From September 2023, we have adopted the Opening Worlds humanities curriculum for history, geography and RE. 

Opening Worlds curriculum and its associated teaching approaches will secure the highest possible quality of education for pupils. This is because the curriculum ensures that the subjects reflect the wide reference and academic practices, outside of school, to which they refer. In addition the material is organised so that pupils use earlier material to access to later material and so that pupils start to see how everything connects within a subject.

Opening Worlds has strongly recommended that the material is taught in sequence because each part makes the next part much more understandable.  Numerous words that are explicitly taught and practised in Year 3 are then taken for granted in lessons in Year 4-6.  If children do not have the secure knowledge of the content and vocabulary of the Year 3 curriculum this is likely to slow progress and limit enjoyment.

All key stage 2 children have, therefore, started with the Year 3 Opening Worlds curriculum.  As a result of moving from the school’s previous curriculum to Opening Worlds, the school has identified a small number of content gaps.  These have been noted and will be addressed through our choice of books that are used in English and read to children, field trips and acts of collective worship.

History Rationale

Our vision

At Windwhistle Primary School, through our humanities subjects, we want to enrich the lives of the children of our school by taking them beyond their everyday experience to build a cultural capital through a: progressively sequenced, knowledge –rich, subject based, enquiry led curriculum.

The History Curriculum

Knowledge and skills are progressively sequenced.

An overarching question frames the theme with individual lessons planned around questions constructed to promote subject specific concepts, vocabulary and skills.

Every lesson includes retrieval of knowledge which is supported by a knowledge organiser, carefully constructed to include the powerful knowledge that every child will access and learn.

History Teaching

Teaching will build upon children’s prior knowledge and support them to see the coherent narrative of each subject. Visits and artefacts will be used whenever possible to give children memorable and authentic experiences and lessons will be designed to be creative and engaging.