Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement
Intent
At Samlesbury Church of England Primary School, our History curriculum is designed to inspire curiosity and help children understand how the past has shaped the world we live in today. We want every child to think like a historian — asking questions, exploring evidence, and making connections across different times and places.
From the very start in the Early Years Foundation Stage, where children learn about the world through Understanding the World, we help them develop a sense of time and change. They explore their own experiences and family history, which lays the groundwork for more detailed historical learning later.
As children move through school, they build a solid understanding of British, local, and world history. Our curriculum is carefully planned to develop knowledge and skills step-by-step, using five important themes, or “golden threads,” that run through all our lessons:
- Power – learning about monarchy, kingdoms, government, and empires.
- Civilisation – exploring social, cultural, and religious changes in different societies.
- Invasion, Settlement and Migration – understanding how people moving from place to place have shaped communities.
- Trade – looking at how goods, ideas, and culture have been exchanged over time.
- Legacy – seeing how events and people from the past still influence our world today.
These themes help children make links between different times and places and see how history connects to their own lives.
Implementation
At Samlesbury Church of England Primary School, we implement our History curriculum using planned units in addition to units from Kapow Primary History, which are carefully designed to deliver a progressive, enquiry-based approach to history learning across all year groups.
History lessons are delivered either as a block of weekly lessons each term or on a fortnightly basis throughout the year, depending on class timetabling. This flexibility allows for immersive learning experiences while maintaining consistent curriculum coverage.
Our curriculum focuses on five golden threads: Power; Civilisation; Invasion, Settlement and Migration; Trade, and Legacy. These themes run through each unit and help pupils make connections across historical periods and contexts.
Each unit of learning centres around a clear key question, encouraging children to think critically and act as historians by following an enquiry cycle: question, investigate, interpret, evaluate, conclude, and communicate.
In the Early Years Foundation Stage, history is introduced through exploring children’s own experiences and stories, helping them understand the concept of the past in a personal context. As children progress, they build chronological awareness with the support of the Kapow timeline, enabling them to place people and events in order and make comparisons across time and place.
The curriculum intertwines disciplinary concepts such as change and continuity, cause and consequence, historical significance, and use of evidence, alongside substantive concepts like power, trade, and migration. These concepts are revisited regularly and explored in different historical contexts to deepen understanding.
Lessons are designed to be engaging and hands-on, providing opportunities to handle sources, analyse evidence, and develop historical skills. Knowledge organisers support children in recalling key facts, vocabulary, and concepts.
Teachers have access to detailed guidance and resources within Kapow, supporting their subject knowledge and providing advice for adapting lessons to meet all learners' needs, including extension activities for more able pupils.
Children’s learning is assessed at the end of each unit using clear knowledge- and skills-based criteria. Assessment outcomes inform future planning and interventions, and progress is reported to parents through formal school reports to keep them informed.
Impact
By the time children leave Samlesbury, they have a strong understanding of when events happened and how to place people and periods in the right order. They use the five golden threads — Power, Civilisation, Invasion, Settlement and Migration, Trade, and Legacy — to help them make sense of history and how it all connects.
Children become confident in asking good questions and using different kinds of evidence to find answers. They understand that history can be told in different ways and are able to talk about these different points of view.
They can explain what they know clearly, using the right words to describe history, whether speaking or writing.
Most importantly, children leave school with a love for history — curious to keep learning, aware of how the past influences the world today, and ready for future learning.
Our history curriculum helps every child become a thoughtful and interested historian, prepared to explore the world with open eyes and an enquiring mind.