History

Our History curriculum is designed to ensure that pupils gain a coherent knowledge and
understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past and pupils learn to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence and develop perspective and judgement. History lessons are taught as part of our Copthorne Curriculum lessons. 

Pupils make progress in history by knowing and remembering more, as set out in our schemes of work, based on National Curriculum content. 

The curriculum provides pupils with a rich knowledge of the period, place or society that they
are learning about, in order to support them  to engage meaningfully with the past.

Key concepts in history such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’ are revisited overtime to aid pupils in developing new historical knowledge.

Children develop their chronological knowledge and the curriculum is designed to offer pupils a secure overview of major developments and periods, allowing them to contextualise new knowledge effectively.

Our History curriculum is designed to develop learners who have:

• the ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources;
• the ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry;
• passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops their sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways;
• an excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes;
• the ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences;
• respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments;
• the desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.