Knowing about the past, both within their living memory and prior to that, is a key element of the curriculum we deliver here at St Paul's. We use history as one of the driving themes of our half termly topics and ensure that we provide high quality, cross-curricular links to other subjects. For us, great history is about our children asking questions and displaying a drive to find out the answers. We use the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum to design a package of history that is progressive and planned in a chronological way, allowing our children to transfer their skills, knowledge and understanding between topics and periods of time.

We are constantly working to review our History curriculum so that it is reflective of the cohorts of children we are teaching. As well as working to ensure that our pupils are taught the necessary substantive knowledge, concepts and disciplinary skills needed to be effective historians, we also work to ensure that the curriculum we offer is diverse and varied, allowing our pupils to see themselves in the work that we do.

When sequencing our History curriculum, we think about their starting points in the EYFS and what the learning of History looks like for our youngest children. This may be covering aspects such as what the past means and words related to this or areas whereby the children show natural curiosity. As children progress into KS1, we feel it is important for them to consolidate their knowledge of history within living memory and what the past means before learning about periods of time way beyond their memory. In KS2, our selected periods of history that our pupils study are then taught chronologically, starting with ancient civilisations through to more current periods of history.