History Curriculum Statement of Intent

To develop children’s experiences, understanding, historical skills and vocabulary. We teach a creative and chronological History curriculum to inspire and ignite children’s interest and curiosity about the wider world, giving them the vital tools and cultural capital to become active and reflective members in the world.

Intent (rationale and curriculum design)

• To build a History curriculum that develops learning and results in the acquisition of new knowledge and skills so that children will know more, remember more and understand more.
  
  
•  Children develop both disciplinary knowledge (the skills historians use to investigate and interpret the past) and substantive knowledge (the historical facts, events, people and concepts studied).
  
  
• Our enquiry-led scheme contains units and lessons built upon key enquiry questions. There is a big question for the whole topic, and individual questions for each lesson that help children answer the big question. Historical enquiry skills are built upon progressively throughout the scheme and include (please see the progression map for more information):
  
  

        - Historical Interpretations
        - Historical Investigations and enquiry
        - Chronological understanding
        - Knowledge and understanding of events in the Past
        - Presenting, organising and communication
        - Substantive concepts and vocabulary

        In addition to this, progression of disciplinary concepts are also woven into units and include: 

        - Continuity and Change
        - Cause and Consequence
        - Similarities and Differences
        - Historical Significance.

• We aim to develop children’s understanding of substantive concepts that are revisited throughout the curriculum, including:
  
  - Migration, settlement and invasion
  - Conflict and war
  - Empire
  - Power and Government
  - Trade and Technology
  - Civilisation and Society
  - Environmental history and sustainability.
  
  
• We aim to not only cover but also to exceed the depth and breadth of the National Curriculum.
  
  
• To provide an interesting and varied curriculum that interests our children and meets the needs of all backgrounds, cultures and abilities.
  
  
• To create meaningful opportunities to link History to other subjects.
  
  
• To ensure units are taught in a logical sequence where children build on prior, core knowledge. This will allow children to make connections to different concepts such as trade and empire.
  
  
• We want children to develop a strong sense of chronology and understand how historical periods, civilisations and events connect to one another across time.
  
  
• Staff will follow their curriculum maps to ensure there is progression throughout the school and lessons follow a sequence that is pertinent to the topic.
  
  
• To fulfil the duties of the National Curriculum whereby schools must provide a broad and balanced curriculum. We promote the spiritual, moral, social, cultural development of pupils and prepare them for their responsibilities for later life. Through these lessons, we intend to inspire pupils and practitioners to develop a love of history and see how it has shaped the world they live in. It is important for children to understand that the past influences the present and the future. We want to encourage children to learn that they can’t change history but what they can do is learn about it and learn from it, then use this information to help shape a better future.
  
• We will monitor progress regularly through book looks, evidence of work and discussions with the pupils.
  
  
• We will ensure that all staff are kept informed of any changes within the History curriculum and that best practice is shared.
  
  
  

Implementation and delivery

• History Seekers Scheme
  We use and adapt the History Seekers scheme. Subject leader has listened to feedback from teachers whilst ensuring complete National Curriculum coverage. The scheme helps equip teachers with expert subject knowledge.
  
  History Seekers is an enquiry-led scheme where units and lessons are built around key enquiry questions. Historical enquiry skills are progressively developed throughout the school and include historical interpretations, historical investigations, chronological understanding, knowledge and understanding of events and people in the past, presenting and communicating ideas, substantive concepts and historical vocabulary.
  
  
• History Hook
  Each History Seekers lesson includes a History Hook to begin that links to the lesson’s enquiry question and to light the spark of learning history.
  
  
• Knowledge Organisers
  Children have access to key knowledge, language and meanings to understand History and to use these skills across the curriculum.
  
  Knowledge organisers include substantive knowledge, key vocabulary and important historical concepts which are revisited throughout a child’s journey through school.
  
  
• Knowledge/display walls
  History on Knowledge Walls throughout school focus on key knowledge, vocabulary and questions and exemplify the terminology used throughout the teaching of History, British Values and SMSC, enabling pupils to make links across the wider curriculum.
  
  
• Chronology and class timelines
  British History is taught in a chronological manner throughout the school. Each class has a timeline that follows them throughout school. This records all previous history learning and enables children to put new learning in the context of previous learning. This also includes the wider curriculum such as artists and composers that have been studied.
  
  In KS1, the coverage of history begins with our ‘Historical Enquiry’, which introduces the key historical concepts and enquiry skills. Coverage in KS1 continues with units, such as ‘Travel and Transport’ and ‘Kings, Queens and Castles’, which enable children to acquire an understanding of time, events and people within their own living memory as well as their parents’ and grandparents’ memories. For KS1, we have designed a curriculum that revisits and embeds chronology within and beyond each unit to allow a full opportunity for children to really grasp the difficult concept of the passing of time. This is supported by our History Seekers Timeline Display packs that accompany each unit and can be used as a working wall during lessons. The concept of chronology in year 1 is explored through the family of Faith and Felix, as well as their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, further embedding the concept of chronology and the past.
  
