KS2 - Opening Worlds

What is Opening Worlds?

Opening Worlds is a knowledge-rich humanities programme for teaching history, geography and religion in Years 3 to 6. We provide curriculum resources together with training, support and ongoing programme-related professional development for primary school teachers. Because of its rapidly discernible effects on literacy and highly inclusive approach, Opening Worlds quickly gained appeal in schools tackling under-achievement in areas of social disadvantage.

The Opening Worlds programme was first launched in 2019 by Christine Counsell and Steve Mastin, in association with Haringey Education Partnership (HEP). Over 60 primary schools took it up in Haringey and subsequently in neighbouring Enfield. A new company Opening Worlds Ltd was then founded and, in partnership with HEP, began to work with cohesive groups of twelve or more primary schools (eg LA partnerships, MATs and other school groups with established community leadership) in other settings. In this way, over 300 primary schools beyond Haringey and Enfield have now adopted the programme through Opening Worlds communities established in Birmingham, Brent, Bristol, Cambridgeshire, Lancashire, Liverpool, Peterborough, Surrey, Devon and Cornwall, together with some MAT communities serving multiple locations.

The programme meets and substantially exceeds the demand of the National Curriculum for history and geography. The religion programme is compatible with the objectives of most SACRE locally agreed syllabuses in RE but substantially exceeds the knowledge-base and the resourcing that such local RE syllabuses offer. The programme is characterised by strong vertical sequencing within subjects (so that pupils gain security in a rich, broad vocabulary through systematic introduction, sustained practice and deliberate revisiting) and by intricate horizontal and diagonal connections, thus creating a curriculum whose effects are far greater than the sum of their parts.

• thoroughness in knowledge-building, achieved through intricate coherence and tight sequencing;
• global and cultural breadth, embracing wide diversity across ethnicity, gender, region and community;
• rapid impact on literacy through systematic introduction and revisiting of new vocabulary;
• subject-specific disciplinary rigour, teaching pupils to interpret and argue, to advance and weigh claims, and to understand the distinctive ways in which subject traditions enquire and seek truth;
• well-told stories: beautifully written narratives and the nurture of teachers’ own story-telling art;
• a highly inclusive approach, secured partly through common knowledge (giving access to common language) and partly through thorough high-leverage teaching that is pacey, oral, interactive and fun;
• efficient use of lesson time, blending sharp pace, sustained practice and structured reflection;
• rapid improvement of teachers’ teaching through systematic training in the Opening Worlds evidence-informed, high-leverage techniques.