is to provide pupils with opportunities that develop their love and passion of history, whilst developing their historical skills and knowledge through a progressive curriulum.
We aim to use resources which enable children to develop a deep understanding of historical events that have taken place. Teaching will equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, develop perspective and judgement and teach them that evidence may lead to different conclusions.
They will be able to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change (comparing then and now), the diversity of societies and relationships between different cultural groups (and the impacts they have had) , as well as their own identity and the challenges of our time.
By the time the children leave St Adrian’s, the children will have developed a range of historical skills and the knowledge of the development and change which has occurred in Britain over time. They will have developed discussion and enquiry skills to be able to see if lessons from the past have been or should be learned for the benefit of the future.
Key documents
Topics at a glance
History in the EYFS
History in the EYFS is promoted through direct teaching and purposeful learning opportunities across different themes throughout the school year. We use planned themes and make the most of unplanned moments that present themselves to talk about artefacts and significant events to develop conceptual understanding of the passing of time. This includes birthdays, recent events and experiences as well as known points in history.
| Autumn | Spring | Summer | |
| Year 1 | The Gunpowder Plot | Changes within living memory – Toys | Intrepid Explorers |
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| Year 2 | Let’s Remember | People who care | The Great Fire of London |
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| Year 3 | Prehistoric Britain 1 | Prehistoric Britain 2 | Ancient Egypt |
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| Year 4 | Ancient Greece | Roman Britain | Anglo Saxons and Scots |
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| Year 5 | Saxons and Vikings | A Local Investigative study of St Albans | The Mayans |
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| Year 6 | Tudors – Terrible or revolutionary? | Kingdom of Benin | Significant turning point in British History – WWII |
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