History Intent Statement Thirsk Community Primary School
At Thirsk Community Primary School, our History curriculum, delivered through Kapow Primary’s scheme of work, is carefully structured to develop pupils into curious, critical, and skilled young historians. Historical knowledge is shaped through a disciplinary approach, with six key strands interwoven through every unit to create engaging, enriching learning experiences that allow pupils to investigate history as historians do.
Driven by our value of ambition, lessons are taught with a strong sense of pace to maintain momentum and enthusiasm. Regular feedback ensures that pupils continually refine their understanding and historical thinking. We prioritise the promotion of historical vocabulary and oracy, enabling pupils to articulate their ideas confidently and precisely. A strong celebration of our local heritage — Thirsk and the wider North Yorkshire area — is embedded throughout our curriculum, helping pupils appreciate their community’s place within broader historical narratives.
Each six-lesson unit places emphasis on chronology, enabling pupils to locate events in time, make connections across periods, and understand contrasts around the world. In EYFS, children begin by reflecting on their personal pasts and contrasting characters from stories, building early foundations in understanding how individual lives fit into broader historical contexts. This mental timeline is built upon through Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, helping pupils to form a secure chronological framework for their future learning.
In line with our value of compassion, the curriculum has been thoughtfully designed to prioritise pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. Activities are experiential, purposeful, and structured to avoid cognitive overload. Learning experiences are hands-on and engaging, ensuring that pupils can access the curriculum in ways that inspire curiosity without overwhelming them.
Pupils are encouraged to explore history through an enquiry-based model: Question, Investigate, Interpret, Evaluate and Conclude, Communicate. Throughout the curriculum, children engage with key disciplinary concepts — including change and continuity, cause and consequence, similarities and differences, historical significance, interpretations, and sources of evidence — across varied historical periods and contexts. Substantive concepts such as power, trade, invasion, and settlement are introduced and revisited, supporting deepening understanding through a spiral curriculum model that builds knowledge and skills over time.
Reflecting our strong commitment to inclusion, we use overlearning strategies to ensure all pupils, regardless of ability, retain and apply historical knowledge and skills confidently. We recognise that the teaching of reading underpins access to the full History curriculum, and we prioritise reading to allow all pupils to engage fully with historical texts and sources. Our curriculum also fosters an understanding of Thirsk Community Primary’s core values and the Modern British Values, enabling pupils to explore themes of democracy, rule of law, liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance through their historical studies.
Kapow Primary provides strong support for staff subject knowledge, ensuring teachers feel confident in delivering high-quality History lessons. Each unit builds links with prior learning, highlights potential misconceptions, and includes adaptations to ensure all pupils can access and achieve. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils’ retention of key facts, concepts, and vocabulary. In addition to this, we utilise a clear system to label the substantive concepts and disciplinary approaches for staff and pupils, which is shared at the start of each lessons. This supports pupils and staff to make clear links between the units studied, to signpost how knowledge, skill and understanding develop over time.
Through varied, experiential, and inclusive lessons, our History curriculum equips all children with the knowledge, understanding, and skills needed to succeed — in history and in life.
History Implementation Statement Thirsk Community Primary School
At Thirsk Community Primary School, Kapow Primary’s History scheme is utilised to inspire pupils to be curious and creative thinkers who develop a secure knowledge of local, national, and world history. Through our carefully designed curriculum, pupils grow in confidence to think critically, ask perceptive questions, and explain and analyse historical evidence.
A strong understanding of chronology is central to our approach, helping pupils to make meaningful connections across periods of time and to develop a secure, coherent knowledge of the past. We also seek to develop pupils’ understanding of how historians study and construct accounts of the past, equipping pupils with the skills needed to conduct their own historical enquiries.
Our value of Ambition is woven throughout our History teaching. We place a strong emphasis on high expectations, using feedback effectively to support progression in both pupils’ substantive knowledge and disciplinary understanding. We promote rich historical vocabulary and develop pupils’ oracy, ensuring they can articulate their ideas clearly and confidently. Furthermore, our curriculum celebrates our unique local area, Thirsk and North Yorkshire, allowing pupils to develop a deep-rooted pride in their heritage and to understand their place within broader historical narratives.
We also strive to ensure pupils appreciate the complexity of people’s lives, the diversity of societies, and the relationships between different groups across history, enabling pupils to develop empathy and learn important lessons from humanity’s past mistakes. This fosters our value of compassion. Furthermore, through our curriculum design, we utilise visible learning strategies to help pupils structure their understanding, avoiding cognitive overload, taking careful account of pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. By considering cognitive development, we ensure learning is accessible, meaningful, and supportive of emotional understanding.
At Thirsk Community Primary, we are proudly inclusive. Overlearning key historical concepts and events ensures that all pupils, including those who may need more time, can secure knowledge effectively. We also recognise that reading is a gateway to accessing the richness of the History curriculum, and we prioritise the teaching of reading to support pupils’ success across all historical topics. Through the exploration of substantive concepts such as power, invasion, settlement and migration, empire, civilisation, religion, trade, achievements, society, and culture, pupils are not only gaining historical knowledge but also developing their understanding of our school values and Modern British Values. They learn to value democracy, respect the rule of law, celebrate individual liberty, and show tolerance and respect for others.
Kapow Primary’s History scheme enables our pupils to meet and exceed the end of Key Stage attainment targets set out in the National Curriculum. In EYFS, the activities allow pupils to work towards the ‘Understanding the World’ Development Matters statements and Early Learning Goals, while laying the essential foundations for historical learning as they move into Key Stage 1 and beyond.
