Teaching of history is very good. In all lessons seen there was a clear focus on specific history content and also an explicit focus on the planning and delivery of key historical skills and processes. In a year 6 lesson pupils were exploring how World War Two began there was a sharp focus on causation and significance. Pupils working in groups were ranking possible causes of the war in terms of how important they thought they were. The pupils’ confidence in using terms such as appeasement and compromise was impressive. In a year 1 class the lesson explored a Victorian kitchen with a clear focus on change, similarity and difference. In both classes the teacher explicitly used the words causation, significance, similarity and difference with the pupils. Teachers use a very wide range of teaching approaches including role play, varied resources, visits and visitors, ICT and excellent stimulus from the highly imaginative learning environments throughout the school. There are clear plans in place to develop independent tasks, some as homeworks and many topics start with pupils generating investigation questions linked to their new theme. The overall result of this teaching is that from lower than expected starting points on entry, 73% of pupils leaving the school in year 6 in 2018 achieved above expected levels of achievement against the school’s progression criteria. As this system works its way through the school from Early Years upwards there is every likelihood that this figure will improve further. 

Once past the school reception area, the school becomes one of the richest learning environments the assessor has seen. The school has been described as an ‘oasis of learning’ and this is well deserved. The school hall, corridors and all classrooms are full of stimulating displays of children’s work in 2 and 3D, of posters, models on the walls and ceilings and a richness of learning spaces for children to enter throughout the school including an Anderson shelter, an Arabian silk tent, railway huts, caves, wooden huts, kitchen areas and a large wooden train. Support staff are used effectively – one is an aspiring actor and regularly dresses in costume to visit different classes in a variety of characters. In addition to this internal environment, the school works very hard to support a good menu of visits to a wide range of local and more distant places.  

Marking and feedback is very good. This is underpinned by a clear progression document that has been developed by the subject leader and shared with all staff through staff meetings. It is this document that enables teachers to plan lessons focusing not just on the content but also the key historical processes, skills and concepts. The document includes separate lines of progression for historical knowledge, concepts and enquiry and is a testimony to the skill and understanding of the subject leader. Lessons are planned by all staff using this document and this enables focused feedback to be made against the specific historical criteria. In one year 6 book an extended piece of writing in the form of a letter from the trenches showed remarkable understanding of the context as well as understanding of a distant time and place and was duly credited by the teacher for its historical content, despite the fact that the literacy content was considerably weaker. On-going marking is done throughout the lesson by class teachers and support staff to guide the learning, and more detailed feedback, including next steps in learning is given on more substantial pieces of work. This system was embedded in all classes and in the pupil discussions children were very clear in explaining the system and how it works for them. One development point could be for the teachers to work together to identify specific key learning points for more detailed feedback. The assessment information is gathered together at the end of each academic year and passed on to the next teacher as children move through the school. Staff explained that this information, together with the expectations as set out in the progression sheets, allowed them to tailor learning to meet the varied needs within their classes. The impact of this system has been outlined above in terms of the progress children make across the school. 

This section deserves to be recognised as gold practice reflecting the work and understanding on the part of the subject leader, the quality of the training to disseminate the ideas, the work of the staff to understand and implement the ideas and the impact this has had on learners. 

The headteacher and senior leaders are fully behind this work (and active participants) and parents are asking the school for plenty of advanced warning to enable them to prepare costumes for themselves and the children. The school works very hard to ensure that funding is used effectively to support learning, including the purchase of additional resources such as artefacts and to financially support visits. The school has a system of link governors and there is evidence of the monitoring of history by the link governor for the subject. 

The management of the subject is excellent. There are effective systems and processes in place with clear strategic plans underpinned by carefully thought out CPD requests. Evaluation of the subject is done initially by the subject leader through book trawls and learning walks and there are additional tiers of monitoring and evaluation by the headteacher and link governor.  Staff and pupil surveys have been used to gather additional information to inform subject development plans. The subject leader has used her own subject knowledge to design the progression schemes and has led staff meetings to support staff in their use of this document. Additional support and CPD has been bought in to support specific requests from staff for example in developing more effective use of artefacts and visual resources and in developing thinking skills approaches. There are also regular meetings held between the school and a small group of local primary schools and two high schools. 

The leadership of the subject is impressive with a dedicated, thoughtful and knowledgeable subject leader who has had a very positive impact on the teaching of history in the school and has a clear vision and support of senior leaders to take it on further. This could be done through dissemination of the quality of history at the school and particularly the use of the school/classroom environment to support outstanding learning in history. This could be through an article in Primary History, taking a lead session in the local cluster with secondary schools in attendance, or taking part in a regional forum.  

This section merits a gold award. 

There is a good balance between local, national and international history and interestingly, despite the additional challenge of resourcing, the optional topics such as the ancient civilisations and international topics are frequently rotated. Local history is well covered to ensure that the pupils develop pride in their local area. The pupils were able to talk in detail about local people such as Reginald Mitchell, Josiah Wedgewood, Emma Bridgewater and Clarice Cliff, the wider Potteries and also were clear how “Stoke links to all the other history topics we learn.” 

As a consequence of the level of planning of the subject, pupils are enabled to make numerous links in their learning. Comparisons between different times in the past were seen in year 1 where children were comparing a Victorian kitchen to a modern one and again in year 5 where a more complex comparison was being undertaken of an Egyptian worker’s house and a modern home. The teaching of the long term thematic topic on crime and punishment in year 6 provided another good opportunity for pupils to explore the ideas of change and links over time. 

The curriculum is stimulating, well thought out and provides a good balance between the overall allocation of topics to individual year groups and the autonomy of individual teachers to then adapt the content to their own class circumstances within the overall progression structure. A judgement of gold is appropriate. 

There are consistent and strong links between history and literacy so that most history topics are linked to a work of fiction such as the topic on World War 2 linked to Letters from the Lighthouse. Links to art, geography and D&T were also seen and one interesting activity linked to RE which set pupils the task of using a Venn diagram to evaluate the similarities and differences between the ancient Egyptian festival of Opet with the modern festival of Diwali. There is a very good range of educational visits on offer throughout the school. The school works hard to ensure these are in place to compensate for the lack of opportunity many children have to travel beyond their local community. The range of visits currently includes the Imperial War Museum in Manchester, Beeston Castle, Biddulph Grange, the National Justice Museum in Nottingham, as well as local visits such as to the local war memorial. The subject leader is currently in contact with the Gladstone Pottery Museum to develop some learning activities for local schools. This work should be given added impetus with the achievement of the Quality Mark. The school also has good links with the New Vic Theatre and uses theatre companies as visitors to the school. There are history pages and content on all of the class pages of the school website. The school has gone to great lengths and commits much of its funding to providing a rich and varied learning environment for all pupils. As such it deserves recognition at the gold level.