The teaching, learning, and sequencing of our history curriculum follows a carefully planned structure, designed to ensure depth, progression, and meaningful engagement for all children.

• Thematic Pathways: Our curriculum is organised through four key themes – Hierarchy and Power, Society and Belief, Settlement and Technology, and Travel and Exploration. These provide a consistent lens through which children explore historical concepts, enabling them to revisit and deepen understanding across different periods and contexts.


• Long-Term Sequencing for Mixed-Age Classes: To reflect the structure of our school, we operate a two-year rolling cycle in EYFS–KS1 and in Years 3–6. Units are carefully sequenced so that substantive knowledge (“I know”) is continually built upon, while disciplinary knowledge (“I can”) is progressively developed and assessed at age-appropriate levels.


• Medium-Term Planning: Our medium-term plans break down each unit into small, purposeful steps. Each lesson combines substantive knowledge (facts, concepts, chronology) with disciplinary knowledge (enquiry, interpretation, use of sources, significance, cause and consequence). Lesson-level “I know/I can” statements ensure that pupils learn not only what happened, but also how historians know.


• Progression and Assessment: Assessment is embedded within planning through clear progression statements for EYFS–KS2. These are structured by theme and skill strand (e.g. Recognise Authority, Understand Power, Cause and Consequence under Hierarchy and Power). This ensures pupils’ historical skills are revisited and extended, supporting them to make explicit links between prior and current learning. Teachers assess against these statements at the end of lessons and units using a mastery model (working towards, expected, deeper).


• Historical Vocabulary: Vocabulary progression is explicitly mapped across units and reviewed regularly. Key terms (e.g. monarch, parliament, conquest, source, continuity, significance) are introduced, revisited, and contextualised, supporting children to speak and write with historical accuracy.


• Pedagogy and Enquiry: Lessons are enquiry-driven, using artefacts, images, stories, timelines, and primary/secondary sources to encourage questioning, critical thinking, and interpretation. Children are encouraged to ask, “How do we know?”, “Whose perspective is this?”, and “What might be missing?” to foster curiosity and independence.


• EYFS Foundations: In Reception, history is embedded within Understanding the World and Past and Present. Children begin to explore people, places, and events in their own lives and beyond, developing a sense of change over time. Play, stories, and everyday routines introduce enquiry, chronology, and historical vocabulary in age-appropriate ways.


• Enrichment and Cross-Curricular Links: Visits, visitors, and artefacts bring history to life and provide experiential learning opportunities. Cross-curricular links with art, DT, English, and computing support creativity, literacy, and problem-solving within historical contexts. SMSC is woven through the curriculum, allowing children to reflect on values, heritage, and cultural capital.

Through this carefully structured approach, children at Holme and Hinchliffe Mill develop as confident, reflective young historians who can recall, apply, and question historical knowledge, preparing them to understand both the past and its impact on the present.

At Holme and Hinchliffe Mill, our history curriculum enables children to develop into critical, reflective, and independent thinkers, with a secure and connected understanding of the past. The impact of our teaching is measured not only through substantive knowledge (what children know) but also through disciplinary knowledge (what children can do with that knowledge), structured around four key historical themes:

• Hierarchy and Power – recognising authority, understanding power, and exploring cause and consequence.


• Society and Belief – investigating daily life, beliefs and values, and social organisation across different periods.


• Settlement and Technology – examining how human progress and innovation shaped communities over time.


• Travel and Exploration – understanding motivations, experiences, and the impact of journeys and discoveries.

Through this structure, pupils progressively learn to:

• Build chronological understanding and place people, events, and civilisations in context.


• Use sources critically to ask and answer questions about the past, considering reliability, perspective, and interpretation.


• Recognise continuity and change, similarity and difference, and cause and consequence across time periods.


• Explain the historical significance of people, places, and events, and how these shape the present.

Assessment
Our assessment model ensures clarity and consistency. Teachers assess pupils against progression statements for each theme:

• Expected Standard – pupils meet the knowledge and skills defined for their year group.


• Working Towards – pupils are developing towards this level.

Pupils’ progress is monitored using end-of-lesson and end-of-unit assessment statements, drawn directly from our progression framework (EYFS–KS2). This ensures children not only acquire new knowledge but also revisit and deepen prior learning, making secure connections across time and theme.

The impact is seen when children:

• Retain prior learning and explicitly connect it to new units.


• Articulate historical understanding using accurate vocabulary.


• Show curiosity and independence in pursuing questions and interpretations.


• Demonstrate confidence in using sources and evidence.


• Reflect on how past societies, beliefs, power structures, and innovations shape their own lives today.

Above all, children leave Holme and Hinchliffe Mill as historically literate young people, equipped to question, interpret, and understand the world around them. Our ambition is that they move on with the confidence and inspiration to become the archivists, teachers, campaigners, or leaders of the future.