History Implementation Statement Thirsk Community Primary School
At Thirsk Community Primary School, our History curriculum, delivered through Kapow Primary’s scheme of work, is carefully structured to develop pupils into curious, critical, and skilled young historians. Historical knowledge is shaped through a disciplinary approach, with six key strands interwoven through every unit to create engaging, enriching learning experiences that allow pupils to investigate history as historians do.
Driven by our value of ambition, lessons are taught with a strong sense of pace to maintain momentum and enthusiasm. Regular feedback ensures that pupils continually refine their understanding and historical thinking. We prioritise the promotion of historical vocabulary and oracy, enabling pupils to articulate their ideas confidently and precisely. A strong celebration of our local heritage — Thirsk and the wider North Yorkshire area — is embedded throughout our curriculum, helping pupils appreciate their community’s place within broader historical narratives.
Each six-lesson unit places emphasis on chronology, enabling pupils to locate events in time, make connections across periods, and understand contrasts around the world. In EYFS, children begin by reflecting on their personal pasts and contrasting characters from stories, building early foundations in understanding how individual lives fit into broader historical contexts. This mental timeline is built upon through Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, helping pupils to form a secure chronological framework for their future learning.
In line with our value of compassion, the curriculum has been thoughtfully designed to prioritise pupils’ mental health and wellbeing. Activities are experiential, purposeful, and structured to avoid cognitive overload. Learning experiences are hands-on and engaging, ensuring that pupils can access the curriculum in ways that inspire curiosity without overwhelming them.
Pupils are encouraged to explore history through an enquiry-based model: Question, Investigate, Interpret, Evaluate and Conclude, Communicate. Throughout the curriculum, children engage with key disciplinary concepts — including change and continuity, cause and consequence, similarities and differences, historical significance, interpretations, and sources of evidence — across varied historical periods and contexts. Substantive concepts such as power, trade, invasion, and settlement are introduced and revisited, supporting deepening understanding through a spiral curriculum model that builds knowledge and skills over time.
Reflecting our strong commitment to inclusion, we use overlearning strategies to ensure all pupils, regardless of ability, retain and apply historical knowledge and skills confidently. We recognise that the teaching of reading underpins access to the full History curriculum, and we prioritise reading to allow all pupils to engage fully with historical texts and sources. Our curriculum also fosters an understanding of Thirsk Community Primary’s core values and the Modern British Values, enabling pupils to explore themes of democracy, rule of law, liberty, mutual respect, and tolerance through their historical studies.
Kapow Primary provides strong support for staff subject knowledge, ensuring teachers feel confident in delivering high-quality History lessons. Each unit builds links with prior learning, highlights potential misconceptions, and includes adaptations to ensure all pupils can access and achieve. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils’ retention of key facts, concepts, and vocabulary. In addition to this, we utilise a clear system to label the substantive concepts and disciplinary approaches for staff and pupils, which is shared at the start of each lessons. This supports pupils and staff to make clear links between the units studied, to signpost how knowledge, skill and understanding develop over time.
Through varied, experiential, and inclusive lessons, our History curriculum equips all children with the knowledge, understanding, and skills needed to succeed — in history and in life.
History Impact Statement Thirsk Community Primary School
The impact of History at Thirsk Community Primary School, delivered through the Kapow Primary scheme, is continually monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Every lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives, with each unit providing a skill catcher and knowledge quiz to support summative assessment at the end. The overlaying of additional visible learning activities, especially as a review at the end of lessons, not only supports pupils to structure their understanding, but allows teachers to assess each lesson.
Through our value of ambition, pupils leave Thirsk Community academically ready for the next stage of their education, with a deep and secure understanding of historical knowledge and concepts. They confidently use subject-specific vocabulary to articulate their thinking and demonstrate pride and knowledge in their local heritage of Thirsk and North Yorkshire, making meaningful connections between their community and broader historical developments.
Embodying our value of compassion, pupils develop into resilient, socially ready learners who can keep themselves safe, articulate their views thoughtfully, and approach challenges with a growth mindset. They foster a love of learning about the past, using history as a means to better understand themselves, others, and the world around them.
Through our strong commitment to inclusion, all pupils are supported to become fluent readers, enabling full access to historical texts and sources. They are equipped with the skills and understanding to be well-prepared for life in modern Britain, developing respect for diversity, democracy, and the rule of law. Every child is nurtured and supported to achieve their full potential within History.
As a result of our curriculum, the expected impact is that pupils will:
- Know and understand the history of Britain, how people’s lives have shaped this nation, and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
- Understand the history of the wider world, including ancient civilisations, empires, non-European societies, and the achievements of mankind.
- Develop a historically-grounded understanding of key substantive concepts such as power, invasion, settlement and migration, civilisation, religion, trade, and society.
- Form historical arguments based on cause and effect, consequence, continuity and change, and similarity and difference.
- Appreciate the significance of key individuals, inventions, and events, understanding their lasting impact both historically and today.
- Understand how historians learn about the past and construct accounts and interpretations.
- Ask historically valid questions through an enquiry-based approach, creating structured, evidence-informed accounts.
- Make connections between historical concepts, timescales, and contexts.
- Meet the Early Learning Goals at the end of EYFS and achieve the national curriculum expectations for History by the end of Key Stages 1 and 2.
Through ambition, compassion, and inclusion, History at Thirsk Community Primary School nurtures knowledgeable, critical, and respectful young historians, prepared to make positive contributions to their communities and the wider world.