How do we deliver the History curriculum?
By taking a ‘top down’ approach, embedding source, interpretation, and analysis skills required at GCSE and A Level, students are challenged in their learning and are prepared for the academic rigours of exam board courses. SOW and lessons are content-rich, with an emphasis on knowledge acquisition. Opportunities for independent practise of historical writing and skills is planned into lessons.
Year 7: the foundations are laid for the successful study of history through a content-rich course which introduces students to source skills through inference and analysis through explanations of causation and change and continuity.
Year 8: source skills are developed through analysis of utility and relative importance is explored in explanation of causation and significance.
Year 9: analytical skills are developed through the writing of narrative accounts and students explore how and why interpretations of the past differ. Pupils start the GCSE course with the Historic Environment aspect of Paper 1 Crime and Punishment in order to maximise their chronological understanding and create time for revision in Year 10 and Year 11.
Year 10: the GCSE course covers a wide range of content, from a variety of time periods. Paper 1, the thematic paper, enables students to develop a broad view of the past and develop an understanding of change and continuity, similarity and difference. Paper 3 focuses on sources and interpretations, building the critical skills that will support students in further study, historical or otherwise.
Year 11:
Paper 2 covers both early modern and modern history, with a focus on consequence and explanation.
Year 12: the first year of the A Level course covers 20th century history and the search for rights and freedoms in the USA and South Africa; a course that allows students to explore some key themes relevant to the world in which students are living.
Year 13: the NEA element of the A-Level enables students to develop research skills and independence and gives them an experience of academic study at undergraduate level. The examined unit in Year 13 explores wide-ranging themes by focusing on the Britain losing and gaining an empire in the 18th and 19th century. The conceptual basis of, and skills required in, the A Level course, prepare students for further study in a variety of fields.
Curriculum Lead - Charlotte Newton