Head of Department:  Mrs W Drodge

The History Department works hard to create interactive, dynamic and thought provoking lessons. The department aims that:

• All students should develop their idea of identity based upon their understanding of local, national and international history.
• All students should have their curiosity and imagination fired through studying the dilemmas, choices and beliefs of people in the past.
• All students should develop their historical skills in order to investigate the past collaboratively and independently and use these to participate in society today as confident, questioning and employable individuals.

The department seeks to provide KS3 pupils with exciting enquiry-based questions and thematic approach in order to stimulate pupil’s interest in the subject.  Themes which are started in Year 7 will continue into Year 8 to give a secure historical understanding of change over time.

Year 7

Content

History is taught to Year 7 pupils for two lessons in a week.  

What is History?

The first focus question is intended to give pupils the solid base of skills that they will require, dealing with chronology, using sources and understanding interpretations.

Movement, Settlement and Empire:

Pupils begin this theme with an overview of the settlement of Britain, focusing on the Roman invasion.

Conflict:

This theme looks at conflict during the medieval period, particularly the Battle of Hastings and the Crusades.

Power:

The theme of power focuses on the struggles between monarchs and their people during the medieval period, including Magna Carta and Archbishop Becket.

Ordinary Life:

This unit considers how ordinary people lived during these tumultuous times of Black Death and rebellion.

Ideas and Beliefs:

The final theme considers the big changes of the period and the impact of that change, such as Caxton’s printing press and the dissolution of the monasteries.

Skills

The emphasis is on developing pupil’s skills so they become more independent and instinctive about their approach to History.  Lessons focus on developing the historical skills of understanding causes,  interpretations and using sources of information.  Developing thinking and literacy skills is also at the forefront of the curriculum.

Assessment

Classwork and homework are marked regularly and comments and targets are written in by the teacher to help pupils to understand how to progress further.
Each focus question will have a marked final product, often using National Curriculum attainment targets.  Some of these products will be completed across a number of lessons; others will be short exercises unseen by the pupils in advance of the “test”.    All these assessments together provide information for the reporting of ‘working at’ levels during the course of Key Stage 3.

Learning Landmarks

Sep - What is History? Recall/chronology test
Oct – Why was the Roman army so successful?
Jan/Feb – The Murder of Becket
June/July – Recall – Middle Ages

Year 7 Overview  

Year 8

Content

History is taught to Year 8 pupils for two lessons in a week. 

Power:

 The theme of power focuses on the struggles between monarchs and their people during the 1500-1900 period, including Charles I and changing attitudes to monarchy, and the fight for democracy.

Ordinary Life:

This unit considers how ordinary people lived during the Industrial Revolution and the huge changes to society with developments in technology.

Empire:

Pupils begin this theme with a study of the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs and continue by looking at the British Empire and the development of slavery.

Movement and Settlement:

Pupils study patterns of emigration over time and consider historical reasons for the movement and settlement of different peoples.

Conflict:

This theme looks at conflict during the medieval period, particularly the Battle of Hastings and the Crusades.

Skills

Students are given the opportunity to reach their own conclusions about how the past influences the present, what past societies and cultures were like and, are able to explain the reasons for, and results of, historical events.  Students are taught to evaluate, to interpret, to select a range of appropriate evidence and to be able to apply the information relevant to the enquiry and the period studied.
Topics are phrased in the form of a ‘focus question’ in order to stimulate interest and debate in the subject.

Assessment

Class work and homework are marked regularly and comments and targets are written to help students focus on how to progress further.  In addition, students will be regularly assessed to gauge National Curriculum levels.  The students will be awarded a level for each assessed piece of work and these will contribute to the overall National Curriculum Level attained in History at the end of the year.

Options

At the end of Year 8 students are able to opt to take Modern World GCSE.  

Learning Landmarks

Autumn Term:
Execution of Charles I
Big Graph Challenge outcome

Spring Term:
How significant was William Wilberforce in the ending of slavery?

Summer Term:
Emigration enquiry