What is History? What is a Historian?

‘A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.’
Department for Education, 2013

‘The primary purpose of education is to produce well-rounded and sensitive human beings. If that is indeed our belief, history must be central to the education of our children.’
Davies, 1998

‘From the literature on the components of historical reasoning we conclude that skilled historical reasoning can be described as reasoning which reflects contextualization or taking into account the historical period and setting, the use of substantive and metaconcepts to describe, compare, and explain historical phenomena, and sound argumentation based on a careful inspection and evaluation of available sources’
Van Drie and Van Boxtel, 2008

We cover the full national curriculum for History and use national curriculum statements to ensure we cover a broad and balanced curriculum, but essentially, the programme of study for both KS1 and 2 are constructed as follows:

• Asking Perceptive Questions
• Thinking Critically
• Weighing Evidence and Arguments
• Developing Perspective and Judgement

At Linden, we teach children to be Historians by:

• Stimulating the children’s interest and understanding about the lives of people who lived in the past.
• Teaching children to think as historians by investigating the past through examining historical artefacts and primary sources. Inquiry-based learning is a way of learning and teaching that allows the natural curiosities of students to engage in thinking that is logical, rational, and sustainable.
• Aiding children in understanding that historical events can be interpreted in different ways.
• Developing the skills of enquiry, analysis, interpretation and problem-solving. This is achieved through understanding (facts, concepts, generalizations); thinking processes (enquiry, knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, interpretation, evaluation); research skills; social skills; affective processes and problem solving

At Linden, children are Historians because they engage with the past.

Across the school, this is achieved through:

• Knowing and understanding the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative.
• Knowing and understanding significant aspects of the history of the wider world.
• Gaining and deploying a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms and specific vocabulary.
• Undertaking research into local history through local history projects and Topics centred around the world in which we live.
• Studying a range of time periods, major events and key figures in accordance with the National Curriculum.
• Developing cultural capital through the meaningful teaching of history. This achieved through trips, Topic Days and cross-curricular application

At Linden, children are Historians because they are critical thinkers.

Across the school, this is achieved through:

• Understanding historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions.
• Understanding the methods of historical enquiry and implements them in research and written work.
• Gaining historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short and long-term timescales.

 Check out our gallery below to see what History looks like at Linden!