History

Our Vision

History is more than a collection of stories about famous people and significant events. Teaching History is about teaching students to access historical events and significant people with depth and understanding. Of course, there are many amazing stories about amazing people and amazing events. These stories should go hand in hand with an understanding of the skills required to become historians. Belief and Culture is an integral part of History education. In addition to supporting students to become expert historians, History can develop our students’ understanding of the many different cultures of our world and help to pose the many ethical questions that lay therein.

By the end of Year 7, students should…

  • Utilise their contextual knowledge and skills of analysis to make two inferences from sources. They will also utilise their contextual knowledge to explain a significant event in history and how things changed as a result.
  • Using their knowledge, they will be able to develop their own opinion and contextual knowledge to argue for/against a viewpoint.

By the end of Year 8, students should…

  • Utilise their contextual knowledge and skills of analysis to make two inferences from and explain the usefulness of sources.
  • They will also utilise their contextual knowledge and skills to write a narrative account of a significant event in history, demonstrating an understanding of chronology and change/continuity.
  • Using their knowledge, they will develop their own opinion to argue for/against a viewpoint.

By the end of Year 9, students should…

  • Utilise contextual knowledge and skills of analysis to investigate, make two inferences from, compare and weigh up, identify utility/intention of different sources.
  • They will utilise their knowledge to counter myths and stereotypes. Using this knowledge and interaction with sources, interpretations, oral histories and artefacts, they will develop their understanding/ appreciation of different experiences and recognise differences/similarities.
  • They are also expected to use their contextual knowledge and skills to explain the usefulness of sources, describe three features of a historical interpretation, write a narrative account of a significant event in history, demonstrating an understanding of geography, chronology and change/continuity.
  • Using their own opinion and contextual knowledge they will argue for/against a viewpoint, using evidence to support their own claims.

Key Concepts

Historical Interpretations
Causes and Consequences
Significance
Change and Continuity
Sources

KS3 History

Our History Learning Journey

Curriculum Breakdown

Year 7

  • Who the first English people were and where they came from
  • What happened when the Anglo Saxons came to Britain
  • What England was like before the Battle of Hastings and what the Anglo Saxons did all day
  • What happened in the Battle of Hastings 1066 and how William took control of England
  • What drove people to migrate and how migrants have changed Britain
  • What happened to England’s medieval monarchs and how important they were
  • How strong-willed Eleanor of Aquitaine was
  • Whether King John was unlucky or useless
  • How important the Magna Carta was
  • How Edward I changed castles
  • What the causes and symptoms of the Black Death were and how people responded to it
  • What it was like to live in the shadow of the Black Death
  • Whether 1348 was ‘the end of the world’

Year 8

  • What Britain was like 250 years ago and why the population ‘exploded’
  • The impact that factories had on society
  • What black gold was and how it impacted on society
  • The significant inventions of the 19th century
  • What the slave trade was
  • What it was like for an enslaved person to be on a slave ship and what occurred during a slave sale
  • How responsible Britain was for the slave trade and who resisted against it
  • What happened to slaves after 1807
  • What Victorian schools were like
  • Whether Britain was a healthier nation in the 19th Century
  • Why George was in the chocolate factory
  • Why there is a chimpanzee on a £2 coin
  • How science influenced religion in the 19th century

Year 9

  • How the ‘great powers’ were drawn into alliances before 1914
  • Why Germany wanted a ‘place in the sun’
  • What the Schlieffen Plan was and how it failed
  • What propaganda is and how was it used in World War 1
  • What the Treaty of Versailles was and what its impact was
  • What life was like in the trenches of WW1
  • What was /Who were the ‘conscientious objectors’?
  • Why a truce happened at Christmas 1914
  • What happened in Germany and the rest of Europe at the end of World War 1
  • What the Munich Putsch was, why it failed and what the consequences were for the NSDAP
  • What ‘the Holocaust’ was
  • Who were the European Jewry before WW2 and what does it mean to be Jewish?
  • What are the different Jewish celebrations and festivals?
  • Did antisemitism begin with Hitler and the Nazi party?
  • What was the geography of the Holocaust: where were the Jewish people concentrated?
  • What was the purpose of Nazi concentration camps?
  • Who was responsible for the Holocaust?
  • What the enduring consequences of the Holocaust are

KS4 History

Edexcel GCSE 9 – 1

We have designed a course that will:

  • engage students with a broad and diverse study of the history of Britain and the wider world
  • give skills that will support progression to further study of history and a wide range of other subjects
  • support students with a wide range of accompanying materials to help them succeed and exceed their potential

The Edexcel GCSE (9-1) History course consists of three externally assessed exam papers, which are taken at the end of the course.

  • Crime & Punishment in Britain: c1000-present and Whitechapel, c1870-1900: crime, policing and the inner city
  • Early Elizabethan England 1558-88
  • Superpower relations and the Cold War 1941-91
  • Weimar & Nazi Germany, 1919-1939

This is a full GCSE 9-1 qualification.

There is no entry requirement to join our very popular and exciting course; just a desire to investigate history with curiosity, commitment and enthusiasm!