  The intent in KS2 is that children work in chronological order from year 3 to year 6 on the core British history study units taken from the English national curriculum, starting with ‘Ancient Civilisations’ and ‘the Stone Age to Iron Age’ in year 3 and then progressing onto more modern history in year 6 with the ‘Second World War' and 'Migration in Britain’ units. Each unit supports deepening chronological understanding with key Timeline Display Packs for use as working walls in class as well as progressively revisiting chronology throughout each unit, building upon the sense of time. 
  
  In KS2, children build upon this understanding by studying British history chronologically from Year 3 to Year 6. Children begin with Ancient Civilisations and the Stone Age to Iron Age in Year 3 before progressing through later historical periods and finishing with more modern history, including the Second World War and Migration in Britain in Year 6.
  
  There are two thematic units in KS2: ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘Migration in Britain Through Time’, with the intention of introducing children to a wider variety of historical topics. The aim is for children to truly develop and embed a sense of time, understand how civilisations were interconnected and be exposed to a diverse range of history topics. Through this carefully sequenced curriculum children start to understand how some historical events occurred concurrently in different locations, e.g. ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and the Stone Age. 
  
  Timelines are used as working documents throughout units to support children in making connections between periods of history and revisiting prior learning.
  
  
• Recap prior learning
  In order for children to know more and remember more in each area of history studied, the lesson sequence is structured so that prior learning is always considered and opportunities for revision and retrieval of key dates, events and facts are built into lessons, highlighting core knowledge and relevant fingertip knowledge. This enables children to make stronger connections between current and prior learning.
  
  These retrieval activities also provide great opportunities to help make the key knowledge stick. This all allows for revision to become part of good practice and ultimately helps build a depth to children’s historical understanding. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lessons and resources help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenges. Revision and introduction of key vocabulary is built into each lesson. This vocabulary is then included in knowledge organisers, display materials and additional resources to ensure that children are allowed opportunities to repeat and revise this knowledge.
  
  
• Big picture and lesson review
  New history learning is put into the context of the big picture of the history that they have learnt throughout the school and their big question/line of enquiry in their current module. Children are taught to make connections across historical periods and civilisations, developing an understanding of how societies, beliefs, trade, migration and power have changed and developed over time. We include significant people studied in other subjects such as composers and artists in our timelines.
  
  
• Subject specific and content specific vocabulary
  Identified through knowledge organisers and knowledge wall displays and highlighted to the children at the beginning of lessons and revisited through class assemblies and ‘Quiz Its’ and ‘Check Its’.
  
  Revision and introduction of key vocabulary are carefully planned within lessons and reinforced through knowledge organisers, knowledge walls and retrieval activities to ensure knowledge becomes embedded in long-term memory.
  
  
• Assessment via Check Its, Quiz Its and Sonar Tracker
  In Years 1-6, children complete a ‘Check It’. This is an interim assessment halfway through a topic. This assessment informs teaching for the rest of the unit to help ensure key knowledge and skills are learned. Children also complete ‘Quiz Its’. A ‘Quiz It’ is completed the term after that particular module finished to help children recap knowledge and to teacher assess what knowledge has been remembered.
  
  
• Provision in EYFS
  EYFS new Framework 2025 - Reception curriculum is also included in our progression framework and carefully planned for to ensure there is a combination of progression and revisited learning between Reception and Year One. For example, when learning about ‘How have toys changed in the past 80 years?’ in Year One, we can link it back to the Reception learning of ‘Past and Present- Ourselves and our families’.
  
  

• Inclusion
  Through adaptive teaching, differentiation where appropriate and support, children of all abilities and those with SEND are carefully considered so all children have an opportunity to learn about the past and immerse themselves into each topic, creating a love of the subject.
  
• Use of artefacts
  Where possible we use artefacts for children to explore and investigate. We believe that handling or viewing real objects enhances the children’s historical knowledge, understanding and skills.
  

• Use of sources / bias
  We aim for children to recognise that bias exists in some form in many historical sources, and this needs to be accounted for in their interpretation of evidence.
  
  Children learn that different interpretations of the past exist and begin to understand how historians use evidence from a range of sources to construct knowledge about the past.
  
  

• Cultural Capital
  We plan visits, visitors and involvement in the community activity to provide first-hand experiences for the children to support and develop their learning. This is often linked to History.
  
