The history curriculum is designed to help pupils gain a coherent, knowledge rich understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim to ensure that all students understand the history of Britain as a coherent, chronological narrative, stretching from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the present day.

Students also gain an understanding of global events which have shaped our world; the medieval Islamic ‘Golden Age', the Italian Renaissance, World War One, World War Two, and Civil Rights. All young people have a right to know their history, at local, national and international levels.

At the end of each unit students should have:

1. An accurate chronological framework of the period studied.
2. A broad knowledge base of the period studied.
3. Either the ability to construct a well-evidenced historical argument or the ability to comment on the utility of a source.

History teachers at MEA Central know that:

1. The text is the beating heart of our lessons.
2. Historical writing must be explicitly taught and scaffolded.
3. Writing floats on a sea of talk.
4. Memory is the residue of thought.

The history curriculum is centred around ten key concepts: kingship/leadership and kingdoms; the power and influence of the church; social inequality; social resistance and change; tax and the economy; scientific discovery; slavery and serfdom; communication and culture; conquest and military might; and health and medicine. Our curriculum aims to empower our students with a core historical narrative and the skills to analyse, develop evidenced arguments and reason through written and oracy tasks so that they can meet every citizen as an equal.

The Key Stage 3 curriculum takes students on a journey from medieval England to the world in the twentieth century. In Year 7, our scholars study the medieval period. In Year 8, our students progress to investigate early modern Britain and the wider world.  Year 9 takes our students through the period 1750 to the present. Our history curriculum at Key Stage Three follows Robert Peal’s ‘Knowing History’ scheme. Peal writes that the aim of his curriculum is to “illustrate abstract concepts through concrete examples.”

Students learn about conquest through the Normans, social hierarchy through the feudal system, dictatorship through Cromwell, limited government through the Glorious Revolution and imperialism through to the renaissance. More than this, however, the discussion about what abstract concepts can mean at different times in different units develops a more nuanced schema of understanding. Students learn about limited government in both Year 7 under King John and Year 8 under Charles I, for example. They make connections and see patterns across time periods whilst also understanding subtle differences. All students access the same content. For students with reading ages significantly below chronological age, they access the content through adapted ‘Reading Support’ booklets, which retain the concepts and core knowledge, but the vocabulary is carefully selected. This allows for all students to build the same understanding of history whilst building their vocabulary.

Students are empowered to retain knowledge through a focus on core knowledge that is assessed through homework of retrieval practice and pepper quizzes which offer students the opportunity to verbally recall key information from their history education. Our writing curriculum supports students to develop their ability to explain key historical concepts such as significance, cause and consequence from being able to match key knowledge to an argument, to in Year 9 creating well evidenced paragraphs which a judgement woven throughout. Source analysis develops from identifying key features, making an inference, adding relevant knowledge and then from Year 8, developing their understanding of the provenance of a source. This is supported by the teaching of sentence structure, with Year 7 developing knowledge using ‘because, but, so’, building ideas of causes, events and consequences, Year 8 developing conjunctions to further this, and Year 9 using appositives to create knowledge rich sentences. Exploratory oracy tasks are used to support writing by in Year 7 and 8 by explicitly focusing on acquiring new language, organising and structuring ideas and understanding and reasoning. From Year 9, to support the develop of historical writing, exploratory oracy tasks are used to analyse and evaluate and generate ideas and opinions.

Our ‘Meanwhile...Elsewhere...’ lessons, which are taught once every half term, aim to tell the stories of traditionally under-represented groups in history education within the same chronology of their current lessons. For example, when Year 8 students learn about the late Tudors they will have a ‘Meanwhile...Elsewhere...’ lesson on Africans in Tudor England and when they are studying the Italian Renaissance, they study the works of women such as Isotta Nogarola and Artemisia Gentileschi alongside da Vinci and Michelangelo. These lessons offer an opportunity for students to analyse similarities and differences but importantly ensure our history curriculum remains pertinent to the identities and interests of a diverse school community whilst also maintaining a broad chronological narrative which fosters secure knowledge of periods. We also provide historical fiction homework over each of the six school holidays to support students world building and develop reading for pleasure

Year 7 History Curriculum

Year 8 History Curriculum

Year 9 History Curriculum

The Key Stage 4 curriculum has been planned to enable students to have a seamless transition into their GCSE studies. MEA Central follows the Edexcel syllabus which enables students to revisit concepts that have been developed at KS3. The chosen units are:

• Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, c1060–88
• Medicine in Britain, c1250–present and The British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: injuries, treatment and the trenches
• Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–39
• Superpower relations and the Cold War, 1941–91

These topics cover significant periods in history and each unit offers a different disciplinary approach - a modern depth study, a thematic study, a British depth study and a period study. The sequencing ensures students have pre-requisite skills and recognises the chronological nature of History.

We support students to build on their Key Stage 3 curriculum with as students begin with Anglo Saxon and Norman England working on their explanation of significance, cause and consequence, then progress to Medicine which requires explanation and source analysis.  We then develop understanding of interpretations through the Germany module and finally consider the importance of international tensions to form explanations and narratives in Cold War.

Lessons are structured around enquiry questions to ensure students understand the schema of the GCSE curriculum. These enquiry questions are supported by oracy tasks around talking points for students to recall key knowledge from previous lessons whilst developing their analysis and evaluation and building their own judgements. Independent learning is built around Cornell notes, GCSE pod and exam practice. History students acquire transferable skills that can take them through to various careers from academia to law.

Year 10 History Curriculum

Year 11 History Curriculum