History : Dereham Church Infant and Nursery School

Immersive Days

At Dereham Church Infant and Nursery School, we are passionate about providing opportunities for our children to step back in time and immerse themselves in a period of history.

Year 1 – Banquet and Ball Day

For our Kings and Queens theme, the children in Year 1 learnt all about medieval castles, the job roles they had within the castle and how it compares to today. To finish our unit, the children were invited to dress up. We had Kings, Queens and Knights! During this special day the children made their own sandwiches and jam tarts to eat at the banquet and learnt a royal dance to perform at the ball!

Intent Statement

At Dereham Church Infant and Nursery School we want to instil a passion for history in all of our children. We pride ourselves on providing the opportunity for every single child to step into the shoes of a historian and be given the freedom to debate, critique and share their opinions on the past and current changes. Our aim is for children to not only require a knowledge of historical events but also be instilled with a fascination and wonder of the past, the now and the potential future.

All of our staff recognise the importance of history as a foundation for allowing children to understand how the past has helped to shape the future they have and deserve and the journey that significant male and female individuals have gone on to provide this for us all. To achieve our vision, we ensure that our lessons are active and hands on and include plenty of opportunities to come face to face with photographs, artefacts and videos from the past. We also recognise the wonderful stories that members of our children’s families have and the power they have to bring children’s understanding of history to life and therefore actively encourage participation and involvement from members of the community in any way possible.

We want children to understand that history is all around them. DCINS have created a close link with Bishop Bonner’s Cottage and frequently take children on trips to places such as Gressenhall Workhouse to show that history is right on our doorstep.

Our curriculum has been designed to support children in developing a deep understanding of chronology and where certain events in the past happened in comparison to others, through this we aim to equip children with the skills to piece together the puzzle of history. Our careful consideration of the skills and historical knowledge that we teach allow our children to access and continue their learning into Year 3 and their next stages of learning.

History at DCINS is planned to ensure that children can learn from the past but can also be exposed to significant influential people who they can be inspired and motivated by.

Implementation Statement

We believe that even our youngest of learners can begin to understand the world through focusing on past events in their lives and the lives of their family. Therefore history begins in Nursery and continues throughout every year group. In early years, history is taught every half term where they will begin to make sense of past and present through stories, photos, discussions and, where possible, handling objects. In Key Stage 1, history is taught every half term, on a rotation with geography. Each lesson will begin with an opportunity to discuss what history is and with revisiting prior learning, allowing children to embed the knowledge they need to make future connections and comparisons in their new learning. Each history lesson is planned with our learners in mind, ensuring that every lesson adaptations have been made to ensure every child can be successful, supported and even challenged where appropriate. Our staff will model the skills and vocabulary needed for that particular lesson and where possible, opportunities will be created for artefacts and sources to be used to allow children to step into the role of a historian.

To support with chronology, our classrooms will have a timeline displayed with all of the events and historical figures they have previously learnt from previous school years and where new information can be added. Classrooms will display key vocabulary, knowledge and display fiction and non-fiction books related to the topic, allowing children to use literature to discover more.

Our historians will be provided with a variety of memorable first hand experiences both in and out of the classroom allowing them to understand the past, embed knowledge into their long-term memory and make connections to the local area.

Impact Statement

At Dereham Church Infant and Nursery School, pupil voice surveys show that children are confident discussing what they have learnt in their history lessons and can recall key vocabulary learnt. Our immersive days, allow children the opportunity to dress up and step back in time to experience what it was like to live during different periods of time. Our focus on recapping prior learning and develop a sense of chronology will aim to allow children to constantly draw conclusions, comparisons and own personal opinions on the different events and people from the past. We strive for history to be a subject that all children can be fascinated by and therefore acquire the long-term memory of the skills, knowledge and vocabulary needed to continue their journey of discovering the past.