We are Historians

At St Mary’s, we believe 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 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.  We use the CUSP curriculum at St Mary's.

Aims of the History Curriculum

The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

• know and understand the history of Britain 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; characteristic 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, difference 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.

Our history curriculum draws upon several powerful sources of knowledge – this is our view on history:

Substantive knowledge– this is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used about the past. Common misconceptions are explicitly revealed as non-examples and positioned against known and accurate content. Misconceptions are challenged carefully and in the context of the substantive and disciplinary knowledge.

Disciplinary knowledge– this is the use of that knowledge and how children construct understanding through historical claims, arguments and accounts. We call it ‘Working Historically.’ The features of thinking historically may involve significance,  evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspective, and contextual interpretation.

Historical analysis is developed through selecting, organising and integrating knowledge through reasoning and inference making in response to our structured questions and challenges. We call this ‘Thinking historically’

Substantive concepts, such as tax, invasion and civilisation are taught through explicit vocabulary instruction as well as through the direct content and context of the study.

Our history curriculum draws upon prior learning, wherever the content is taught. For example, in the EYFS, pupils may learn about the past and present through daily activities, exploring through change, and understanding more about the lives of others through books and visitors as well as their own experiences. These experiences are drawn upon and used to position new learning in KS1.

The structure is built around the principles of advancing cumulative knowledge, chronology, change through cause and effect, as well as making connections within and throughout periods of time studied.

The history curriculum is planned so that the retention of knowledge is much more than just ‘in the moment knowledge’.  The curriculum strategically incorporates a range of modules that revisit, elaborate and sophisticate key concepts, events, people and places.

A guiding principle of the history curriculum, is that pupils become ‘more expert’ with each study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental timeline. This guards against superficial, disconnected and fragmented understanding of the past. Specific and associated historical vocabulary is planned sequentially and cumulatively from Y1 to Y6. High frequency, multiple meaning words (Tier 2) are taught alongside and help make sense of subject specific words (Tier 3). Each learning module in history has a vocabulary module with teacher guidance, tasks and resources.

2024 - 2025

2025 -2026

2026 -2027

Our Policy

Our Historians' Vocabulary

History in Early Years

Understanding the world
 

In our EYFS classes History is taught through carefully planned topics. In the first few weeks, there is a big focus on themselves, their family and their immediate environment. Children will sequence events and explore patterns and routines. Children will be encouraged to talk about their findings and record them by drawing, writing or model making. These emerging skills and development of knowledge and understanding can be used to explore crucial early historical skills. Children’s learning will also be enriched through first-hand experiences such as trips to local historical places, museums and inviting visitors to school. 

The EYFS Statutory Framework states that, ‘’Understanding the World involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.’’

2 - year - olds will: learn that they have similarities and differences that connect them to, and 
distinguish them from, others. 
Has a sense of own immediate family and relations and pets. 
In pretend play, imitate everyday actions and events from own family and cultural background, e.g. making and drinking tea, going to the barbers, being a cat, dog or bird 

3 and 4 - year - olds will: begin to make sense of their own life-story and family’s history; talk about members of their immediate family and community; name and describe people who are familiar to them.

In reception children will: comment on images of familiar situations in the past; compare and contrast characters from stories, including figures from the past.