What we will be learning:

The children will begin their learning with an in-depth study of an Ancient civilisation - Egypt. The theme will focus upon the achievements of the earliest civilizations – an overview of where and when the first civilizations appeared and why.

The children will also spend a brief period of time considering the other civilisations of: Ancient Sumer, The Indus Valley, The Shang Dynasty of Ancient China in order to draw similarities and contrasts between periods of time.

In particular, the study of Ancient Egypt will predominantly focus upon their major achievements in construction, farming and language. This will enable the children to understand the real impact of Egypt on society, economy and religion today.

They will know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; and consider not just their achievements, but their follies of mankind to see what we have learned from the past. 

Through this in-depth study, they will deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’ and ‘civilisation’, noting why they are not around today.

The children will continue to explore 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 and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses; understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

One of the main aims of this study is to gain 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