"A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots"
Marcus Garvey

At Callington Community College we aim to give students a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. We aim to inspire pupils’ curiosity of the past to know more about and understand the world in which they live, giving them a coherent chronological framework and narrative of Britain and the wider world. We aim to give students an understanding of how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world. We aim to help students understand and make sense of ancient civilisations and the contribution they have made, the expansion and dissolution of Empires and the characteristic features of non-European societies. At Callington we also aim to give our students a historically grounded understanding of concepts such as ‘empire’, ‘power’ and ‘the Church’.

By the end of their education in History at Callington Community College, all students of History will: 

• Understand the connections between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history and between short and long-term timescales.  
• Be able to make sense of the world they live in by using their ability to make sense of the past and how it has shaped our modern world.
• Be able to analyse events in depth but also in ‘breadth’- people, place and society across time.
• Make links to current events and how they fit into the wider chronological picture, for example, how migration to Britain over the last 2,000 years has helped to shape modern British society and culture.   

Our aim is that students who study history at Callington will better understand their world because they know and understand how it came to be. 

In order to fully appreciate History and develop a deep schema, topics in History have been intelligently sequenced by the following rationale: 

Our curriculum has been sequenced to give students a deep understanding of the disciplinary knowledge required to be a good historian; second-order concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, chronology, interpretation and significance are explicitly explored. At Callington we aim to allow students to make connections, draw contrasts, through their own practice, understand how we analyse trends over time, for example, the significance of the church in our lives. We achieve this by providing students with an enquiry question for each topic they study; encouraging them to think and work like historians, for example ‘Who held the power in Medieval England – the Crown or the Church?’. We also encourage students to understand that the past we study is an interpretation and that there are different historical interpretations of the past because of the quality and quantity of evidence available. Through the study of various historians’ work, such as David Olusoga and Ian Dawson, we investigate how historical evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why there are different historical interpretations of the past. We provide reading opportunities for students so that they may better grasp the breadth of historical opinion and evidence. The irony is that the past changes and we ensure our students understand why that is the case.

Mary Myatt said that History should not be thought as a " stage set on which certain things happened [but] more like a chapter in the story which involves us all..." It is with this in mind that our curriculum has been constructed to enable students to build their substantive knowledge whilst continuously improving and developing their disciplinary knowledge. Not only are core themes interwoven throughout the KS3 programme of study, such as ‘power’, allowing students to use their hinterland knowledge to better study other events, but so too are the disciplinary concepts such as evidence analysis and change and continuity, providing students with the tools they need to do the historical enquiry.  

The History curriculum at Callington Community College has been influenced by:

Curriculum literature from Mary Myatt, Ruth Ashbee and Michael Young has influenced our thinking. Our history is vast and cannot (and should not) be squeezed into a three-year curriculum. Whilst we have endeavoured to provide a rich and considered experience of British and world history, it is simply impossible to teach it all, therefore we have sought to enrich the curriculum with the ‘Meanwhile, Elsewhere’ work of Richard Kennett and Will Bailey-Watson and develop it further to include ‘Meanwhile Who Else’. These snap shots of history, taught as concise case studies, provide further breadth to the studies of our students and ensure that they understand that events do not occur in isolation, as well as the significance of key individuals. For example a depth study of the lives of soldiers in the First World War is complimented with a dive into the Russian Revolutions of 1917, providing that bigger picture of the war years as well as a foundation of knowledge for the later study of the Cold War and post WWII Europe.

Our History curriculum addresses disadvantage through:

Students with any disadvantage are supported to ensure that their experience of studying history is no different to that of others; through the provision comprehensive resources (accessible on-line), tailored pedagogy and learning support where needed, every student has the opportunity to learn.