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History Curriculum Overview

"In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind"

Edmund Burke

 

The core intent of our History curriculum is to promote a love of History and intellectual curiosity that nurtures well-rounded, creative and ambitious thinkers that are equipped to achieve great grades. This is implemented through an academically rigorous and engaging curriculum. Our curriculum is ambitious and diverse, taking into consideration the 'powerful knowledge' that our students need to leave school with.

We know that our students often arrive with a cultural deficit and therefore, we have to take a proactive approach to developing their cultural capital and wider world knowledge. This is partly achieved through the topics we choose to teach, such as the British Empire, the British Civil Rights Movement, and Migration to Britain. However, this is alongside more ‘traditional’ topics - such as the Norman Conquest, Reformation and the World Wars - which continue to hold great importance in British culture and society. We are thus ambitious in the breadth of the curriculum we cover, and go beyond the National Curriculum, without sacrificing the depth needed to truly grapple with the History taught. 

In lessons, students are required to reflect on thought-provoking enquiry questions that are both historically interesting and relevant to the present world. Alongside this, wider experiences through trips and enrichment opportunities build students’ cultural capital and awareness, and embed the contemporary relevance of the History they learn. This ranges from trips to the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust exhibition in Year 9, to visiting the Houses of Parliament in Year 10. Finally, the desired impact of our History curriculum is for the study of History to empower young people to become active global citizens grounded in an understanding of how the past has shaped the world we live in today.

 

Impact

  • History is widely promoted as a useful GCSE and A Level option that opens doors for a wide range of careers. Far from just limiting students to being History teachers, Historians or Lawyers (as many initially think), we encourage students to see History as a subject that develops widely transferable skills and can in fact provide a pathway to careers including Diplomacy, Consultancy, Charity Work and Journalism. This is promoted through classroom displays and posters, as well as making links to the ‘Skills Builder’ skills in lessons. Indeed, many of our A Level students do go on to study History at University, which reflects the successful work done in this area.

Implementation

Year 7: There is a heavy focus on vocabulary instruction and extended writing, including building students’ tier-two & tier-three vocabulary, and developing their ability to write at length and with flair. Students are introduced to the second order concepts, such as causation and historical significance, giving them the necessarily building blocks for their later engagement with these concepts at a more sophisticated level.

Year 8: The focus in Year 8 is to build on the disciplinary foundations laid in Year 7. Engaging with new substantive content focusing on the late Early Modern and Industrial Period, students develop a more rigorous understanding of the second order concepts introduced in Year 7 (such as causation) and are introduced to new concepts, such as historical interpretations. There is a continued focus on developing students’ literacy and vocabulary, including through greater exposure to extended reading and historians.

Year 9: Year 9 is a pivotal foundation year for our Historians. We recognise the importance of students having relevant schema to build new meaning at GCSE, whilst embracing the unique opportunity our students have to study substantive knowledge without the pressure of exams. We develop students’ conceptual understanding and the written skills needed to excel at GCSE. This is taught through carefully selected topics that are invaluable to their position as citizens of a global democratic society, such as the French Revolution and Civil Rights. Students revisit the second order concepts covered in a Year 7 and 8 at a more advanced level. The values of democratic citizenship, empathy and global identity underpin the curriculum. There is an explicit focus on literacy.  

Year 10: By Year 10, the cumulative effect of having studied the second order concepts from Year 7 should give students a firm grounding for GCSE.  This will be built on to deepen their ability as historians, whilst applying this to the demands of the GCSE spec. The papers chosen reflect both the knowledge students need to thrive in a global democratic society, whilst ensuring sufficient historical breath to make them well rounded historians, is premised on the idea of ‘powerful knowledge’. There is a clear, systematic focus on vocabulary from the outset. Much of this builds on strong foundations and thus focuses on increasing the sophistication of students’ written work, such as through more complex sentence construction to add depth. 

Year 11: The focus for Year 11 is finishing the GCSE spec, and refining students’ understanding through a focus on interleaving and regular retrieval practice, recognising the cognitive demands of studying four dense papers. There is a heavy focus on exam technique and the embedding of substantive knowledge through its application to exam questions driven by the second order concepts students have been studying since Year 7. Intervention is run at FBs with underperforming student, focusing on knowledge retrieval and exam technique. A separate intervention is run for More Able students, focusing on how to achieve a Grade 7-9. The literacy focus is on expressing ideas with precision and sophistication.

