History at St Paul's

The Curriculum at St Paul’s will help learners:

  • Gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain;s past and that of the wider world
  • Develop curiosity to know more about the past
  • To ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement
  • Understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups
  • Understand the complexity of their own identity and the challenges of their time

The curriculum in History ensures that all learners:

  • know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
  • know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
  • gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
  • understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
  • understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
  • gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
To develop these characteristics they will explore the following key concepts:
 
Investigate and interpret the past: This concept involves understanding that our understanding of the past comes from an interpretation of the available evidence.
 
Build an overview of world history: This concept involves an appreciation of the characteristic features of the past and an understanding that life is different for different sections of society.
 
Understand chronology: This concept involves an understanding of how to chart the passing of time and how some aspects of history studied were happening at similar times in different places.
 
Communicate historically: This concept involves using historical vocabulary and techniques to convey information about the past.