Year 9 Options Video
Curriculum Intent
Overview:
The Delta History curriculum is organised largely chronologically, taking our students on an exciting journey through the past, and helping them to understand and explain the present world by exploring the past world. This understanding has its foundation in British history but is then built upon by enquiries which explore global, continental and regional events, thus emphasising the complexities of the past and the disputed nature of History. It is a broad and balanced curriculum based on stories…stories of the events, people and turning points that have shaped our world, where the past is an imagined landscape that can be experienced and understood. Resultantly, students develop their disciplinary thinking by exploring the past from multiple perspectives, both in terms of the people studied, and in the study of those who record and interpret history. Through careful consideration of the causes and consequences of historical events, students can make well-balanced and well-informed judgements of their own.
Substantive Knowledge:
Our understanding of the past is rooted in storytelling. Throughout the Delta history curriculum are woven narratives of the people and events that have shaped our world and the lives we live today. From heroes to villains, successes and failures, conquests and loss, a sense of curiosity piqued and aspiration for further knowledge is at the heart of the curriculum.
Disciplinary Knowledge:
Across the key stages, students are enabled to think critically, weigh evidence, understand arguments and interpretations and thus make their own judgements about the past. They will become better learners as they gain the skills to investigate, analyse, and debate past events and will show sophisticated use of disciplinary knowledge by thinking critically, and approaching evidence and interpretations analytically to seek the truth.
Scholarship and Literacy:
Students who leave school with poor literacy skills are held back at every stage of their life and their outcomes in every area are poorer. It is essential therefore that disciplinary literacy is prioritised across the curriculum. Throughout all key stages, students explore a range of extracts, sources and interpretations, all of which contribute to enhancing their love of reading as well as their historical skills. Furthermore, each enquiry at Key Stage 3 is centred around historical scholarship. By introducing students to the work of academic historians and using the Key Stage 3 curriculum to build capacity to read academic texts, affords students a greater ability to handle more complexity in the reading encountered in history.
Expert Teaching:
Students experience a high-quality learning experience and environment where modelled and adaptive teaching is at the heart of the curriculum. Meticulously planned sequences of learning based around ‘chapters’ help students to shape an extended answer to an overarching question. The power of vivid and intriguing narratives captivates students and enables them to remember more as they become immersed in rich, quality texts. Our teaching is grounded in deep subject expertise which empowers teachers to deliver content confidently, challenge misconceptions, and inspire intellectual curiosity to help develop the citizens of the future – citizens who will question the status quo and provide solutions to present problems, aided by their knowledge of the past.
| Pedagogy | Enrichment | Sequencing |
| Our pedagogy is underpinned by: enquiry based studies set within a broader historical context a focus on developing students’ analytical writing by focussing on description, explanation and evaluation the regular use of live modelling and exemplar answers to demonstrate processes, standards and expectations a range of strategies to deepen knowledge so that it is committed to long term memory the importance of giving students regular opportunities to improve work interrogating current historical debates students understanding what they are doing well and how they need to improve students will develop new skills through a variety of interesting contexts to foster enjoyment students will develop a rich and deep subject knowledge | We will enrich our curriculum by:establishing cross-curricular linksproviding on and off-site subject or topic related experiencesoffering opportunities for children to learn outdoors where appropriateholding Trust-wide competitions to celebrate best work and extraordinary effortencouraging students to contribute to the life of the school and the community, including remembrance activitiesdeveloping partnerships with external providers that extend children’s opportunities for learningbuild on their understanding of the importance of British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and tolerance and respectimprove their spiritual, social, moral and cultural understanding | The curriculum is sequenced to ensure:students learn within a coherent chronological frameworkkey concepts and themes such as civilisation, society, government are interwoventhere is opportunity to measure pace, extent and trends in change and continuity over timestudents are able to make relevant links between historical episodes such as the black death and the industrial revolutionthere is progression between key stages 3 and 4, with students being exposed to themes and content that will allow all students to access the KS4 contentthere is an increasing level of challenge and complexity to enquiriesthere is appropriate division of time between Ancient, Medieval, Early Modern and Modern topics |