  

•  Learning environment
  The learning environment is designed to ensure children develop their history knowledge, and continue to know more, remember more and understand more. Knowledge walls and class timelines are key drivers to this, with teachers making reference to them during lessons and at other regular times during the week.
  
  

• Outdoor learning
  We will give the children the opportunity to explore the local area through fieldwork, visits from significant individuals and research.
  
  

• Themed weeks/days with a History focus
  In order to implement our intention of exceeding the National curriculum we schedule themed weeks where the whole school focuses on an aspect of History to ignite our children’s curiosity while meeting the needs of all backgrounds, cultures and abilities. This includes celebrating; Black History Month, British Values Week, World Cultural and Heritage day, Remembrance Day and History Week (where we learn about the History of our school and local area through different periods). 
  
  

• Staff CPD
  We have informative CPD that develop the skills and knowledge of teaching staff. Where appropriate, this is shared with other schools within the borough, any knowledge gained from such meetings is brought back to the school. Staff also have membership to the Historical Association, providing valuable subject knowledge, including informative podcasts. These short podcasts allow teachers to build on their specific subject knowledge in a time-effective, engaging manner while taking staff workload into consideration. 
  
  

Impact and Outcomes

• Children will know more, remember more and understand more about History.
• A culture of high expectations where pupil’s love of History can flourish.
• The school timetable is sequenced to allow for deeper learning, while minimising cognitive overload.
• The large majority of children will achieve age related expectation in History.
• Children will build their knowledge of historical strands including; historical knowledge (constructing the past and sequencing the past), history concepts (change and development, cause and effect, significance and interpretation) and historical enquiry (planning and carrying out a historical enquiry and using sources as evidence).
• Children will develop a secure understanding of chronology and be able to make connections between different periods of history.
• Children will demonstrate increasing confidence when using historical vocabulary and applying disciplinary concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarities and differences and historical significance.
• Children will understand that historical knowledge is constructed through evidence and interpretation and can explain how historians learn about the past.
• As historians, children will learn lessons from history to influence the decisions they make in their lives in the future as active and responsible citizens.
• Children’s cultural capital will increase to help improve their life chances.
• Children will leave OLSJ with a curiosity and enthusiasm for history and an understanding of how the past continues to influence the present.

Key Terminology

Substantive Knowledge

Substantive knowledge refers to the residual knowledge that children should take away from the unit after it has been taught. It consists of the core facts and historical knowledge of the period, such as historical narrative, significant events or people, period features, chronology and substantive concepts.

Substantive Concepts

The big ideas that run throughout the history curriculum and are revisited over time to deepen understanding. These include concepts such Migration, settlement and invasion, Conflict and war, Empire, Power and Government, Trade and Technology, Civilisation and Society, Environmental history and sustainability. They are words that are hard to define in one definition, as they mean slightly different things in different contexts and periods of time. As a child progresses through their education, they will learn a little more about the concept each time they come across it, slowly building a coherent understanding of the concept throughout history. Substantive concepts should be taught within historical contexts to provide a strong base for children’s understanding. Examples include power and subsidiary words, such as ‘rule’, ‘monarchy’, ‘emperor’ and ‘democracy’. In our scheme, each substantive concept is covered more than once to ensure that children have plenty of opportunities to develop their understanding. For example the substantive concept of ‘Power and Government’ is covered in Year 2 in the topic ‘Kings, Queens and Castles’, then in Year 4’s topic ‘Anglo- Saxons and Scots’ and again in Year 5’s topic on ‘Ancient Greece’.

Disciplinary Knowledge

Disciplinary knowledge includes all the skills that children will need to develop over time
in their history lessons. They are skills that enable us to critically analyse contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past and make our own reasoned judgements about the past. Disciplinary knowledge is separated into historical enquiry and disciplinary concepts.

Historical Enquiry

Children learn to ask historically valid questions, investigate a range of sources, evaluate evidence and construct their own understanding of the past. Through historical enquiry, children learn about the nature of primary and secondary sources, begin to understand how our knowledge of the past is constructed, develop chronological understanding and make connections between time periods.

Disciplinary Concepts

Disciplinary concepts are concepts used in the study of history. They form the basis of
many questions historians ask about the past and include • Continuity and Change • Cause and Consequence • Similarities and Differences • Historical Significance. These concepts will enable children to ask historically valid questions, create connections, identify contrasts, examine trends and construct analyses.

Chronological Understanding

Children develop a secure understanding of chronology by placing events, people and civilisations within a wider historical framework and making connections across different periods of time.

The following Ofsted resources have been used to inform our scheme of work:

• Research review series: geography, June 2021
• Getting our bearings: the geography subject report, September 2023
• Geography Subject curriculum insights for primary and secondary teachers and leaders
• Our scheme has also been informed by the Geographical Association’s Curriculum Framework, 2022