History
- Home
- Curriculum
- Subject Information
- History
Head of Department: Mr N Pollard
The aim of our history curriculum is to inspire and ignite pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past by focussing on the key events that have shaped life in Britain and the wider world.
In doing so we aim to cover different aspects of history e.g., social, political, military, religious and economic through the study of time periods from 1066 to the modern day. As well as ensuring students gain core, substantive knowledge in the topics covered we also want our students to understand the discipline of history. We therefore frame each lesson around an enquiry question and teach them to assess and evaluate that knowledge using second order concepts such as change, continuity, significance, historical interpretation, cause, and consequence. We are ambitious in our aim for our history teaching to become more academic so that students are evaluating the opinions of historians in the areas in which they study. We aim for students to be able to think critically and make judgements through independent extended writing.
Teaching Staff
- Mr N Pollard - Head of Department
- Mr Lyden - Second in Department
- Miss D'Angelo
- Ms Kinch
- Dr Taylor-Prince
History Clubs and Trips
Year 7 – visit Canterbury Cathedral to get a sense of what life was like in Canterbury through the ages and supports our comparison unit between mediaeval Canterbury and Baghdad.
Year 8 – to support our unit on power and protest, students will visit the physical manifestation of Henry II's power - Dover Castle.
Year 9, 10 and 11 – to support the GCSE units of study students will have the opportunity to:
- Year 9 will visit the Imperial War Museum to supplement their learning on WWI, WWII, the Holocaust and the Cold War
- We aim to visit France and Belgium where students have the opportunity to visit the graveyards, trenches and monuments to commemorate those who lost their lives in WWI.
- The Globe Theatre is visited to support learning of Elizabethan England.
- Year 12 and 13 will go to the Tower of London and enjoy an immersive workshop experience with historians to support their learning of the Wars of the Roses.
What do our children study?
Year 7 – We follow historical enquiries that study the lives of people and how the nation changed across the medieval period. We look at how the Saxons, Vikings and Normans shaped the lives of people after the 5th century up to the mediaeval period. We follow this up with a comparative study of life in medieval Canterbury and Baghdad. We move on to study the rivalries of key medieval kings Henry II and Thomas Becket, King John, Edward I, The Hundred Years War, Richard II and Richard III and analyse their contribution to English, British and the world. We finish year 7 by looking at Elizabeth I and the English/British Civil Wars and how religion, kingship and society changed during this time.
Year 8 – In year 8, we follow historical enquiries that look at change and continuity across the early modern and industrial period. From 2026/27 the year 8s will study the Enlightenment and scientific revolution which will encompass the rise of science and scientific ideas such as Darwin's 'The Origin of Species' and the witch trials that took place in Europe and the USA. We move on to look at the impact of the French and American revolutions and how scientific ideas were used to try to improve society. We have another comparative study looking at industrial Manchester and San Francisco and how people's lives changed. We case study the Whitechapel murders and analyse their significance. We look at revolutions that had an impact on British society and look at how ordinary people fought for their own representation, such as the Chartists and Suffragettes. Finally, we look at how the British Empire was created, grew and collapsed as well as it's legacy for the UK and the world.
Years 9 – We follow historical enquiries that cover the 20th century and encompass World War One, the Rise of Dictators, WWII and the Holocaust. We will study how significant particular events were and analyse their significance. We evaluate the causes and consequences of the huge events that shaped the modern world. We look at how the British society changed the post-WWII. We then look at the changing of nature of warfare focussing on the attacks on 9/11 and terrorism in the 21st century.
Years 10 and 11 - GCSE History studied follows the AQA Examination Board Specification. The two-year course will follow four topics:
Thematic Study-Shaping the Nation: Migration, empires and the people: 790 to the present day.
Depth Study-Shaping the Nation: Elizabethan England, 1568-1603 with an in-depth site study.
Depth Study-Wider world depth studies: Conflict and tension 1894-1918
Period Study-Wider world depth studies: Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship