Being Historians

How do we teach History at Nova?

At Nova Primary School, we aim to inspire a curiosity about and fascination for the world around them. Our curriculum is ambitious and is designed to ensure that they gain knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past, as well as that of the wider world. As children progress through the schools, they develop the ability to think like a historian. Alongside a body of knowledge which covers the national curriculum, we also aim to equip children to become citizens of a complex world, able to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. 

At Nova, we follow the CUSP curriculum. It is cumulative, coherent and connected. Across the Early Foundations and CUSP Primary History sequence, what pupils will know and be able to do across the curriculum has been carefully mapped. This ensures that learning builds cumulatively and helps students to make connections between concepts that they have learned. Prior learning has been identified and mapped to the curriculum so that teachers can build new knowledge.  

We define knowledge as being substantive and disciplinary.  

  • Substantive concepts focus on community, knowledge, invasion, civilisation, power and democracy. 
  • Substantive knowledge is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the content. 
  • Disciplinary knowledge focuses on skills such as chronology, cause and consequence, change and continuity, similarity and difference, evidence and significance. 

A guiding principle of CUSP History is that pupils become ‘more expert’ with each study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental timeline. This guards against superficial, disconnected and fragmented understanding of the past. Specific and associated historical vocabulary is planned sequentially and cumulatively from Year 1 to Year 6. 

An overview of history coverage along with skills, knowledge and vocabulary progression at Nova can be found here along with our intent for history:

History-disciplinary-knowledge-mapping.pdf
History subject intent at Nova 2026.pdf

What does history learning look like at Nova?

Year 2 enjoyed dressing up for a Victorian school day, where they experienced what it would have been like to be a child in Victorian times. This was following their trip to Muller Orphanage in Ashley Down.
As part of International Women’s Day, these Year 6 girls delivered an assembly about celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
Year 6 enjoyed their trip, lead by a local historian, around Bristol exploring how the city centre had been effected during WW2.

Leadership:

Livia Hernandez is our Lead Historian, who you can speak to to find out more about how we teach our History Curriculum at Nova.

Priorities:
-The history curriculum incorporates diversity where children learn about different ethnic communities, genders, classes, together with other facets of diversity such as localities, religious perspectives, disability etc.

-To implement the CUSP curriculum fully

-Children can compare similarities and differences between the current and prior learning (substantive threads).

– Embed adaptive teaching principles to improve outcomes linked to subject specific knowledge and skills   SEND and challenge is planned for.