At St. Paul’s we believe that a high-quality history education will enable pupils to develop a better understanding of the world and communities in which they live. It should inspire their curiosity to know more about the past while equipping them to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and 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. This insight helps to build their cultural identity and foster respect for others linking to our curriculum driver Spirituality and its aim to develop an appreciation of what it means to be part of a community, an understanding of how that community has developed, the roots of our British values and an understanding of the importance of difference and diversity. Through the historical enquiry process of examining evidence, analysing and posing questions pupils are engaged and proactive in their learning, fostering independence and problem-solving skills linked to our driver of Growth. Pupils also learn that history is opinions, viewpoints and motives interwoven and enjoy deciphering historical ‘fact’, utilising skills from all curriculum areas.

Our curriculum design is based on evidence from cognitive science; three main principles underpin it:

• Learning is most effective with spaced repetition.
• Interleaving helps students to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention.
• Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.

In addition to the three principles, we also understand that learning is invisible in the short term and that sustained mastery takes time.

Our content is subject specific. History is taught as a discrete subject but opportunities for cross curricular work are identified where possible. We make intra-curricular links to strengthen schema. Continuous provision helps to provide retrieval practice for previously learned content. The school’s curriculum is planned and sequenced to cover the requirements of the National Curriculum and so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before, and towards our vision for our children as historians by the end of Year 6. The long-term plan (see below) has been designed around progression in the key areas of Chronological knowledge / understanding. Pupils become responsible for their own learning through open ended challenges and contextual activities. They understand that the enquiry process is about testing ideas and use evidence to justify or explain their reasoning. Pupils work collaboratively and supportively and are able to pose their own lines of enquiry, enabling the subject to become child-led and owned by the pupils. We aim to achieve this by developing planning and subject expertise, with access to interactive resources and artefacts, informed by current national expectations.

Teaching is based around three topics each year from the EYFS to Year 6, extending from the familiar and concrete to the less familiar and abstract. Pupils accumulate knowledge as they progress.  As the children move through the school they will be encouraged to examine, in increasing depth, many forms of evidence, for example buildings, photographs, records, memories of older generations, museums, maps and books to further deepen their understanding of the world.

During Key Stage 1, for example, during Year 1’s study of the history of toys, children learn basic historical skills using artefacts to gain knowledge, extend their vocabulary and make comparisons through the concrete experience of familiar things. This then allows them to make meaningful comparisons with items from different time periods which is built on in Year 2.

During Key Stage 2, children build a chronological framework of developments in the history of Britain. This knowledge feeds into studies of different cultures and civilisations from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and North America. Knowledge becomes both broader and deeper as pupils progress and become familiar with an ever-wider range of periods and cultures. This growing knowledge is also fed by enquiry and depth studies.

Use of Historical Association resources and other Web sites mean it can be easily adapted for remote teaching if necessary. We also use a variety of other resources to create a curriculum which is appropriate for our children, for instance making links with other subjects e.g.,Year 4’s study of the Anglo Saxons and Vikings in History links with their Geography topic on Scandinavia.