“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Each of us and the areas in which we live are defined by events of the past. Studying history helps us to understand how those events made things the way that they are today. It enables us to better perceive not only our lives, but the lives of others as well. We have each been sculpted by the decisions of governments who were in power decades or centuries before we were born. The education we receive, the housing choices available to us, the street names that surround us; we are who we are because of our past.
Our history curriculum is ambitious, and this starts right from Early Years. Using the content from the National Curriculum and the Early Years Framework, we have carefully sequenced our history curriculum, so children engage meaningfully with the past, with rich knowledge of the past: people, events and ideas.
In history we have six vertical links ( themes or concepts woven within the fabric of the subject. They define the subject and are visited across the Year groups): historical significance, cause, continuity and change, similarities and differences, historical evidence and chronology. Our curriculum is sequenced so that our pupils’ schemata can grow through the connection of new knowledge with previous knowledge.
We have carefully mapped our curriculum, carefully considering some of the following: