Intent

It is our intent that the History curriculum within Holy Cross enables children to make progress and to thrive in their study of the subject. Each subject curriculum and its associated teaching approaches needs to secure the highest possible quality of education for pupils. Four closely related curricular attributes – scope, rigour, coherence and sequencing – are our measures of quality. These four curriculum attributes are the means and measure of strong curricula because they ensure that the subject properly reflects the academic practices, outside of school, to which the subject refers and they ensure that this is organised in the best way to allow pupils develop an in-depth understanding within History.

Implementation

Within Holy Cross, we have a carefully designed framework in order to ensure all children reach their full potential within History. Within Early Years, the children develop their sense of past and present through knowing some similarities and differences between things in the past and now. They begin to understand the past through characters and books they have encountered in class. The children begin to develop a sense of their own past and how they have changed. Our KS1 curriculum has been carefully designed in order to develop the children’s vocabulary and understanding of the past. The children develop their understanding of their own personal history by introducing them to the idea of chronology and timelines. They study significant events and people who have shaped society, locally, nationally and globally. We aim to provide children with essential Historical skills and foundational knowledge in order to engage with the in-depth studies within KS2.

Our KS2 curriculum is delivered through Opening Worlds. Through in-depth studies, the children will develop their substantive knowledge and disciplinary skills. This is delivered through four key components;

• Scope: ambitiously broad in scope, ensuring that pupils gain an in-depth knowledge of diverse reference points on which to draw from across the world. pupils will gain a multi-faceted understanding of empires, conquest, oppression, power structures and their links with migration and the diverse cultural experiences of those caught up in migration, settlement and conquest, through revisiting these issues over and over again: this will lay solid foundations for understanding that Britain as we know it is the result of migrations over millennia, that this has always included diverse ethnicities, and that stories of different kinds of struggle against injustice are often silenced, so we must keep asking good questions to uncover them.
• Rigor: meticulous in rigour through responsive to up-date scholarship in history, geography, culture, religion and worldviews, and related fields such as philosophy and social science; current questions being pursued and the insights of scholars in these fields. for example, the extensive work on Islamic Civilisations, on the Byzantine Empire, the Maya, the ancient Mesopotamians will be scrupulously worded to ensure that claims are worded cautiously, with due regard for what scholars can be certain about and what remains informed conjecture and imaginative reconstruction from the relics and records the past leaves behind)
• highly coherent: intricate links have been built within and across subjects so that nothing sits in isolation but rather is supported and enriched both horizontally and vertically
• Sequencing: the curriculum is very carefully sequenced so that pupils’ ability to build a comparison and reach a critical judgement. They are able to build-up of secure chronology and historically connected narratives. Through a sequencing of themes such as Government and politics and warfare, the children are able to build up a stable framework of History.

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Impact

• A secure knowledge and understanding of people, events and contexts from the historical periods covered.
• A secure chronological understanding of Historical events and periods studied.
• The ability to communicate ideas about the past using different genres of writing, drawing, diagrams, data-handling.
• The ability to shape their historical views using appropriate and accurate evidence through a range of sources. 
• A wide range of vocabulary which they are able to use and apply to effectively demonstrate their historical knowledge.

Year 2 have been learning about Nelson Mandela and Rosa Parks and their global achievements. We created fact files about Nelson Mandela

Year 1 have been using sources from the past to ask questions. They are learning about a local inspirational hero Kitty Wilkinson, how significant her actions were and why we are till learning about her today.

Year 4 enjoyed acting as History Detectives as they explored different Roman artefacts. We thought about what the object looked like, what materials it was made from, what it was used for and what it tells us about the past.