History

History

Our History curriculum at Gilthill is designed to provide our students with a comprehensive and detailed understanding of the past, while fostering a love for learning and a curiosity about the world around them. We have developed a bespoke curriculum using a mastery approach, which allows us to create a 2-year cycle that deepens knowledge and promotes higher-order thinking skills.

In our curriculum, both year groups within a phase learn the basic knowledge required for each topic. However, the higher year group engages in advancing learning by utilising higher-order thinking skills such as summarising and comparing. This approach ensures that all students have a solid foundation of historical knowledge, while also challenging them to develop critical thinking and analytical skills.

One of the key features of our History curriculum is the emphasis on key concepts through our learning threads. These concepts are the big ideas that run through all of our teaching in History, providing a coherent and connected approach to learning. By immersing children in learning both in their immediate locality and the wider world, we aim to make History relevant and meaningful to their lives.

We also use knowledge categories to link learning across themes and encourage the retrieval of previous learning. This approach ensures that our students not only acquire knowledge but also retain and apply it effectively. By focusing on knowledge retrieval, we enable our children to know more and remember more, which is essential for their long-term understanding and retention of historical concepts.

Our curriculum meets the requirements of the National Curriculum by covering a wide range of historical periods, events, and individuals. It ensures that students develop a chronological understanding of British and world history, as well as the skills needed to interpret and analyse historical sources. By adopting a mastery approach, we provide our students with the opportunity to delve deeper into historical topics, fostering a greater understanding of the complexities and nuances of the past.