History

The History department has four specialist History teachers and it has been the department’s policy for departmental staff to teach as wide a range of History as possible, throughout the age and ability range. Examination results at GCSE and A Level are consistently good and above the national average.

Curriculum Intent

Marcus Garvey once said: ‘A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots’. The intent behind our curriculum is to give our students these roots through a knowledge and procedure rich enquiry based curriculum. Through the provision of ambitious, magical, temporal experiences from throughout significant and relevant local, nation and world history, we aspire to imbue our students with deep understandings of both the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of history as a subject and discipline, so they can better orientate themselves in time and participate actively as global citizens in a diverse world.

Our curriculum is ambitiously based upon rich and powerful knowledge; taking the form of fingertip, that needed to access the past, residual, that needed to connect the past, and hinterland, that needed to enhance the past. This residual or substantive knowledge, such as revolution, empire and persecution is specifically sequenced throughout our curriculum to deepen students’ understandings of the developments over time and is reinforced through being framed within a chronological structure. The curriculum is further sequenced due to its enquiry based focus on, not only the substance of history, but procedural concepts, such as change and continuity, cause and consequence as well as similarity and difference and the use of evidence and historical accounts. These deepen student’s awareness of ‘how’ history is created and further enhances the ambitious nature of our curriculum through the questions and thinking these develop.

Through our carefully sequenced, enquiry based curriculum we not only reveal the majesty of the subject of history, but aim to, give students a connection with, and love of, the past, as well as a deep understanding of where this fits into their lives. Creating questioning citizens who are aware of the nuance of the world and are ready to embrace its wonderment and diversity.

GCSE

Edexcel GCSE History

Paper 1 (30% of final grade)

- Medicine in Britain, c1250–present

- The British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: injuries, treatment and the trenches.

Paper 2 (40% of final grade)

- Anglo-Saxon and Norman England, c1060 – 88

- The American West, c1835 – 95

Paper 3 (30% of final grade)

- Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918 – 39

A Level

OCR History A

Paper 1 (25% of final grade)

- England, 1547 – 1603: The later Tudor

Paper 2 (15% of final grade)

- The French Revolution and the rule of Napoleon, 1774 - 1815

Paper 3 (40% of final grade)

- Popular Culture and the Witchcraze of the 16th and 17th Centuries

NEA (20% of final grade)

- Topic based essay

Facilities

The department has four well-resourced History rooms which are all equipped with projectors, whiteboards and wi-fi computer/internet access. Rooms are displayed with student work and historical resources to create a rich and stimulating environment in which to learn.

Enrichment

The department tries to find as many ways as possible of enriching student’s experiences of history, a central part of this is the provision of trips including our annual Year 7 trip to Colchester Castle as well as our Year 8 trip to London, visiting the Imperial War Museum, London Dungeons and experiencing a Jack the Ripper Tour. At Key Stage Four we run bi-annual residential trips to both the World War One Battlefields in Belgium and France as well as to Poland on our Auschwitz trip. Key Stage 4 students are invited to attend History Support, which runs afterschool on one day a week and we have had several year 12 students participate in the Lessons from Auschwitz project.

Useful Subject Links

GCSE specification: https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/GCSE/History/2016/specification-and-sample-assessments/GCSE_History_(9-1)_Specification_Issue_2.pdf

A Level specification: https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/170128-specification-accredited-a-level-gce-history-a-h505.pdf

Revision resources and lessons for KS3 and KS4: https://classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage/key-stage-3/subjects/history https://classroom.thenational.academy/subjects-by-key-stage/key-stage-4/subjects/history

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z7svr82

Podcasts

https://www.historyextra.com/article-type/podcast/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p07mdbhg

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hmmf/episodes/downloads