History Curriculum at Corpus Christi Primary School

‘The more you know about the past, the better you are prepared for the future.’ (Theodore Roosevelt)

Intent

What do we want to achieve in our curriculum?

At Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School, we believe a rich, high-quality history education will help our children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We want to nurture and inspire our children’s curiosity and fascination, so they want to learn more about their past and how it influences the world they live in today. Our pupils come from different parts of the world and we want to help them develop their own individual sense of identity and be proud of their cultural heritage.

We aim to provide a logically planned and progressive curriculum which embeds key historical concepts, knowledge and skills. We want our children to experience history through enjoyable, memorable lessons and purposeful educational visits, which foster their passion for history and helps them to progress in their knowledge and understanding.

Teaching should equip our pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgements. We also aim to develop our children’s ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past and to foster a respect for historical evidence.

Through the subject of history, we want our pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and the relationships between different groups of people.By the end of Key Stage two, we want our children to continue this interest and thirst for learning about history; and we hope that through our careers related learning initiative, our children have future aspirations to become budding historians, archeologists, archivists and history teachers.

Implementation

How is our curriculum delivered?

Our history curriculum is challenging and ambitious and it has been designed to empower our children to become independent and resilient learners. It has been planned to draw upon several powerful sources of knowledge and it is our intention that pupils become more expert as they progress through the key stages, accumulating and connecting substantive and disciplinary historical knowledge.

Through our progressive curriculum pupils are taught Substantive knowledge-This is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used about the past.

Disciplinary knowledge-is knowledge of how children investigate the past and how they construct, and understand historical claims, arguments and accounts. We call this ‘Thinking as a historian’. The features of thinking historically may involve significant evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspective and contextual interpretation.

At Corpus Christi, we have planned our history curriculum to be enjoyable, immersive and progressive. Each unit of study draws upon our children’s prior learning and new content is introduced into carefully planned and logical sequences, allowing them to build upon what they know. Our lessons are well structured and children are taught subject specific skills and characteristics which we expect them to demonstrate independently as they progress through the key stages.

At the beginning of each new module, teachers send the theme of the new topic in history home with a list of suggested projects that children can complete at home with their family. Pupils are then encouraged to bring their finished project into school to present in assembly.

Please click here to see our History Overview and progression maps

Please click here to view our Coverage map

Impact

At Corpus Christi primary School, our broad and balanced curriculum has been carefully mapped out to enable our children to gain the necessary knowledge and skills they require for them to gain expertise and to think like a historian.

Curriculum coverage is not only evident in pupil work books but through class and whole school displays and learning environments. Pupils can talk convincingly the depth of their historical knowledge and about educational visits and the impact of these experiences on their learning. Teachers use formative and summative assessment to monitor pupils progress and inform planning for subsequent lessons. At the end of each module, pupils undertake a short quiz to check their knowledge. Pupils are identified who need extra support and those working above age related expectations are challenged appropriately to extend their learning.

Through ‘Book Talk’ pupils are able to retrieve key historical facts, make links and celebrate their achievements. Verbal feedback is used productively in lessons to help pupils improve their work and to celebrate achievement. Teachers have high expectations regarding children’s understanding and the quality and presentation of their work and vocabulary development is a key focus in lessons. Pupils enjoy participating in a range of enriching educational visits and children can discuss with enthusiasm visits to Eden Camp and Beamish Museum.

Our history curriculum is ambitious and we believe that arming children with powerful knowledge about the past, helps them be better prepared for the future.