By Catherine Priggs
Curricular coherence is a vital element of effective curriculum design. When a curriculum coheres, it unfolds as a logical narrative, ensuring that content is not a collection of isolated topics. In a coherent curriculum, topics are woven together through overarching ideas, reinforcing pupils’ chronological and conceptual understanding.
So, what does curricular coherence look like in practice?
The power of sequencing
A vital element of strong history curricula, which contributes to coherence, is sequencing. In a carefully sequenced curriculum, topics will be encountered by pupils in an order which allows them to generate secure substantive and disciplinary knowledge that builds upon what they already know:
- New substantive knowledge (knowledge about the past) should deepen pupils’ understanding and help them make sense of the historical narrative as a whole, ensuring pupils grasp connections across time and make meaning of the past.
- Sequencing also ensures pupils’ readiness for the next part of the curriculum through repeated encounters with substantive concepts. This can build pupils’ capacity to see connections, and identify distinctiveness within periods.
- Disciplinary knowledge (understanding of how history works and the methodology of historians) also needs to be carefully sequenced to enable progression in pupils’ disciplinary thinking.
Furthermore, planned interactions between substantive and disciplinary knowledge is crucial. Attempting to build disciplinary knowledge without a focus on the substantive, or teaching the substantive in isolation, would not generate historical knowledge (for more on this see Ofsted’s research review for history).
Big pictures of the past
A coherent curriculum might also support pupils to see “big pictures” of the past. Overarching themes and narratives that help pupils understand how events are interconnected across time and space can allow pupils to establish an overview. Natalie Kesterton emphasised how “plug the gap narratives” can be used to support pupils to see these big pictures by making visible connections between enquiries (Kesterton, 2019).
Conceptual coherence
Conceptual coherence involves ensuring that substantive and disciplinary concepts are woven throughout the curriculum and developed over time (Olivey, 2021). Managing the interplay between these concepts across multiple units is a challenge, but crucial for ensuring that pupils engage meaningfully with historical ideas and that their historical thinking progresses over time.
Use of enquiry questions to govern learning across a sequence of lessons is a highly effective way to manage the interplay between disciplinary and substantive knowledge. Michael Riley called for history teachers to consider how their enquiry questions work as a collection, creating ‘patterns of reinforcement in historical thinking so that questions of the same type will resonate with pupils, teasing out old learning’ (Riley, 2000).
Assessment and historical thinking
Finally, assessment plays a crucial role in reinforcing curricular coherence by providing pupils with opportunities to communicate their understanding of the relationship between substantive and disciplinary knowledge. For example, thoughtfully designed assessments can allow pupils to explore and communicate connections between different parts of the curriculum, drawing on a range of substantive knowledge to demonstrate understanding of disciplinary concepts. In this sense, robust assessment serves as a reflection of a coherent curriculum.
A note of caution: GCSE questions represent a narrow sample of the full domain. Planning a Key Stage 4 curriculum solely to prepare pupils to answer GCSE-style questions (or, worse, extending this to Key Stage 3!) will not build pupils’ capacity to develop authentic historical knowledge. For more on this, see this post by Christine Counsell.
Building a coherent history curriculum is essential for fostering deep and meaningful historical understanding. Intentional sequencing, providing ways for pupils to connect overarching themes, developing conceptual coherence, and using thoughtful assessment, are all ways in which history departments can ensure their pupils engage with history as a dynamic, interconnected narrative.
Interested in deepening your understanding of how to achieve curricular coherence at Key Stage 4?
At GCSE, it’s easy for departments to become distracted by factors such as content coverage or assessment pressures, and coherence at Key Stage 4 can be neglected. This will result in pupils struggling to make connections between different historical periods, hindering their ability to develop a broader overview of history and leaving them with little understanding of how topics fit into a wider historical narrative.
References:
- Kesterton, N. (2019) ‘Plugging the gaps: using narratives and big pictures to address the challenges of a 2-year Key Stage 3 curriculum’ Teaching History, 176, Widening Vistas Edition, 26-34.
- Olivey, J. (2021) ‘They sometimes clashed, and ultimately blended: planning a more diverse and coherent Year 7 curriculum’ Teaching History, 184, Different lenses Edition, 22-31.
- Riley, M. (2000) ‘Into the Key Stage 3 history garden: choosing and planting your enquiry questions’ Teaching History, 99, Curriculum Planning Edition, pp. 8-13
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