History

INTENT

At St Joseph’s, our history curriculum is a coherently planned sequence of lessons to ensure a comprehensive and progressive coverage of the skills and concepts required in the national curriculum. Our aim is for children to truly develop and embed a sense of time, understand howcivilisations were interconnected and to be exposed to a diverse range of history topics.

Our curriculum develops children’s understanding of substantive concepts, which are revisited throughout different units. Historical enquiry skills are built upon progressively throughout the units and include: Historical Interpretations; Historical Investigations; Chronological Understanding; Knowledge and Understanding of Events and People in the Past; Presenting, Organising and Communicating; and Substantive Concepts and Historical 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; and Historical Significance.

The coverage of some history in KS1, such as ‘Travel and Transport’ and ‘Significant Explorers’, enables 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, our curriculum allows a full opportunity for children to really grasp the difficult concept of chronology. Therefore, in both years, children will start with a unit that is the furthest back in time and end with a unit that looks at some more recent history.

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 nationalcurriculum, starting with ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’ in year 3 and then progressing onto more modern history in year 6 with the ‘World War II’ unit. This isrepeated for ancient history, starting with ‘Ancient Egypt’ in year 3, moving on to ‘Ancient Greece’ in year 5 and ending with ‘Maya Civilisation’ in year 6.We have enriched our curriculum with a thematic unit at the end of each year group to allow children to experience a wider variety of historical topics.

All of this is underpinned by our three pillars of our curriculum: live wisely, think deeply, love generously.