History
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children.”
Deuteronomy
Aims:
The history curriculum aims to help pupils develop a coherent understanding of Britain’s past and its relationship with the wider world. It encourages children to learn about significant people, events, and civilisations, use key historical terms, and think critically about change, cause, and significance. Pupils learn to use evidence to make historical claims, understand different interpretations of the past, and place their growing knowledge in context - locally, nationally, and globally.
Our Intent:
At Our Lady of Walsingham, a Catholic school guided by the mission, “With Christ as our light, we love, learn and shine with excellence,” our history curriculum aims to inspire curiosity, understanding, and a love of learning about the past. Using the Opening Worlds scheme, we provide pupils with a coherent and engaging journey through Britain’s history and the wider world, rooted in respect, empathy, and moral awareness.
Our intent is for children to:
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Develop a deep understanding of significant events, people, and civilisations – exploring how these have shaped societies, influenced modern life, and contributed to cultural, social, political, and technological change, while reflecting on moral and spiritual lessons from the past.
- Think critically like historians – asking thoughtful questions, analysing evidence, understanding different perspectives, and evaluating how and why interpretations of the past can vary.
- Use historical vocabulary confidently and explicitly – learning and applying key terms such as empire, civilisation, parliament, and peasantry, to communicate their understanding clearly in discussion and writing.
- Make connections across time and place – understanding links between local, national, and global history, and recognising patterns, continuity, and change across different periods.
- Appreciate the relevance of history to their own lives – developing empathy, respect for diverse cultures and experiences, and a sense of identity grounded in historical understanding, inspired by Christian values.
Our Guiding Principles:
- Faith at the Heart of Learning
History is taught through a lens of Catholic values, helping pupils explore moral and spiritual lessons from the past, understand human experiences, and reflect on their own role in society. - Curiosity and Critical Thinking
Pupils are encouraged to ask questions, analyse evidence, and consider multiple perspectives to develop critical thinking and historical reasoning skills. - Explicit Vocabulary Development
Key historical terms are taught explicitly and reinforced throughout learning, enabling pupils to communicate confidently and accurately. - Coherent and Connected Knowledge
Learning builds progressively, helping pupils make connections between local, national, and global history, and understand patterns, continuity, and change over time. - Engagement Through Enquiry and Exploration
Pupils engage with history actively through enquiry-based learning, using artefacts, sources, and historical interpretations to bring the past to life. - Respect for Diversity and Perspective
History teaching fosters empathy and respect, helping pupils understand and value different cultures, beliefs, and experiences across time and place.
/docs/History_Implementation_overview__2_.pdf
history implementation overview 2 .pdf
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