History

Our curriculum in history is broad and ambitious, embedding key skills and knowledge through a range of cultures and time periods. A good understanding of history allows us to understand the modern world and the complexities of events. We offer students the opportunity to study a range of cultures and to develop and enhance skills that can be can applied in other subjects and in future study. 

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced to allow students to gain a broad understanding of chronology of events, cause and consequence, significance and interpretation. Our students can make links between units and to other societies, cultures and world events.  

At KS3 and into KS4 students will develop a range of skills including asking questions, analysing information and being able to convey their opinions in structured ways.  

Year 7 

This unit introduces basic chronology and source skills through an investigation of the Titanic disaster in 1912. We then take a chronological approach in the following units – discovering the impact that invaders and settlers had on Britain and an in depth look at life in the Middle Ages. Students will then explore the 16th century in depth: firstly focusing on the motivations of Tudor Kings and then analysing whether Tudor Queens were completely powerless.  

Year 8 

At the start of Year 8 students will pick up with their studies from Year 7, examining how religious changes affected the 17th century with case studies of the gunpowder plot, the civil war and witch trials. Our second unit in year 8 focuses on African Empires, this is examining West African history and relationship with the West through examinations of the Mali, Songhay, Benin and Ashanti Empires; building students’ understanding of African history before examining the slave trade and why it lasted so long. Civil Rights in the 20th century focuses on groups fighting for equal rights, examining case studies on the Suffragettes, Black Civil Rights in the UK and USA, Apartheid and LGBTQ+ rights in the 21st century. Year 8 finishes off with a study of the Russian Revolution and its causes and consequences. This will build into the Year 9 study of the Cold War and Russia’s role in the 20th century.  

Year 9  

We begin year 9 with a depth study on the First World War; examining the causes, impact and consequences of the conflict focusing on trenches, the home front, the contribution of the Empire and the Treaty of Versailles. As part of this study, students will also have the opportunity to visit the battlefields of the First World War in Belgium at the end of Year 9.  

Our second unit of study focuses on the Rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany and takes students from the Treaty of Versailles to Germany in the 1930s. This allows students to have a taster of a course studied at GCSE and forms a building block for the following unit.  

Our third unit focuses on the Holocaust and Genocide and follows Jewish history from pre-1900, through Hitler’s rise to power, legal persecution, ghettos and the death camps. The unit concludes with a study of the genocide in Rwanda and whether we have learnt lessons from the past.    

The final unit of study in Year 9 focuses on the Cold War from 1945-1989; the causes, key events and consequences of tension between East and West and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union in 1989.