History Curriculum

Intent

At Parkside Community Primary School, our history curriculum nurtures curious, confident pupils who understand the past, make sense of the present and shape a brighter future. Rooted in our vision of “Nurturing and Inspiring Young Minds Toward a Bright Future”, history teaching develops progressively sequenced subject-specific skills so that every pupil, whatever their starting point, builds secure knowledge, disciplinary thinking and a moral imagination about their place in time and their power to affect what comes next.

We intend that by the end of their time at Parkside pupils will:

• Know a carefully chosen body of substantive knowledge about people, events and societies from local, national and global history so they can explain why things happened and what changed.

• Build and apply a progressive set of historical skills — chronological understanding, questioning and enquiry, evaluating sources, making historical interpretations and communicating historical arguments — so history becomes a way of thinking, not just a set of facts.

• See clear connections between past and present: recognising how history shapes identity, communities and choices, and developing the confidence to consider how their actions might influence the future.

• Be equipped to participate respectfully and thoughtfully in civic life, drawing on historical perspective to challenge misconceptions, understand difference and act with responsibility.

  History and Geography Curriculum Overview

Implementation

Our history curriculum is underpinned by Parkside's Teaching, Learning and Assessment and Live Feedback Policy:

• Curriculum sequencing and lesson structure

  • History units are explicitly sequenced so each lesson builds on prior knowledge; teachers begin each unit with a short retrieval task that revisits key vocabulary and prior substantive knowledge.
  • Lessons follow a clear structure: objective and historical question; modelling of disciplinary thinking; guided practice with sources; independent application (short explanation or structured paragraph); plenary that returns to the enquiry question.

• Teaching and scaffolding (everyday practice)

  • Teachers pre-teach and display tiered historical vocabulary; use visual timelines and concrete sources (artefacts, photos, maps) to make abstract concepts tangible.
  • Complex concepts are broken into taught steps (e.g. “what is a king?” → “features of kingship” → “kingship in period X”) with matched scaffolds for pupils who need them.
  • Local history and familiar narratives are used regularly to support access and relevance for our intake.

• Assessment for learning and retrieval practice

  • Short low-stakes checks (quizzes, mini-whiteboard answers, two-sentence summaries) are used every lesson to check recall of taught content and identify misconceptions.
  • A unit-end task requires pupils to produce a short historical explanation or causal narrative that demonstrates both substantive knowledge and disciplinary skill (e.g. evaluate a source, explain change over time). These tasks form the basis of subject-level moderation.

• Live feedback 

  • Teachers give immediate, subject-specific feedback during lessons focused on the accuracy of historical knowledge and the quality of historical reasoning (e.g. correcting chronology, modelling stronger causal language, prompting evidence use).
  • Where pupils are writing historical explanations, teachers use live conferencing with selected pupils each lesson to improve structure and evidence, modelling how to turn knowledge into an argument.
  • Live feedback is recorded briefly on the class planning grid: who received conferencing, the focus, and next steps for pupils who need follow-up.

• Inclusion and adaptation

  • Universal high-quality teaching is the first approach; additional scaffolds (simplified timelines, annotated source sheets, sentence starters, mixed-media responses) are used to ensure pupils with SEND and EAL access the full curriculum.
  • Where curriculum reduction is considered (for example, long-term EHCP needs), leaders document the rationale and the specific learning outcomes preserved.

• Monitoring, moderation and CPD

  • Subject leader monitors: lesson visits focusing on retrieval and live feedback, termly moderation of unit-end tasks across year groups, and pupil interviews to check retention of prior learning.
  • Findings inform a concise action plan and one targeted CPD session per term (e.g. historical writing, source evaluation, effective live feedback in history).

• Success measures (how we know it’s working)

  • Increased accuracy on retrieval checks over time and improved quality of unit-end historical explanations.
  • Evidence in monitoring records of regular, subject-specific live feedback and follow-up pupil improvement tasks.
  • Moderation shows progressive development in pupils’ use of chronology, source evaluation and historical argument from KS1 to KS2.

Impact

At Parkside Community Primary School our history curriculum ensures pupils leave prepared to understand the past, make sense of the present and act responsibly in the future. Because our curriculum is knowledge-rich, skill-led and carefully sequenced, pupils remember more and think historically.

What this looks like in practice and the difference it makes

• Pupils can place people and events on timelines and use correct historical vocabulary from Reception onward, demonstrating secure chronological understanding as they move through the school.

• By the end of each key stage pupils produce increasingly sophisticated historical work: simple explanations and use of sources in KS1; structured causal narratives, source evaluation and subject-specific argument by the end of KS2.

• Classroom retrieval checks, unit-end tasks and moderation show clear, progressive gains in pupils’ substantive knowledge (local, national and global) and disciplinary skills (chronology, enquiry, source evaluation and historical explanation).

• Live, subject-focused feedback in lessons rapidly improves accuracy of knowledge and the quality of historical reasoning; written feedback on unit outcomes leads to measurable pupil improvements in subsequent tasks.

• Our use of local history, artefacts and narrative ensures pupils from all backgrounds engage with the subject and see their community in historical perspective; scaffolds and pre-teaching enable pupils with SEND and EAL to access the full curriculum.