History Curriculum

Vision

A high-quality history curriculum at Brooke is centred around understanding the past of our local area and that of the wider world. The curriculum is delivered in a sequenced, chronological order, meaning pupils develop their knowledge and understanding as they move through the school. The curriculum evokes pupils’ curiosity of the past as it makes direct links to who they are today. The curriculum is centred around pupils gaining detailed knowledge of their locality’s history and the changes it has seen, even starting with Brooke School and its development. Pupils will become ‘historians’ to take a professional look through the past to merge their British values, ensuring they are respectful and tolerant of changes throughout history to understand where we are today. As pupils move throughout the school, they begin to gain complexity of understanding of how others have lived and the diversity of societies in the past and that we still see today; they will explore their own identify and the challenges of modern life. 

Key Aims:

• Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and 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.
• 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.
• Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’.
• 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.
• 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

From the key aims we have identified five strands which run throughout our History Curriculum: Topic Knowledge, Chronological awareness, Substantive (Abstract) concepts, Disciplinary concepts and Historical enquiry. The scheme of work is organised to reflect the fact that ‘knowledge of the past must be shaped by disciplinary approaches in order to become historical knowledge.’ (Ofsted research review series: History, 2021).

This diagram below shows the complex interplay between understanding substantive knowledge and disciplinary knowledge which is referred to in the Ofsted research review: ‘knowledge of the past must be shaped by disciplinary approaches in order to become historical knowledge.’ The Brooke School Curriculum uses an enquiry-based model so that students learn key substantive knowledge using the disciplinary knowledge and methods that historians use to find out about the past.

Disciplinary Concepts

An understanding of the key disciplinary concepts which underpin the study of history supports the children in broadening their skills, knowledge and understanding.

Substantive (abstract) concepts

Substantive concepts are key concepts, such as ‘empire’, ‘monarchy’, or ‘invasion and settlement’, which children learn about during their study of History. Substantive concepts are fundamental elements of children’s historical knowledge; however, they are abstract and therefore children may find them challenging to understand. The 2021 Ofsted research review into history states that, to be able to use them confidently, children need to have a secure knowledge of substantive concepts in different contexts.

Brooke Schools scheme recognises the importance of developing children’s understanding of substantive concepts and consequently this is a strand which runs throughout our history curriculum.  Our progression of skills and knowledge document clearly demonstrates how these substantive concepts are developed throughout the curriculum.