At Stratford St Mary Primary School we believe through high-quality planning, teaching and assessing, the History curriculum will provide a range of opportunities which will:

• Inspire our pupils’ curiousity so they gain a coherent and chronological knowledge and understanding of Britain’s, and the wider world’s past; from the earliest times to the present day including using connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history and between short and long time-scales. 
• Inspire our pupils’ curiosity so they gain knowledge and understanding of how people’s lives have shaped the nation.
• Inspire our pupils’ curiosity so they gain knowledge and understanding of how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world.
• Ensure our pupils know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world; the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies and achievements. 

• Ensure our pupils gain an understanding of abstract historical terms (empire, civilisation, parliament and peasantry) and understand the methods of historical enquiry; how evidence is used to make historical claims and understand how and why contrasting arguments of the past have been constructed. 
• Equip our pupils’ with the skills and understanding to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement.
• Help our pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and the relationships between different groups, their own identity and the challenges of their time.