History

By the end of Year 13, students will have fully secured their knowledge of rebellion and disorder under all of the Tudor monarchs. This will have begun with developing an understanding of the relative significance of mono- and multi-causative factors and progressed through examining the frequency and nature of disturbances, the impacts of rebellions on government and the methods used by the different monarchs to maintain political stability. Throughout they will have considered a range of rebellions, including depth studies on the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Western Rebellion and Tyrone O’Neill’s rebellion. Concomitant with their learning of content, students will have mastered the skills of synthesis, judgement of relative significance over time and the analysis and relative evaluation of unseen historical interpretations. Year 13 historians will have also completed a NEA extended essay in which they will have independently researched, analysed and evaluated a range of sources and historical interpretations in order to reach a substantiated judgement as to an aspect of Churchill’s leadership or the Cold War. Overall, students will have become consummate historians who can write confidently about the past in a variety of ways and using the full palette of skills required of a successful A-Level History student.

By the end of Year 12, students will have developed a thorough understanding of Britain between 1930 and 1997, including a source-based enquiry study of Churchill and a period study of change and continuity in post-WWII British politics. Within this unit students will have examined: Churchill’s career in the wilderness, the reasons he became PM in May 1940 and his wartime leadership, including his relations with Stalin and Roosevelt; the reasons for Conservative dominance in the 1950s and early ‘60s, the record of the Labour and Conservative governments between 1964 and 1979, the premiership of Margaret Thatcher and the reasons for New Labour’s victory in 1997. Historians will have enhanced their skills of source analysis and evaluation in relation to a proposition about the past and their ability to reach substantiated judgements about key features of the period. Students will also have mastered an understanding of the Cold War in Europe up to 1995, including the origins for the Cold War, the development of the Cold War, the collapse of Communism and the ethno-nationalist wars and genocides that occurred after the disintegration of Yugoslavia. They will be able to explain, assess, analyse and consider the relationships between key features of the period studied in order to reach substantiated judgements.

By the end of Year 11, students will have studied the thematic topic of Power and the People. This comprises an 800-year study of how the relationship between the citizen and the State developed in Britain, including key moments such as the signing of Magna Carta, the English Civil War, the Reform Acts, the Suffragette movement, the development of workers’ rights and the securing of minority rights for BAME and LBGTQ+ citizens. Students will have focussed on the main change factors: war, religion, government, science, the role of the individual, and how they often worked concomitantly. Students will have developed an understanding of the causes, consequences and significance of change, as well as the resulting progress, thereby allowing them to construct an historically-informed understanding of the rights and responsibilities of the citizen. In tandem with the mastery of their subject knowledge, Year 11 historians will have honed their skills of evaluating source utility, explanations of significance, comparisons of historical events and the judgement of the relative significance of thematic factors.

By the end of Year 10, students will have secured an understanding of England in the reign of Elizabeth I, focusing on the major events and developments of the period from economic, religious, political, social and cultural standpoints, and arising contemporary and historical controversies. Year 10 historians will have: examined the difficulties Elizabeth faced as a female monarch; considered the problems that she faced at home over religion and abroad in conflicts with Spain; studied life in Elizabethan England, including whether there was a so-called ‘golden age’, the various attempts made by the government to tackle the challenge of poverty and the impacts of exploration by Drake and others. Students will also have undertaken a study of an historical site, which changes from year to year. Throughout the unit students will have developed their skills of evaluating interpretations, explaining the significance of historical developments, writing structured narrative accounts about the impacts of events and using historic environments to evaluate propositions about the past.

Students will also have studied conflict and tension between East and West in the period 1945-1972, including key events such as the Korean War, the Berlin Blockade, the Hungarian and Czech uprisings, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the arms and space races. Throughout, students will have developed an understanding of the complex and diverse interests of different states and individuals and the ideologies they represented. Skills enhanced will have included the evaluation of the relative utility of sources, writing structured narrative accounts about the course of events in the past and reaching substantiated judgements about the relative significance of causes and consequences.

By the end of Year 9, students will have developed an understanding of the course of German history between 1890 and 1945. As historians they will have: examined the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm I; studied the impact of WWI on the formation of the Weimar Republic; considered the experience of the cultural explosion of the 1920s; interrogated the role of the Wall Street Crash in the rise of Nazism; developed their knowledge and understanding of the Nazi dictatorship. Students will have enhanced their skills of explanation, evaluation of interpretations and reaching relative judgements about named causative factors.

Students will also have undertaken a depth study of WWII, including its causes, the experience on the home front, fighting on the Eastern Front and the relations between the Allies during the war.

By the end of Year 8, students will have studied the period of 1700-1945 whilst undertaking their thematic studies of ‘Exploration and Empire’, ‘Revolution and Empire’ and ‘Nationalism and Genocide’. Through these thematic units they will have examined the development of different forms of colonialism, the terrible events of the slave trade, the noble fights for independence in various countries by various peoples and the rise of ideologically-driven violence and genocide in the late nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. Year 8 historians will have developed their skills of source and interpretation analyses alongside their explanations of the relative importance of causes and consequences.

By the end of Year 7, students will have studied the mediaeval and early modern periods through the lenses of ‘Invasion and Conquest’, ‘Challenges to Royal Authority’ and ‘Challenges to Religious Authority’. Through these thematic approaches to the past, they will have created an understanding of the various ways in which history can be approached as a discipline. Year 7 historians will have secured knowledge of key events such as the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta and the Reformation, but, more importantly, how these compare with and link to other similar thematic events of the period. Skills developed include: understanding what sources are, how historians use them and how we need to evaluate their reliability and utility; understanding how and why historians reach different interpretations about the past; explaining causes, events and consequences; writing substantiated evaluations and judgements about the past.