Our knowledge and skills documents provide a framework for comprehensive coverage of the time period, people or events being studied. Teachers use these documents to plan sequential, progressive lessons which ensure children learn and retain key facts (substantive knowledge) while also developing the skills of thinking like a historian. Lessons enable pupils to investigate the past, construct historical claims, arguments and accounts (disciplinary knowledge).

The curriculum is designed to reflect the intrinsic relationship between substantive and disciplinary knowledge and is developed simultaneously. Teachers use the documents to ensure clear progression and make links across both the history curriculum and with other subjects. They also provide a framework for assessment.