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26 | www.teachwire.net the stories of humanity that have shaped our modern world. Carefully constructing a narrative arc across a unit will also help your pupils understand the causal links that are present across much of history, and will capitalise on the fact that the human brain automatically wants to sequence information into narratives in order to understand it (see the work of cognitive scientist Dan Willingham and history specialist Christine Counsell on this). The KS2 curriculum also emphasises ‘establishing clear narratives within and across periods’, so this model is useful both cognitively and to meet curriculum specs. Win-win. So how to start? Well, first of all we need a question to act as a hook, stimulating children’s curiosity and structuring their learning. Historical enquiry is the key to the whole puzzle, so questions should allow pupils to work towards answering the question as a historian might. For example, when teaching about Roman York, we may ask ‘ What does the evidence reveal about life in Eboracum? ’ This provides a clear focus for enquiry, as well as a sense of mystery about what will unfold. You can then break down these overarching questions into sub-enquiries that function like chapters of the story you’re teaching. I f I were to say that you needed to teach pupils about the Roman Empire and its impact on Roman Britain, would you immediately know where to start? What to cover, and emphasise? Would you be confident doing this for the entire history curriculum, from scratch? I imagine many teachers would absolutely excel at this, but there are also many of us for whom deciding which elements from the last 1,000 years or so to include can feel like one hell of a job, especially amongst everything else we have to think about and plan for. History is vast in scale and challenge, and is full of landscapes and cultures far beyond the world of which 21st century children have any understanding. So as subject leaders and class teachers, we must focus our attention on the key question: which stories should we tell, and why? When I’m working with trainee teachers, I find that one of the most useful starting points is to define what history actually is as a subject, and look at its Greek etymology: histōr – learned, wise man historia – inquiry, narrative, account Here we can see that narrative is at the heart of the subject, and to teach history effectively, we should be engaging with Each enquiry plays a role in defining the learning on a more granular level, so children’s knowledge flows and builds deliberately and cumulatively. This will also support you as a teacher in defining what core background knowledge pupils will need to construct a full narrative answer to the bigger question. Cross-curricular pedagogies In English we might use story maps to depict a narrative arc, and similarly in history, we can use timelines to structure and contextualise historical events (see an example at tinyurl.com/ tp-HistoryTimelines ). You can even embed retrieval in much the same way as you would when reading the class book; ask what happened last time children learned about this topic. Where do pupils think the story will go next? STORY? What’s the Setting the scene in history is like crafting a brilliant narrative, says Stuart Tiffany , and can help structure your teaching, to boot... “We must focus on the key question: which stories should we tell, and why?”