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History

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Intent

At St Matthew’s C of E Primary and Nursery Academy the principle aim of history is that through the teaching of history skills, knowledge and understanding, pupils learn about significant people, events and places from both the recent and more distant past. They learn about change and continuity in the local area, in Britain and in other parts of the world. They look at history from various perspectives including, political, economic, technological, scientific, social, religious, and cultural. Children think critically about fact and opinion and use different sources of information to help them investigate the past both in depth and in an overview, using dates and historical vocabulary to describe events, people and developments. Where possible, use is made of the local environment and community, and children learn that the past can be represented and interpreted in different ways.

In line with the 2013 National Curriculum: History Programme of Study, St Matthew’s C of E Primary and Nursery Academy aims to ensure that all pupils:

  • Become increasingly critical and analytical thinkers
  • Possess a secure understanding of the chronology of the British Isles and other import periods of History
  • To discover links and connections to the History they learn and the wider community and locality
  • Further their knowledge and explanations of change and continuity over time with regards to the history of the British Isles and other societies and epochs
  • Differentiate between source types and explain how interpretations in History may differ
  • Draw on similarities and differences within given time frames and across previously taught History
  • Enquire in to historical themed questions and form their own opinions and interpretation of the past
  • Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of key vocabulary such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’

Implementation

The curriculum is led and overseen by the history lead as part of our humanities team. A regular programme of monitoring, evaluation and review and the celebration of good practice will contribute to the ongoing commitment to evolve and improve further. The teaching, learning and sequencing of the history curriculum is as follows: 

  • The ‘Connected Curriculum’ is implemented to ensure coverage and progression in all skills relating to history. Moreover, there is an opportunity within each session to revisit historical skills that need further consolidation and to use new knowledge to enforce prior skills. 
     
  • In Key Stage 1 the units start with the present, the local or the known before then looking back. This is normally followed up by casting forward. For example, children begin by looking at a current great British explorer. The study of this allows children to link it to exploring in the past before the modern technology that the children take for granted and then to cast ahead to consider what exploring might be like in the future. 
     
  • In lower Key Stage 2 (Year 3 and 4), during the years where children are developing and cementing their understanding of how time periods relate to each other, the units are organised chronologically. By upper Key Stage 2 children are not only expected to link areas of their current learning to other areas studied but also to link what they are studying to what else is happening around the world at the same time. For example, when studying the Shang Dynasty, children will make comparisons with the nature of the artefacts that remain from other contemporaneous Bronze Age societies elsewhere in the world, most notably in Britain and in Ancient Egypt. 
     
  • Chronological knowledge is supported by the use of World Timelines which allow children to recognise how their unit of study fits with others. In addition, our school connected curriculum chronology timeline provides children with a clear vision of where their learning is going next and provide staff with a clear vision of prior learning and units of study.

 Progression is set out in order to build and develop the following four dimensions: 

Substantive knowledge/concepts

Pupils knowing more, remembering more, doing more and understanding more about the body of knowledge we have identified in each enquiry as being the most valuable for them to learn. These are built-upon and increase as children become more accomplished historians.

Disciplinary thinking skills

Disciplinary

Pupils learn History through ‘the lens of the discipline’ as young historians growing in their understanding of the methods and skills that historians employ to generate knowledge and historical narratives.  As our pupils progress through the school from EYFS to Year 6 they are challenged to master and apply, through a pedagogy of enquiry, the critical disciplinary thinking skills that characterise and inform learning in History summarised here:

Conceptual Knowledge

Pupils embed the key second order concepts of History which are established in the EYFS and revisited and consolidated through our curriculum provision and evident in our planning documentation and knowledge schemas and learning organisers for each enquiry.

Key Second Order Concepts (fundamental intellectual building blocks of History):

  • Change and continuity– continuation and developments during and between periods. Historians seek to identify, describe, explain, and evaluate the impact of change over time.
  • Cause and consequence (why something happened and what impact did it then have)  - why turning points occurred and their consequences/legacy.
  • Similarities and differences within a period: social diversity including beliefs and attitudes  – drawing comparisons between people’s ways of life at two points in time or between communities living in different places at around much the same time. This may include looking at technological advances and social diversity including beliefs, attitudes.
  • Significant events and people – identifying specific events, people, places, themes, and ideas from the past as being of greater importance or more notable than others in terms of their impact and justifying why.
  • Empathy – The capacity to place oneself impartially in another’s position to better understand their motives, decisions, and actions (even if they are not shared values) from their perspective.
  • Interpretations of history – recognise that while attempting to interpret and make meaning of the past historians recognise that judgements are influences by the standpoint or world view of the observer. The way that commentators ‘see’ things is influences by their own unique set of beliefs, values and experiences. Consequently, historians will frequently see the same event differently and use different language to make sense of it.
  • Sources – Written, visual or artefactual evidence from the past which historians use to acquire information and to reach judgements about how people lived and what they thought. Every historical source provides some information about the past although some sources will inevitably be considered more significant than others. Children will make judgements about their reliability.
  • Chronology – Arranging or sequencing historical events in their correct order of occurrence, which is enabled by the cognitive process of chronological thinking – deliberation undertaken to arrive at a decision.

Key Skills:

  1. Chronology knowledge - the characteristic features of periods, chronological vocabulary and the use of timelines
  2. Historical enquiry – using evidence and communicating history
  3. Interpreting history – forming their own perspective and understanding that historians and people in history have different viewpoints and motives

Lessons will develop long term memory by allowing for repetition of learning within the year and year on year. This will be further increased with regular retrieval low stakes testing. 

The use of knowledge organisers including schemas are to aid teachers in planning their knowledge and skills and students in understanding the expectations by the end of the unit. 

A rigorous and sequential vocabulary progression plan within History ensures that tier 3, (specialised ‘show’ words) and tier 2 (appropriate words ‘grow’ and ‘know’) high mileage words, are threaded through our pupils learning and are built upon year-on-year. Pupils’ acquisition and command of an ever-growing store of historical vocabulary at their disposal is key to their learning and progress within History.

SMSC is threaded through the history curriculum to link history to their lives and explore their heritage and cultural capital of the locality and the country. 

History in the Early Years Foundation Stage

History is encompassed in the EYFS through Understanding of the world which includes People and Communities, The World and Technology. At St. Matthew’s, children begin and continue to develop an understanding of history through topic based learning. In addition, we encourage children to reflect on their own special events and express their own past experiences. Children have a leaning environment enriched with topic based historical resources to enhance children’s senses and curiosity and to incorporate into their imaginative play. A variety of themes help children to develop an understanding of their own identity, similarities and differences in both appearance and cultural routines. Furthermore, PSED allows children to discuss with each other their feelings and understanding of the world through their own experience. In addition, the Characteristics of Effective Learning within the EYFS, encourage children to explore their world around them. By engaging with objects and environments that they see, teachers encourage children to explore, question and develop curiosity about the history and significance surrounding them.

Impact:

  • Children will become increasingly critical and analytical within their historical thinking, making informed and balanced judgements based on their and others’ knowledge of the past.
     
  • Children will become increasingly aware of how historical events have shaped the world that they currently live in.
     
  • They will develop have a better understanding of local, national and world history.
     
  • Children will develop enquiry skills to pursue their own interests within a topic.
     
  • Where applicable, children will have encountered or participated in high-quality visits/visitors to further appreciate the impact of history.
     
  • Children are able to retain prior-learning and explicitly make connections between what they have previously learned and what they are currently learning.
     
  • Children will confidently use the language of history.

History Statement of Curriculum 2024-25History Progression Map April 2025History Curriculum Map April 2025

 

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