Our children explore a wide range of topics throughout their time at Northfield. They learn about the British Isles, from pre-history to the cultural and demographic changes that have happened within living memory, and find out about the social and industrial history of their local area. They learn to situate their historical knowledge within a global context – understanding the interconnectedness of different societies as well as some of their similarities and differences.

They learn about where our knowledge of the past comes from – understanding the different types of evidence that exist and, further up the school, more confidently interrogating the reliability of evidence and some of the reasons for differing representations and interpretations of the past. They also gain an understanding of how long ago different historical periods were and when different civilisations existed in relation to each other – which had a heyday of a few hundred years and which lasted much longer.

We like to bring history to life with experiences within the school as well as trips, and gain a broader perspective by making links with our reading, with art and by discussing the moral and philosophical questions wrapped up in our topics.

As well as the books in our library, there are lots of online resources for budding historians, from videos and articles to high-quality photographs of historical artefacts.