Progression in Disciplinary knowledge

Disciplinary knowledge is knowledge about how historians investigate the past and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts - i.e. it is the knowledge of how to undertake a historical enquiry. Children learn disciplinary knowledge within relevant historical contexts (i.e. the substantive topics such as Ancient Greece) - through application to substantive knowledge. Units of learning are framed around central enquiry questions which focus a unit of work on elements of this disciplinary knowledge. This knowledge of historical enquiry frames what pupils learn about the past, supporting them to consider the status of historical claims. It enables them to place their historical knowledge in a broad context. It helps children to understand the different version of the past can be constructed and that historical narrative is partially dependent upon viewpoint.

Disciplinary knowledge is concerned with developing historical rational and critical thinking within enquiry and is categorised into seven disciplinary concepts that are systematically developed in our History Curriculum:

DC1: Cause (selecting and combining information that might be deemed a cause and shaping it into a coherent causal explanation)

DC2: Consequence (understanding the relationship between an event and other future events)

DC3: Change and Continuity (analysing the pace, nature and extent of change)

DC4: Similarity and Difference (analysing the extent and type of difference between people, groups, experiences or places in the same historical period)

DC5: Historical Significance (understanding how and why historical events, trends and individuals are thought of as being important)

DC6: Sources and Evidence (using and critically evaluating sources to build knowledge and understanding of the past)

DC7: Historical Interpretations (history is constructed from different viewpoints and that historians can interpret the same events in varied ways based on evidence, perspective and purpose.

See below for further information on how we progressively sequence discipliinary knowledge across our History Curriculum.