Step One: Subject Overview
History
Framing and context
To help us get our bearings, let’s first refer to the national curriculum. It states that a high-quality history education will:
- help pupils gain knowledge and understanding of the past in Britain and around the world.
- inspire pupils’ curiosity.
- equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement.
- help pupils understand the complexity of social dynamics, the process of change, diversity of societies and relationships, and their own identity and contemporary challenges.
The history national curriculum aims to makes sure all pupils:
- know and understand UK history from the earliest times to the present day including how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
- have a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms like ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’ and ‘parliament’.
- know and understand significant aspects of global history including ancient civilisations, empires and past non-European societies.
- understand historical concepts like continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance; and use them to make connections, analyse trends, and frame historically valid questions.
- understand historical enquiry including how evidence is used to make historical claim and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations arise.
- gain historical perspective by applying their growing knowledge to different contexts.
The Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey once said that “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. This sentiment is worth dissecting and discussing with colleagues. We should inspire not just our pupils, but those with work with to recognise that we don’t just teach this subject to meet SATS and GSCE objectives, we do it because history is fundamental to pupils’ futures.
Communities and resources
Professional bodies
Everyone who teaches history or is associated with teaching history at KS3 should be a member of Historical Association. As with all subject associations, curriculum thinking, development and resources and are at the heart of what it does.