At St Mary Immaculate Catholic School, our aim is to deliver a history curriculum that is inclusive and maximises outcomes for every child. We are committed to fostering a deep knowledge and understanding of both Britain’s past and the wider world, ensuring that our students know more, remember more, and understand more about historical events and their significance. This is underpinned by the pillars of our curriculum: Live Wisely, Think Deeply, Love Generously.

Our curriculum is carefully structured to facilitate connections between current and previous learning, allowing children to develop chronological knowledge from the Stone Age to the present day. Teachers utilise long-term plans to make comparisons between historical periods, helping students to understand the progression of history over time. We strive to ignite curiosity in our students, encouraging them to explore their own interests and develop the skills of historians. Through immersive history lessons focused on historical skills and concepts, as well as enriched experiences such as visits, guest speakers, and events, we provide opportunities for deep engagement with the past.

Our intent is to enable children to ask perceptive questions, think critically, and develop perspective and judgement. We recognise the importance of history in shaping identity and aim for our students to understand how historical events have influenced their own lives. Utilising the local area, we study our rich history, including Warwick castle and Stratford -upon -Avon.

In addition to fostering substantive historical concepts, our curriculum emphasises the progression of disciplinary concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, and historical significance. In Key Stage 1, we focus on developing a chronological understanding and introduce topics within living memory to help children grasp the concept of time. In Key Stage 2, we progress chronologically through core British history units, supplemented by optional thematic units to expose children to a diverse range of historical topics.

Through this curriculum we encourage the children to truly develop and embed a sense of time, understand interconnected civilisations, and appreciate the diversity of historical events. By providing a coherent sequence of lessons and opportunities for deep exploration, we aim to equip our students with the knowledge, skills, and understanding necessary to engage meaningfully with the past.