History Curriculum Statement

The History curriculum at Round Diamond School inspires pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past through substantive concepts and disciplinary knowledge. The progressive nature of the curriculum equips our pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps our children to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups. Our History curriculum aims to excite our children and allows them to develop their own skills as historians. We start in the Early Years and KS1 by encouraging children to learn about their own history. We regularly reference timelines and ensure key periods are sequenced chronologically, allowing children to refer back to and build on their prior knowledge. We strive to encourage our children to be active learners with a respect for historical evidence and give them the ability to make critical use of it to support their arguments. Our aim is that they leave us in Year 6 immersed in and inspired by history, able to take responsibility and make the best life choices learning from the past.

Substantive Concepts and Disciplinary Knowledge 

Substantive concepts refer to the key concepts that we want the children to learn throughout our history curriculum these include 

• Community

• Power

• Knowledge

• Democracy 

• Invasion

• Civilisation 

• Community 

These have been purposefully planned in throughout the curriculum from Early Years - Year 6 

Pupils make more sense and deeper understanding of the substantive concepts and knowledge by using what they know through disciplinary knowledge.

Disciplinary knowledge refers to how children can 'think like historians'

• Chronology
• Cause and consequence
• Change and continuity
• Similarity and difference
• Evidence 
• Significance 

Key Vocabulary Progression 

Vocabulary is taught through a tiered system where the children learn the necessary vocabulary for our geography curriculum. Here is an example of our tiered vocabulary for a year 3 unit of learning. 

The vocabulary is split into tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary to ensure that children are explicitly taught subject specific vocabulary and language which can be used cross-curricularly. 

History in the EYFS

Within the EYFS our history learning is intertwined within our theme lessons and within our child initiated learning. Each EYFS classroom has a class timeline from birth. The children add their experiences each month as they occur to build their understanding of time and chronology.