Our History Curriculum is designed to help our pupils understand how the past has impacted the world we live in today, so that they are better prepared for the future. Our curriculum equips pupils with powerful knowledge about significant people, events and concepts which builds their cultural capital, enabling them to engage in intellectual conversations and debates.

Our curriculum trains students to think, speak and write ‘like a historian’ confidently, with a strong focus on disciplinary and literacy skills being taught. They will learn how to ask thoughtful questions, weigh evidence and make substantiated judgements. By acquiring this transformative substantive and disciplinary knowledge, students will engage more confidently with the wider world.

The curriculum content is coherently structured as a narrative which allows students to grow schema and harness the conceptual knowledge of how people in the past lived, how they were ruled and what they believed. The topics are sequenced in a chronological framework which acts as a progression model, becoming incrementally more ambitious as the learning journey progresses. Key conceptual knowledge is built upon at each stage, with main concepts like conquest, conflict and control appearing throughout the curriculum and constantly revisited through retrieval practice. We aim for students to be able to find conceptual links when they encounter different topics to help them understand the complexities of society both past and present.

Students begin their History lessons with a knowledge retrieval activity to assess and reactivate prior knowledge. Challenging vocabulary is taught explicitly using the Frayer Model and students are encouraged to apply this in both their spoken and written work. Students are encouraged to fully participate in class discussion through the use of cold-calling and oral debates.  Teachers frequently model their thought process when writing extended answers and provide students with modelled, worked examples.

Students are assessed formatively through low stakes quizzes and targeted questioning where misconceptions and gaps in knowledge are addressed by teachers. Students are also assessed through summative assessments each half-term which check their understanding of a whole topic or disciplinary skill as well as their written communication. Students receive feedback from their teachers and are given opportunities to act upon this feedback so that they know how to develop specific skills.

In Key Stage 3, students are set homework tasks via Microsoft Forms and in Key Stage 4, homework is set on GCSE Pod. Both platforms utilise quizzes which are useful for knowledge retrieval and revision. Students are provided with opportunities to go on History trips for example to Speke Hall, the International Slavery Museum and the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site.

History can lead on to further study at A-Level and degree level. The range of skills developed can lead to a plethora of opportunities including careers in law, politics, journalism, research, civil service, archaeology, museum work, teaching and more!