History

At Kader Academy, our history curriculum aims to provide a high-quality education that equips children with a deep understanding of Britain’s past and the wider world, highlighting how history shapes their own lives, heritage and sense of identity. We strive to foster a love of learning and curiosity through engaging activities that bring historical voices and stories into the classroom, enabling children to make meaningful connections and comparisons across time periods and cultures, strengthening their understanding of relationships between people and societies.

Our curriculum is designed to offer a balance of substantive knowledge (understanding key historical events and figures) and disciplinary knowledge (teaching children how historians investigate and interpret the past). Through this, we encourage pupils to think critically, ask questions and develop the ambition to explore the past in depth.

We provide a personalised curriculum that places strong value on local history, nurturing a sense of pride in our community and its heritage. Through real-life experiences, children deepen their understanding of where they come from, develop a strong sense of belonging and recognise their place within a wider historical narrative. By encouraging open-ended learning and divergent thinking, we empower every child to think historically, explore ideas and achieve their personal potential, developing both confidence and aspiration for the future.

While following the National Curriculum and the Early Years framework, all children are provided with a carefully sequenced set of lessons, planned for progression and depth of knowledge and skills. Consideration is given to how all learners are supported, in line with our school’s commitment to inclusive excellence. Learning is enriched through memorable experiences both in and out of the classroom, including access to artefacts and sources of evidence (primary and secondary), visits to museums and places of interest and opportunities to listen to and interact with stories from the past.

These progressive lessons are carefully sequenced to ensure children build rich, connected schemas in their minds, enabling them to embed prior knowledge and make meaningful links across time periods. In doing so, pupils develop a strong sense of identity and an understanding of how people, communities and societies are connected over time.

Learning is built around five ‘big ideas’ of history, which children are explicitly exposed to:

• Power and rule
• Civilisations
• Legacy
• Conflict and warfare
• Everyday life

Children’s knowledge develops cumulatively through regular revisiting of prior learning, whether from the previous topic or previous years. D.A.R.T (Dedicated Active Recall Time) is used within each lesson to strengthen retention and ensure knowledge is securely embedded.

Classroom learning is supported by knowledge organisers, which clearly set out the key knowledge pupils are expected to retain. Alongside continuous formative assessment, children demonstrate their learning through end-of-topic assessments, enabling teachers to make accurate and ongoing judgements about progress and attainment, and to support pupils in striving for ambitious outcomes.

Alongside continuous formative assessment, children are able to showcase their learning through an end of topic assessment which allows teachers to build up an ongoing judgement regarding pupil progress and attainment.

At Kader Academy, we strive to ensure that all pupils achieve their full potential and develop the ambition to apply their historical knowledge and skills beyond the classroom. Pupils leave with a secure understanding of chronology, strong historical thinking skills and the confidence to question, interpret and evaluate the past.

Through our personalised curriculum, children are immersed in a range of historical periods, demonstrating curiosity, intrigue and a genuine enjoyment of learning. They develop a strong sense of identity through an increased awareness and pride in the history and heritage of their local area, alongside an understanding of how this connects to wider national and global narratives.

As a result, pupils show positive attitudes to learning, resilience and a well-developed growth mindset. They understand the importance of learning from the past to shape their future, preparing them to be thoughtful, informed and active citizens within their community and beyond.