We believe that a high-quality history education can bring pupils into a rich dialogue with the past and with the traditions of historical enquiry.

Through our history curriculum, we aim for our pupils to develop a rich understand of their place in the world, and in the long story of human development. We know that 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. With this in mind, pupils learn how the past, and changing accounts of the past, have shaped the identities of diverse people, groups and nations.

Our history curriculum allows pupil to understand methods of historical enquiry and is designed to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. As pupils progress through the curriculum, they learn how historians and others construct accounts about the past, building on and challenging or refining the work of others. Pupils learn how argument and debate can be underpinned by shared principles of enquiry, and how this can drive and test new knowledge and insight about shared pasts. Teaching will equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.

Our history curriculum aims to ensure that all pupils:

• know and understand the history of our local area and the UK islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation as well as 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.
• 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.