History
At Sikh Heritage Girls School, pupils learn about the past while learning how historians come to know and understand it.
Historical enquiry begins from the earliest years. In Year 1, girls undertake an oral-history project in which they speak to a grandparent or older member of the family or community about childhood in the past. They prepare questions, listen carefully, compare experiences and begin to recognise that what we know about the past comes from evidence that needs to be considered thoughtfully.
As pupils move through the school, these early habits become more sophisticated. Girls build a stronger sense of chronology, work with a wider range of sources, explore cause and consequence, consider significance and change, and examine why accounts of the same past may differ. By the upper years, they are increasingly expected to draw together knowledge and evidence to construct historical explanations and arguments of their own.
Our curriculum is broad in both time and place. Pupils develop secure knowledge of British history while continually placing it within a wider picture that includes local, Sikh, South Asian, European and world history. They are regularly asked to consider what was happening elsewhere at the same time and where different histories meet.
We want our girls to know a substantial amount about the past and to develop the judgement needed to question, interpret and discuss it well.
Intent
Our History curriculum develops historical knowledge and historical thinking together. Pupils build an increasingly connected chronological framework so that new learning has somewhere to sit. Dates, centuries, periods, people and events are revisited and connected, helping girls to develop a mental map of the past rather than remembering a series of unrelated topics.
Alongside this knowledge, they learn how historians work. Pupils ask historical questions, use sources as evidence, explain why events happened, trace change and continuity, consider significance and explore different interpretations. Discussion, debate and writing become more demanding as pupils gain the knowledge needed to support their conclusions.
These are not generic skills taught separately from historical content. The ability to analyse evidence or judge an interpretation depends upon knowing enough about the period, people and circumstances being studied. For this reason, knowledge and historical enquiry are deliberately developed together.
Implementation
Chronology and connected histories
Chronology runs through the curriculum. Timelines are used regularly to develop pupils' understanding of sequence, duration and historical period, and new learning is located in relation to what pupils have studied before.
Girls are also encouraged to look beyond the history of one country. When they encounter a period or event, they consider what was happening in other parts of the world and how these histories may have intersected. British history is therefore studied securely, but not in isolation. Empire, trade, migration, religion, conflict and political change provide natural points at which British, Sikh, South Asian and wider global histories connect.
Local and community history also have an important place. Family testimony, local places, buildings, photographs and records allow pupils to see that history can be investigated through evidence close to home before their enquiries expand across Britain and the wider world.
History in context
We avoid teaching the past as a collection of isolated famous people and memorable events. Individuals are understood within the societies in which they lived.
When older pupils encounter Galileo Galilei, for example, they place him within the scientific, religious, legal and intellectual world of seventeenth-century Europe. This allows them to understand his significance with greater historical accuracy and to consider how later generations have interpreted the events surrounding him.
Women are similarly present throughout the history pupils study. Girls encounter women as rulers, campaigners, thinkers, scientists, workers and members of communities rather than meeting them only through occasional standalone lessons. Studies of women's suffrage, for example, include figures such as Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, allowing pupils to make meaningful connections between Punjab, the Sikh Empire, Britain, Empire and the campaign for women's political rights.
Sikh history is a distinct and recurring strand across the school. Pupils return to Sikh historical people, places, events and movements as they grow, each time developing greater chronological knowledge and a more sophisticated understanding of evidence, context, cause and consequence.
We speak of Sikh history as a living history because its continuities remain visible in places, institutions, texts, artefacts, commemorations and communities today. It is nevertheless studied with the same historical discipline as every other area of the curriculum. Girls examine chronology, evidence and interpretation and place Sikh history within the wider histories of Punjab, South Asia, Britain and the world.
This allows connections between Sikh and British history to emerge naturally through the curriculum, particularly through the study of Empire, migration, political change and individual lives.
Every pupil has access to this historical ambition. Where additional support is needed, teachers use vocabulary preparation, visual chronology, carefully selected sources and modelling to make demanding content and historical reasoning accessible without reducing the substance of what pupils study.
Assessment
Assessment considers both what pupils know about the past and how effectively they can use that knowledge.
Teachers look for secure and connected historical knowledge, growing chronological understanding and increasingly precise use of historical vocabulary. They also consider how well pupils explain cause and change, use sources as evidence, recognise different interpretations and support conclusions with relevant knowledge.
As pupils mature, discussion, debate and sustained historical writing give them opportunities to select and organise what they know rather than simply reproduce it. Assessment helps teachers identify the knowledge or historical thinking that needs to be revisited and strengthened next.
Impact
By the time girls leave SHGS, we want them to possess a connected body of historical knowledge and an increasingly secure sense of where people and events belong in time.
They should understand that local, British, Sikh, South Asian and wider world histories often overlap and that events cannot always be understood properly without considering those connections.
They should also understand that historical claims require evidence and context. When accounts differ, pupils should be curious about why rather than assuming that one must simply be accepted. They should be able to explain causes and consequences, consider significance and change, use evidence appropriately and construct reasoned historical arguments of their own. We want girls who know enough history to recognise when an explanation is too simple, who ask what evidence supports a claim and who understand that conclusions sometimes need to change when the evidence requires it.
Research-Informed Practice
Our curriculum reflects established thinking in history education about the close relationship between substantive knowledge, what pupils know about the past, and disciplinary knowledge, what they understand about the way historians investigate the past and construct historical claims.
Ofsted's history research emphasises that these forms of knowledge develop together. Secure contextual knowledge enables pupils to make better use of sources, understand interpretations and construct meaningful historical arguments.
The Historical Association similarly emphasises the importance of chronology, carefully framed enquiry, evidence and interpretation, with pupils returning to these aspects of historical thinking at increasing levels of depth.
These principles underpin an SHGS curriculum in which girls steadily know more about the past and become better equipped to investigate and discuss it for themselves.
Selected References
Ofsted. Research Review Series: History.
Department for Education. National Curriculum in England: History Programmes of Study.
Historical Association. Professional guidance and research on chronology, historical enquiry, sources, interpretations and progression in primary history.
Historic Royal Palaces. Historical research and educational resources relating to Princess Sophia Duleep Singh and the Duleep Singh family.
Enquiry, evidence and interpretation
Our History curriculum is designed around purposeful historical enquiries. Each unit is driven by a question that requires pupils to build knowledge over time before reaching a reasoned conclusion.
Sources are central to this process. Pupils encounter photographs, objects, maps, letters, paintings, newspapers, oral testimony, official records and contemporary accounts. Younger girls begin by asking what a source can tell them. As they mature, they consider who created it, when and why, what it reveals and what remains uncertain.
They also learn that a source does not become useful or useless simply because it contains a particular viewpoint. Its value depends upon the historical question being asked, the circumstances in which it was produced and the other evidence available.
Historical interpretations are introduced gradually. Younger pupils recognise that the same event or person may be remembered or represented differently. Older girls compare accounts more critically, considering when they were produced, why they may differ and what evidence lies behind them. This work feeds directly into pupils' speaking and writing. Historical arguments are expected to rest on knowledge and evidence rather than unsupported opinion, with pupils becoming more precise and independent as they move through the school.