Curriculum Intent

Purpose of Study

A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift argument, and develop perspective judgement. 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. National Curriculum, 2014.

Aims and Objectives for Teaching and Learning in History

The National Curriculum for History aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Know and understand the history of these islands 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: characteristics and 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, differences 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.

At St Mary and All Saints CE School, we want our pupils to be effective historians and curious about the lives of significant individuals. We want our pupils to be able to think critically and be able to apply their learnt knowledge and understanding to explain concepts. We want our children to develop a deeper chronological understanding and a mental timeline of history. This will enable them to consider and interpret sources of evidence more successfully to make judgements and connections between facts, and put history into perspective. We want our pupils to also learn and apply the historical skills of enquiry and communication.