Intent of our history curriculum, provision and enrichment

The intent of our history curriculum is to develop a deep knowledge and understanding of a range of ancient to modern historical periods from Britain and the wider world. Through a coherent, chronological narrative, a clear sense of time will be understood, alongside an appreciation of how significant individuals and civilisations have influenced the past and present. They will flourish as curious historians, enquiring and interpreting the past to enrich their understanding of their world and how it is richly interconnected.

Implementation

• Our history curriculum distinguishes between subject topics and threshold concepts – subject topics are the specific aspects of the subjects that are studied; threshold concepts are explored in a wide breadth of topics and enable us to make links between the subject topics
• Progression is provided through ‘Milestones’, each of which includes the procedural and semantic knowledge that children need in order to understand the threshold concepts
• Knowledge categories in each subject enable children to express their understanding of the threshold concepts
• Learning journeys are used to organise knowledge into meaningful units and enable children to make meaningful links between subject topics
• Recognising that the development of depth of understanding takes time, each milestone enables children to make gradual progress in their procedural fluency and semantic strength. The timescale for sustained mastery is, therefore, two years of study
• Our content is subject specific, with clear intra-curricular links identified
• Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular
• Spaced repetition and continuous provision provide opportunities to increase storage and retrieval strength
• Interleaving within a 2-year cycle enables children to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention
• History is taught discretely through a variety of enriching teaching approaches
• The development of enquiry skills underpins all learning and is nurtured through access to and critical analysis of a range of sources of evidence
• We embrace a wide range of opportunities, providing access to experiences that will enrich the learning journey of our pupils.
• Educational trips, visits from specialists, themed days and use of our outside environment (including the Woodland Classroom) are used to enhance the curriculum and develop a love of history.

Inclusivity 

Valuing every child as a unique individual, teaching and learning will be adapted to ensure equitable provision, representing all protective characteristics. 

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development 

Within our history curriculum, we explore and make connections with a balance of spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects in order to prepare our children for life in modern Britain and our diverse world. 

Curriculum Content

Progression of knowledge

We have created comprehensive documents which include our whole school curriculum progression for History. The school uses the threshold concepts of the Chris Quigley curriculum to form its subject progression. 

For copyright reasons, this document is not published on our website, but is available on request.

Subject gallery

Pupil voice

My favourite periods in history are the Jurassic and Palaeolithic. I‘m really interested in how people during the Palaeolithic were nomads, always adapting to their environment and the animals that were around them. Palaeolithic peoples were very different to us but some aspects of their lives were similar to ours.

Useful websites: