History

Within the history curriculum, children complete a cycle of answering historical enquiries – big questions. These big questions are looked at through the lens of various second-order concepts. The second order concepts within the curriculum are:

• Causation - Explaining why is often known as causal explanation. It is nothing to do with the more general meaning of ‘explaining’. Instead, think of the expression, ‘Why did this thing come about?’ Causal explanations are not the same as knowing facts. Causal explanations use facts, but the arrangement of those facts into a causal explanation is an argument.
• Consequence - Identifying a particular event as the consequence of one that preceded it represents kind of claim about the relationship between multiple events, actions or developments. When the conceptual focus is on consequences, historians are more concerned with the ‘out-workings’ of a particular event. This means that they are likely to pursue those out- workings over time and perhaps across different aspects of human life
• Significance - Despite the many consequences of events, actions of individuals and developments, only some of these will become history. They are things which seem to signify something, to certain people, somewhere. In other words, they mean something, or have meant something, to some people, at some point. They are like signs. They point to something. The historical significance attached to an event, person, situation or trend is going to change depending on the questions we are asking about the past, on the particular time period we are in or on the topics under consideration.
• Similarity and Difference - Over-generalisations can be an unintended consequence of teaching history. When looking a similarity and difference, we seek to prevent these over-generalisations from occurring and challenge ‘group—think’ in the first place by asking how are groups people, societies, villages etc.  are the same/different within one lifetime. This is different to change and continuity which seeks to explore changes over a longer time span. Example of these over generalisations could be that all Germans were Nazis or that an indigenous group immediately begin to think and adopt the norms of their invaders etc.
• Change and Continuity  - Thinking about change and continuity requires us to think about what has changed and stayed the same over a large period of time than one life time. Pupils need to think about how causes may be connected and how cause may drive another and that the options are nota binary choice between change or continuity. In addition, the type of change that may have occurred should be considered. Was the change quick or slow; what types of change? (political, religious, economical etc.), the degree to which something change
• Historical Interpretations - Interpreting sources is work of  professional historians. It would be a mistake to think that we are here to guide pupils in creating their own historical interpretations as they lack much substantive and disciplinary knowledge to form accurate interpretation. Rather, we should spend a fraction of time exploring how it is that historians have reached such interpretations and, where possible, provide counter interpretations so that pupils can see that history is not about ‘one truth’.
• Evidence and Sources – Experiencing a range of historical evidence and sources (written records and relics) as pupils progress through the curriculum is an entitlement of any history. Teachers need to be aware of the limitation when teaching about evidence and sources so as to avoid teaching misconceptions. A popular misconception is that some evidence/sources are inherently biased. This is not the case. The enquiry question that is being answered guides the usefulness of such evidence. E.g. Using a German newspaper from WWII would contain elements of bias if pupils were investigating the extent to which all German people agreed with the war, but would contain no bias if the enquiry were on state propaganda. Pupils need to have a rich contextual knowledge of the sources/evidence and the purpose of its existence at the time of it being written.

These are intended to be used as lenses within which pupils can begin to think historically, and these concepts frame each enquiry question. In some cases, multiple second-order concepts may be explored in a unit.

Before answering any historical enquiry question however, first order substantive knowledge is developed using direct instruction and the analysis of varying sources where appropriate. Before any source analysis is completed, teachers ensure that pupils have relevant pre-requisite knowledge so sources can be interpreted correctly and not develop misconceptions. This body of substantive knowledge is are at children’s ‘finger-tip’: knowledge that can be drawn upon easily to help them when answering historical question.

In addition, to “finger-tip” knowledge, the curriculum places an emphasis on developing substantive concepts (these are part of the ‘substance’ or content knowledge in a subject) which are repeated throughout the curriculum so students can interact and revisit key concepts. These include concepts such as trade, settlement, monarchy, empire, democracy, slavery, religion, society, migration, civilization, emperor, dictator, tribe, war, resources, power and colonialism. Children’s understanding of these concepts, unlike finger-tip knowledge- are designed to be residual. Through repeated exposure in varying contexts, children will develop complex schematic understandings of these concepts, allowing them to engage further with these large ideas in the next phase of their education and beyond.

Finally, within the curriculum, disciplinary knowledge does not sit in isolation. Through direct instruction, children will develop an understanding of various ways in which historians construct, support or contest inferences of the past. Various enquiries throughout the curriculum are used as opportutinites for children to continually deepen their understanding of how we are able to infer knowledge from the past – or in many cases, struggle to.