Throughout their time at Sandridge School, children will have the opportunity to explore a wide range of eras locally, nationally and globally. Lessons will focus on developing a wide range of skills that can be utilised in many areas of life as they progress through the school and beyond Sandridge.
As well-rounded historians, pupils will develop an ability to reflect on the past and compare it to modern life. In the classroom, they will investigate key events, figures and places related to their topic. The Sandridge curriculum covers the necessary National Curriculum objectives and aims to broaden pupils’ understanding of the way history affects the present day.
Starting off in Early Years, history is taught as part of Understanding the World through cross-curricular, adult led lessons. Topics investigated include Remembrance Day, personal routine sequences and human life cycles, when they bring in their very own baby pictures. Within these topics, they create timelines and discuss similarities and differences between their families. During maths sessions, the children learn about the passing of time including day and night. In their own learning time, pupils have the opportunity to talk about their own family-past and present. Another special Sandridge activity is the Marvellous Me Box. Taken home each week by a lucky pupil, the children put in items that are special to them and they share them with the class. This often includes toys they have had since they were a baby and photographs of family members and trips they have been on. By the end of Reception, children aim to gain a wealth of knowledge and skills linked to the Early Learning Goals, particularly Understanding the World. Throughout Early Years, children are prompted to link their own experience of the world to past events.
In Key Stage 1, pupils will be encouraged to use their initiative to identify historical objects and generate questions to learn more about it. Through toys, explorers, and castles, the engaging Year 1 curriculum captures young minds and encourages them to develop their understanding of differences between the present and historical eras. Sandridge learners will begin to focus on more specific areas of history in Year 2. They will explore Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot-investigating why the Catholics and Protestants wanted different monarchs. Continuing to build on their skills, they will utilise a range of sources to learn about Florence Nightingale and make comparisons between holidays throughout history.
Moving up the school, pupils continue to broaden their minds through the Stone Age, Romans and Ancient Egypt in Lower KS2. They will study a range of historical accounts and critically examine how the recount portrays the person or event. Focusing on British history, pupils will examine the Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Scots lifestyle using a range of sources. Developing their ability to place events on a timeline, Year Four will begin to gain an understanding of Maya civilisation and similarities/difference to modern life.
With an increasing skill portfolio, Year 5 begin the year by analysing life in Anglo-Saxon Britain and then how dramatically it changed with the arrival of the Vikings. Pupils continue to assess the reliability of sources while learning about the Shang Dynasty in Ancient China before exploring the intriguing era of the Ancient Greeks. Moving into Year 6, children begin to tackle complex topics that require mature thinking to consider the historical context within which events took place. The class will investigate how crime and punishment has evolved in Britain chronologically and use extracts from historical fiction to explore that era. Using the local area, the children will investigate the history of Sandridge focusing on it’s role during World War 2. Their final topic will be the Atlantic Slave Trade with a focus on understanding the reality for slaves and the events that led to the end of the slave trade.