 

Academic Journey - KS3

Year 7

  
Half Term 1 Half Term 2
Why have historians written about North West London? 
How did a Norman become King of England? [Causation]		 Did the Norman Conquest transform England? (Change and Continuity)
Half Term 3 Half Term 4
What does Medieval Baghdad reveal about the Islamic Golden Age? (Historical Significance) Why did Europeans risk their lives on Crusades? [Causation and Evidence]
Half Term 5 Half Term 6
Was King John the worst king to have ever ruled England? (Interpretations) Did the Black Death change the world for the better?

Year 8

  
Half Term 1 Half Term 2
What does Mansa Musa reveal about late Medieval West Africa? ~ Why did Europeans look beyond Europe in the 'Age of Discovery'? Why was slavery abolished in the 19th century? [Causation]
Half Term 3 Half Term 4
How similar was the experience of empire in India and Australia? (Similarity and Difference)  Did Suffragette deeds improve or worsen women’s chances of gaining the vote before the War? (Significance and Evidence)
Half Term 5 Half Term 6
Did two bullets cause the deaths 37 million people between 1914-18? (Causation) Whose story is still missing from World War One remembrance? (Significance)

Year 9

  
Half Term 1 Half Term 2
How similar have the experiences of immigrants to Britain been over the last 1000 years?’ (Similarity and Difference) Why do people know so little about the British Civil Rights movement? [Significance]
Half Term 3 Half Term 4
Why did the Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanovs fall from power? [Causation] What was the key turning point of the Second World War? [Causation]
Half Term 5 Half Term 6
It happened over there, why should I care? How and why do genocides happen in History? (Causation and Diversity) How and why do historians continue to disagree on the reasons for the Palestinian defeat in the 1948 war? [Historical Interpretations]

 

Academic Journey - KS4

Year 10

  
Half Term 1 - 3 Half Term 4 - 6
Autumn Term: Conflict and Tension - The Interwar Years (1919-39) - AQA Specification Germany: Democracy and Dictatorship (1890-1945) [AQA specification]

Year 11

  
Half Term 1 Half Term 2
Migration, Empire and the People 790-Present Day Elizabethan England: c1568-1603
Half Term 3 Half Term 4 - 5
Elizabethan England: c1568-1603 Revision

 

Academic Journey - Sixth Form

Year 12

  
Half Term 1 - 6  
India: The Road to Democracy // Rebellion and Disorder under the Tudors [Edexcel]  

Year 13

  
Half Term 1 - 4 Half Term 5
In Search of the American Dream // NEA on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Revision

 

Extra Curricular Activities

History and Politics Club

Trips

KS3

Trips to Tower of London, Imperial War Museum, National Archives, British Museum 

 

KS4

Trips to the Imperial War Museum, Hampton Court 

 

KS5

Trips to Hampton Court, the National Archives, events at universities

Useful Links

KS3

 

 

KS4: 

 

Extended Reading List - KS3

KS3 Reading List

Anglo-Saxon Boy by Tony Bradman

A story of 1066 woven around Magnus, young son of the Earl of Wessex

 

Knight’s Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff

Set against the violent and turbulent backdrop of Norman England

 

Red Towers over Granada by Geoffrey Trease

Set in England and Islamic Spain, it is 1290, a boy is declared a leper, a Jewish doctor is to be expelled from England, a Queen is in need

 

Sparrow: The Story of Joan of Arc by Michael Morpurgo

A story inspired by Joan of Arc

 

The Children’s Crusade by Henry Treece

Two children made slaves in Egypt have many adventures trying to get home to England

 

Eliza Rose by Lucy Worsley 

The story of a young girl in the court of Henry VIII

 

The Goldsmith’s Daughter by Tanya Landman

The story of a young girl as the once mighty Aztec Empire collapses around her

 

Ghost Hawk by Susan Cooper

A tale of the European colonisation of the USA from the Indians' point of view

 

Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle

Moa is a ‘cane warrior’ fighting for freedom from the Jamaican plantations.

