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History
Vision Statement
History at The Swan School will make our students feel ownership of the history of their city and country. They will feel pride in expanding their historical knowledge and improving their ability to write academically. Through the study of history our students will become curious about the world around them and feel confident to ask questions, explore complex ideas and make mistakes. This blend of ownership, pride, fluency, curiosity and support in history at The Swan School will enable our students to “think the unthinkable and the not yet thought” (Bernstein, 2000) about their complex and diverse world.
Our Students on History
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“The thing that helped me feel confident in history lessons is the quality of the lessons and resources, how kind my teachers are, the calm atmosphere, and how my teacher always checks to see if I understand.”
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“The best thing about studying history is the curiosity I have in lessons, that every lesson is exciting and engaging. I enjoy the diverse content and the enthusiasm of the teachers.”
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“The thing I didn't expect about studying history is how immersed you feel in the periods you study, how everything is connected and how it’s really fun and not as hard as it seems.”
A typical History Lesson
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Our students start with a retrieval with an explicit focus on vocabulary to build their historical fluency.
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Then we connect their current learning with previous learning, either the narrative or theme that they have previously learnt about.
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Content is introduced with whole class reading followed by mini white board questions to check our students understanding.
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Then content is practiced through written tasks that increase in complexity over lessons and cycles.
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Once our students are confident in the content we will start applying this to more complex extended writing questions that will develop their core extended writing skills and stretch their academic thinking.
