History
A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots’
Marcus Garvey
At Primrose Lane Primary School, we have carefully designed our History curriculum with the aim of providing our pupils with a broad and balanced education that fosters a lifelong love of history and a deep understanding of how the past continues to shape our lives today. Our curriculum is structured to ensure the progressive development of key substantive knowledge and disciplinary historical skills, in line with the requirements of the National Curriculum.
We teach History not only to impart knowledge of the past but also to develop critical thinking skills, empathy, and a sense of connection to the world around us. Our intent is to inspire a passion for learning about the past, equipping pupils with the tools to analyse historical events, understand their significance, and draw connections to contemporary issues. Through our history curriculum, we aim to empower pupils to become active, informed citizens who appreciate the complexities of the world's history.
Key Features:
- Broad and Balanced Curriculum: Our curriculum covers a range of historical themes including trade, Empire, democracy, civilisation, innovation, and invasion, ensuring that pupils are exposed to a diverse range of historical concepts.
- Chronological Understanding: We place a strong emphasis on developing pupils' chronological understanding, enabling them to place historical events in the correct sequence and understand the connections between them.
- Enquiry-Based Approach: We use an enquiry-based approach in our history units, encouraging children to think like historians and investigate historical questions using a variety of primary and secondary sources. This approach not only enhances critical thinking skills but also deepens pupils' engagement with the subject.
- Enhanced Learning Experiences: To enrich the history curriculum, we organise local visits, invite experts as visitors, conduct workshops in school, and provide immersive days, offering pupils hands-on experiences that bring history to life.
- Fostering Curiosity: Our curriculum is designed to instil in pupils a curiosity about the past and how it influences the present, nurturing a lifelong love of history.
History at Primrose Lane
The Industrial Revolution (Year 6)
How did Leeds change during the Industrial Revolution? is the focus of our history learning in Year 6 this half term. To bring our learning to life, we were really lucky to have a special case of Victorian artifacts from the Victorian era. What made this experience even more special is that all the artifacts were from Leeds – a bottle to hold a fizzy drink made in Hunslet, an inkwell made in Chapel Allerton and more. Children in Year 6 all had the chance to touch, see and smell the artifacts (the mourning handkerchief has quite a distinct odor!). A really fun lesson and huge thanks to the Leeds Museum for organising this incredible opportunity.
Ollie F: The artifacts were very cool. My favourite one was the funeral invitation and the family photograph.
Rosie: The artifacts were like holding history itself. My favourite was the inkwell as I could imagine dipping my pen into it. It made me think of all the people who had used it in the past.
Elliot: I really liked to actually hold all the artifacts from the Victorian times as it was more fun than just reading facts from a book. It brought history to life!
The Stone Age to Iron Age (Year 4)
We enjoyed a morning at Leeds Discovery Centre where we took part in a Stone Age to Iron Age workshop. The workshop was divided into three stages: a time line activity, an artefact handling task followed by playing the role of archaeologists. We had retained a huge amount of knowledge from our History curriculum driver last half term and could discuss in great detail the transition between people of the stone age being nomadic, to settling and living in more permanent shelters. We also shared our knowledge of tools and food and how these changed and developed over time as people began farming.
Following this, we were then lucky enough to be taken on a tour of the artefacts at the Discovery Centre - there are over one million items stored in total so we didn't get chance to view them all but had an exciting time viewing dinosaur footprints, stone age tools amongst much more!
The Romans (Year 3)
In the penultimate week of the half term we were very fortunate to be visited by Richard (Marcus the Roman for the day) who is an expert in all things Roman. He did an absolutely fantastic job of bringing the Romans to life through a series of activities and information sharing that not only educated the children brilliantly but also gave them some wonderful memories. Just some of the things that Richard covered were: what the Romans brought to Britain, some significant achievements of the Romans throughout their Empire, how the Romans took several attempts to actually conquer Britain, how the Romans lived day to day, games that the Romans played and how we know, we looked at a plethora of Roman artefacts dating back over 1500 years and learnt how the Romans redefined toileting habits! In the afternoon the children learnt all about Roman army formations and defended themselves against hostile attacks! The class also had the chance to have gladiator battles with each other; learning on defensive and attacking movements and how society viewed these contests.
My Family Album (Year 1)
We have learnt that history is something that has happened in the past. We made a class timeline. We asked our parents and grandparents how their childhood was the same or different form our childhood. We looked at artefacts and in books for gather information. We thought like historians and asked lots of questions.
Romans (Year 3)
As part of our Romans topic we have been very privileged to be able to borrow a set of artefacts from the Leeds Museum. We spent a wonderful lesson looking through these incredible ancient artefacts (some are around 200 years old) and discussing what they are, where they came from, how they were found and generally being historians and archaeologists. The children came up with amazing suggestions for what the objects might be and what they might have been used for, they made theories about who would have needed them and created stories about the histories of these objects.
We were lucky enough to be able to look at and hold a variety of objects: a Roman coin with an Emperor engraved on it, 2 examples of Roman pottery, a brooch that may have been used for decoration or as part of a soldier's uniform, a piece of pottery used a crushing device in food preparation and a beautiful oil lamp with an amazing drawing on depicting a Roman God. It was a fantastic lesson and the children then write descriptions of what the objects were, when they were from and what they learnt about the artefacts.
World War II (Year 5)
We were very lucky to experience our WWII workshop, led by Richard, where he brought a plethora of primary and secondary sources for the children to touch, feel, observe and talk about. Richard acted in character (as an ARP Warden in the morning and as a British ‘Tommy’ in the afternoon!) for the whole day and most children acted in character as evacuees, learning about air-raids and the civilian services. Children learnt a variety of interest things, including the relevance of rationing, identity cards, labels, gas masks, as well as using a stirrup pump to put out fire, bandage casualties and understanding the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign through propaganda posters. Additionally, children explored genuine military artefacts used by soldiers during the war, conducted rifle and bayonet training (using wooden training rifles) and did some grenade throwing (rubber grenades). The day closed with the all clear siren, and Churchill’s VE Day speech. It really was a day to remember!
