History

History is a spiral curriculum in which knowledge is built upon as children progress through the school and within each school year.  Outcomes for each year group have been identified and mapped out in the progression document below.  Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page to see the Ash Grove subject-specific vocabulary progression document. 

Each year group follows the same broad structure throughout the academic year: autumn term sees a focus on local history, spring term looks at British history and summer term moves to an aspect of global history. However, some year groups now study two units across the academic year rather than one unit per term. This enables greater depth of coverage and allows children more time to develop and apply their historical knowledge and understanding.

This mirrors the structure of the geography curriculum, enhancing the links between these two humanities subjects. History and geography topics are taught for a half-term each, once per term in each year group, with the curriculum structure adapted where appropriate to allow for deeper historical coverage. Each topic has an ‘enquiry’ focus where children’s learning leads towards answering a question or investigating a theme.

Throughout the history curriculum, there is a strong thread of social history and the impact of changes, particularly technological changes through time on human lives, from a local to a global level. This has been designed to emphasise to children the importance of history in their understanding of the modern world and to equip them with the knowledge and cultural capital necessary both to excel in further study and to become well-informed citizens.