#MoorsidePAHistory – Curriculum Overview Curriculum Intent We endeavour to share the rich tapestry of history with our children and help them to see the narrative of the passing of time and their place within it. The teaching of chronology and historians’ accounts of the past underpins all our sequences of learning. We introduce children to stories and events from regional, national, and international history to develop their historical thinking. We appreciate that history is a discipline of critical thinking and embellish children’s understanding of significant aspects of history through our ‘core concepts.’ We will guide children to critique historical sources, appraise artefacts, and make links when evaluating and communicating their ideas as apprentice historians. We hope that investigating history will nourish children with pride, a sense of place and prepare them for their future historical studies. Above all: history will be purposeful, engaging and fun.
Moorside Pedagogies
Curriculum Progression
Learning history places a great cognitive demand on children and we prepare for this by ensuring lessons are built upon the Moorside pedagogies: Reduce cognitive load through dual coding, cohesive curriculum design, small steps to deep knowledge and consistent lesson design. Support the strengthening of schemata and knowledge building through retrieval activities, such as low stakes quizzing, knowledge organisers, and DNA tasks. Use an enquiry question at the core of each topic to guide children to a conclusive response.
As children begin to unpick the rich tapestry of history, we ensure the curriculum provides children with the appropriate skills and knowledge for their year group. We appreciate that learning is a not an organised, linear path, and such the progression grid is to guide teachers. Teachers are the experts of their class and are equipped to scaffold and challenge their children within the guidance of the progression grid. The historical drivers support children to build a strong foundation in preparation for the substantive knowledge of each period, event, or story. Through careful questioning, varying levels of scaffolding and thoughtful knowledge exchange, our apprentice historians will develop their historical enquiries. A variety of task design allows children to showcase their understanding through drama, narratives, pictures, video recording, and electronic media.
Historical Drivers Disciplinary History We support children to develop their historical thinking through careful investigation, analysis, and evaluation. This thinking is developed through our ‘core concepts’: Similarity and difference.
Substantive Historical Knowledge We support children to make sense of substantive content and encode it for long-term learning. They will build up schemata and declarative facts that provide a sense of the chronological period. The substantive concepts promote children to narrow their study and identify links with prior knowledge. These include:
Apprentice Historian We recognise that studying history requires commitment to the discipline of history. We value our children as ‘apprentice historians’ and explore how historians appraise and construct explanations of the past. Our apprentice historians shall:
Develop an appreciation of changes over time.
Exploration
Find and discuss the answers to an area of study.
Conflict
Invasion
Organise and communicate their ideas.
Society / Culture
Local
Present the most appropriate information to share how
Historical significance.
Monarchy
Empire
Sources and evidence.
Innovation
Change and continuity. Cause and consequence. Historical interpretations.
Sig. Individual
their understanding has developed.