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History has been planned carefully and with care at Bowdon Church School, to allow the children to go on their own 'historical journey'. From Year 3, topics are taught in chronological order (mainly) children are encouraged to plot each of the topic on their own personal timeline to show context and clear chronology, as well as links between time periods. 


We focus on 5 key Historical concepts which we link throughout each topic. They ensure that the children are not simply learning facts, but they are developing relevant and useful skills which can be used for future investigation. The concepts are:


  • Historical curiosity 

  • Historical concepts

  • Historical interpretation

  • Historical enquiry

  • Historical communication


We have created a skills progression document to ensure that the children's skills are being built upon year on year, whilst also planning in subject-specific vocabulary, as well as links across other subjects (specifically Geography). It is important that our children have the opportunity to construct their own opinions, arguments and have the ability to balance evidence based on secure knowledge and the ability to research independently, which are addressed through the above historical concepts. 

We have recently implemented 6 key areas of learning for each history topic. This has been done to provide opportunities for comparison, links and to identify cause and effect -why do we live like we do now? What key points, inventions, ways of life have brought us to this point?  How has British and world History shaped the world in which we live? These key areas are:


  1. Achievements 
  2. Housing
  3. Society 
  4. Food
  5. Entertainment
  6. Beliefs


As with all other curriculum subjects at Bowdon, we teach History with  a big focus on Growth Mindset and the idea of 'yet'.  Additionally, we use our faith as a Church School to underpin the values we include in our History curriculum. We want our children to be confident, happy, independent, resilient and to very much work with our Christian Values in mind.