History

History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.

Our History curriculum draws upon several powerful sources of knowledge:

1. Substantive knowledge - this is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used about the past.
2. Disciplinary knowledge – this is the use of that knowledge and how children construct understanding through historical claims, arguments and accounts. We call it ‘Working Historically.’
3. Historical analysis is developed through selecting, organising and integrating knowledge through reasoning and inference making in response to our structured questions and challenges. We call this ‘Thinking historically’
4. Substantive concepts, such as invasion and civilisation are taught through explicit vocabulary instruction as well as through the direct content and context of the study.

Our History curriculum structure is built around the principles of advancing cumulative knowledge, chronology, change through cause and consequence, as well as making connections within and throughout periods of time studied. 

Our substantiative concepts that underpin our History curriculum are:

• Community
• Knowledge
• Invasion
• Civilisation
• Power
• Democracy

Our disciplinary concepts that help our pupils to think like an historian are:

• Chronology
• Cause and Consequence
• Change and Continuity
• Similarity and Difference
• Evidence
• Significance

Spaced Retrieval Practice Approach

Spaced Retrieval Practice Approach

Our History is planned so that the retention of knowledge is much more than just ‘in the moment knowledge’. The cumulative nature of the curriculum is made memorable by the implementation of retrieval and spaced retrieval practice, word building and deliberate practice tasks. The effect of this cumulative model supports opportunities for children to associate and connect with significant periods of time, people, places and events.

Our History curriculum strategically incorporates a range of modules that revisit, elaborate and sophisticate key concepts, events, people and places.

Click here to see our sequencing map and one page overview for History

Aims of the History Curriculum

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• know and understand the history of Britain as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
• know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
• gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
• understand 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
• 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