‘The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.’  Theodore Roosevelt.

At Battling Brook Primary School, we aim to inspire our children to want to know more about the past and to think and act as historians.  In this way, children will understand how things have evolved to the present and be able to make sense of the future.  By linking their learning to a range of historical themes, we encourage them to analyse, question and delve deeper into new learning. Our children will be taught the key historical skills of: chronological understanding, historical understanding, historical enquiry, interpretations of history, organisation and communication.

Through coherently planned sequential lessons, which are accessible to all, as well as educational visits, we help children to become confident, passionate and aspirational historians by developing their skills and understanding to think critically and ask questions. 

 Characteristics of a Historian:

• The ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.
• The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.
• A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments.
• An excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.
• A passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways.
• A desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.