 

Incomparable World by Si Martin 

Three African Americans find themselves in Georgian London

 

The First of Midnight by Marjorie Darke 

Tells the experiences of an enslaved person and a bondservant in 18th century England

 

Freedom by Catherine Johnson

12-year old Nathaniel is enslaved and tries to escape

 

Mademoiselle Revolution by Zoe Sivak 

The story of a biracial heiress who escapes to Paris during the Haitian Revolution

 

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale 

A story set against the invasion of Tasmania by British settlers.

 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

The story of unknown half-sisters, from the Gold Coast to today

 

My Name is Victoria by Lucy Worsley

Miss V. Conroy is sent to become the companion to Princess Victoria

 

The Royal Rebel: The Life of Suffragette - Princess Sophia Duleep Singh by Bali Rai

A story like retelling of the life of this inspirational woman

 

Things a Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls 

The fight for women’s freedom will challenge Evelyn, May and Nell more than they ever could believe. As war looms, just how much are they willing to sacrifice?

 

A Rose from Blighty by Marjorie Darke 

Follows the same characters into World War One and looks at nursing and hospital life

 

A Long Way to Go by Marjorie Darke 

Is about being a conscientious objector in World War One and the main characters are Black

 

Anzac Boys by Tony Bradman 

Two orphan brothers are encouraged to emigrate to Australia, are used as cheap labour and then join the army and find themselves at Gallipoli

 

Our Beautiful Game by Lou Kuenzler 

A hundred years before the Lionesses, Lily Parr, Alice Woods and their teammates were proudly playing their beloved, exciting and skilful game

 

Medal for Leroy by Michal Morpurgo 

Inspired by the true story of Walter Tull, professional footballer and the first black office in the British Army

 

The Eagle has Landed by Jack Higgins

World War Two and the German government has given orders to capture Winston Churchill

 

Challenge reads:

Black and British: a short, essential History by David Olusoga 

A detailed and eye-opening History of Black Britons from the Roman times until today.

 

Stolen History: the truth about the British Empire by Sathnam Sanghera 

An interesting and in-depth History of the British Empire that explores how Britain's empire once made it the most powerful nation on earth, and how it still affects our lives in many ways today.

Extended Reading List - KS4

KS4 / GCSE Reading List

Bomber by Paul Dowswell – the crew member of an American Flying Fortress has to make his way Fiction Highlights

Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain - A young woman’s story of love, loss and the struggle to live in and beyond the First World War (true story)

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz – Otto desperately tries to conceal his Jewish identity as he takes train after train across Germany in a race to escape this homeland that is no longer home

Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse - It’s Amsterdam, 1943 and Hanneke is rebelling against the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands by working the black market

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak – Narrated by death. A young book thief called Liesel in Germany. Fostered, with parents taken away, she lives in a community that death is visiting

A Beautiful Lie by Irfan Master - set in India during the summer of 1947, this book follows the events of the Partition of India through the eyes of Bilal who is looking after his ill father

Dance of the Jakaranda by Peter Kimani – Set in Kenya on the verge of independence from colonial rule in 1963, this is a story of the country and intertwined lives

 

Challenge reads:

Small Island by Andrea Levy - a story about the challenges faced by the Windrush Generation in Britain

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard – the author’s own memories of Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai – of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches

All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - a book about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France

 

Non-Fiction Highlights

The shortest history of Germany by James Hawes - a readable History of Germany from the Roman times to today

Appeasing Hitler by Tim Bouverie - a history of appeasement and why it was so supported in the 1930s

Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett - explores how the Nazis came to power and the mistakes of the Weimar Government

Coming of the Third Reich by Richard Evans - an iconic book on how the Nazis came to power

Dictators or How to be a dictator by Frank Diktotter - a history of 8 key dictators from the 20th century

House of Glass by Hadley Freeman - one Jewish family's history and experience of the 1930s and 1940s in Europe

Black and British by David Olusoga - a groundbreaking book on Black British History

River Kings by Cat Jarman - an eye-opening History of the Vikings, including their conquest of England

Empireland by Sathnam Sanghera - a bold history of the British Empire and its legacy

The Anarchy by William Dalrymple - a great book on the rise of the East India Company

A very short introduction to the Tudors by John Guy - an overview of the Tudors by one of the leading historians on the topic

Tudor England by John Guy - a longer read with some relevant chapters on Elizabeth