The study of history can bring pupils into a rich dialogue with the past and with the traditions of historical enquiry. The past and changing accounts of the past have shaped the identities of diverse people, groups and nations. Through history, pupils come to understand their place in the world, and in the long story of human development. The study of history challenges pupils to make sense of the striking similarities and vast differences in human experiences across time and place. At Amberley, we want to:

• Incorporate our 3 core values into our teaching of history. We learn about events, time periods and people from the past who have shown nurturing, innovation or aspiration in their achievements.
• Enable pupils to see history as a narrative which all fits together to form ‘the big picture’ and not just discrete episodes of time. We know that the knowledge children learn must be connected as this strengthens the schema of a concept in their mind.
• Enable pupils to see history as who we are and why we are the way we are
• Develop life-long learners who ask questions and challenge thinking
• Promote curiosity and a love of learning about the past, including learning about how our local area has changed and been affected by the past.

All pupils are required to study history at KS1 and KS2 and follow the national curriculum. By following the national curriculum we aim to equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. In order to ensure a broad curriculum offer for all pupils, a school’s history curriculum should ensure that: there is a breadth of historical periods studied; a range of places and societies studied as well as the connections between them; that people, groups and experiences are studied, ensuring that no groups are misrepresented across the curriculum and a range of historical fields of enquiry are taught, for example, political, social and economic history. At Amberley we also believe in ensuring our curriculum is personalised to our local area and there has been careful consideration of what is taught in our history curriculum and why it was selected. We ask ourselves ‘why that? Why now? How did it earn its place in our curriculum?’

We also want our curriculum to be diverse and reflect all of our learners – we often use Emily Style’s metaphor of the curriculum as the mirror and the window: the mirror signifying that pupils see themselves in our curriculum and the window representing our ambition to show all pupils the world beyond their immediate experience.

Pupils make progress in history through building their knowledge of the past (substantive knowledge), and of how historians study the past and create accounts (disciplinary knowledge). Deploying both substantive and disciplinary knowledge in combination is what gives pupils the capacity or skill to construct historical accounts – they are closely related as it is through disciplinary methods that pupils are able to construct substantive knowledge of the past. Teaching supports pupil progress by embedding frameworks of content and concepts that enable pupils to access future material. Abstract concepts are best learned through repeated exposures in different, meaningful contexts. The amount of progress that pupils make through the curriculum is dependent at each stage on the range and depth of their existing knowledge and how secure it is in their minds. This knowledge is what allows pupils to understand new material. Some knowledge is likely to be particularly important to future learning (generative knowledge). Pupils are likely to benefit when curriculum design, teaching, and assessment prioritise this knowledge.

At Amberley, the substantive concepts that we use are:

• artefacts; beliefs; conflict; culture and pastimes; food and farming; location; main events; settlements; society and travel and exploration.

The disciplinary concepts that we use are:

• investigate and interpret the past; understand chronology; communicate historically and build an overview of world history.

All of these concepts feature regularly throughout the study of history in a range of contexts so children become familiar with them across their time at Amberley. We understand that repeated encounters and meaningful examples make new information more familiar to pupils and therefore easier to learn. Pupils’ prior knowledge also makes new information and abstract ideas more meaningful and therefore easier to comprehend and learn. Knowledge is generative - it enables future learning.

We know that children’s first interactions with history start far earlier than when they begin Key Stage 1. Before they start school, children will begin to encounter the past and the world around them. When children encounter the past they are provided with a starting point from which curiosity can blossom as they enter more formally structured education. What children learn in the EYFS is crucial knowledge for them to build on in the future. The knowledge and vocabulary that they develop, through the ‘understanding of the world’ area of learning, enables them to access history content at KS1, where children continue to develop their understanding alongside a more formal introduction to the disciplinary side to the subject. Children at the expected level of development in ‘understanding of the world’ will:

• talk about the lives of the people around them and their roles in society;
• know some similarities and differences between things in the past and now, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
• understand the past through settings, characters and events encountered in books read in class and storytelling;

From Key Stage 1, history at Amberley is taught for approximately 90 minutes per week from Year 1 to Year 6, every other half-term (Y2, Y4, Y6 during the first half-term of each term and Y1, Y3 and Y5 during the second half of each half-term). Staff follow units as detailed in the long-term plan set by the subject leader. From this long-term plan, teachers plan their medium-term plan which centres around an enquiry question to shape curriculum content. This enquiry question organises historical content to enable pupils to develop disciplinary and substantive knowledge simultaneously, with their understanding of each supporting the other.  The medium-term plan unit considers what the intent of the unit is (what we want children to be able to do / remember by the end of the unit), how it will be implemented (sequenced) and how impact will be judged. It also details the hook into the learning, which national curriculum objectives will be covered, how the topic develops SMSC and which visitors or visits will take place. We also place a large importance on vocabulary and look at how the topic will include both subject specific vocabulary and transferable vocabulary.  What prior knowledge will be needed to access and unlock new learning is also carefully considered by staff.

Prior to a unit beginning, pupils are given a ‘knowledge organiser’ which details the key facts and information which children will need to access the topic. It contains the essential facts about the topic, key vocabulary or technical terms and their meaning. We use the knowledge organiser as a regular retrieval tool, particularly at the start of the unit and teachers often use short, low stake quizzes to embed knowledge which supports pupils as they access more complicated content in later years.

All current medium-term plans and knowledge organisers are placed on our school website to ensure that parents are aware of what their children are learning about and working towards.

At Amberley, we follow a set lesson design which encompasses our teaching and learning golden threads. Lessons begin with a quick discussion of ‘what is history?’ and a shared definition as well as what historians do. We then look at any common misconceptions which may have arisen from previous lessons as well as our history timeline and focus in one area of this eg sequencing, duration, interval. We then do our retrieval work which activates the prior knowledge that pupils will need for that day’s learning and discuss how what we have learned previously helps us to answer our enquiry question.  We move on to looking at the vocabulary which will be important in that day’s learning and at the end of the lesson summarise what we have learned today.