The History curriculum allows students to delve into a breadth of events, concepts, and issues, whilst also embedding the skills required to be a good historian. Students enjoy History and are provided with opportunities, both within lessons and through extra-curricular activities, to develop their curiosity and understanding of the society that they live in and the past that has shaped this. The department regularly review the teaching and learning of the curriculum to ensure that students continue to make good progress in History. Students follow a varied curriculum at KS3 (see attached curriculum map) to give them an understanding of the wider human story and their place within it. At GCSE, students study the Edexcel specification, in which they study Medicine Through Time: 1250-Present, Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1939, Superpower Relations and the Cold War 1941-1991 and Early Elizabethan England 1558-88.

The History department has three key aims for our curriculum:

• To equip students with a secure knowledge of diverse people and places across different periods.
• To develop students’ disciplinary skills and concepts, enabling them to form their own judgements.
• To foster intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm in history, inspiring students to connect with the wider human story and their place within it.

Throughout the curriculum, pupils continue to develop an understanding of the world around them to enable them to be educated citizens. We explore key themes such as equality and civil rights, suffrage, power and democracy, and the issues facing people of both the past and present. Teachers regularly make links to current events and use these references within their lessons to investigate how far society has progressed from the events and issues of the past.

It is the aim of all staff to increase awareness of the events that has shaped their own identities and the communities that they are citizens of.  As a department we offer a range of opportunities to bring History to life.  We endeavour to provide an array of trips and visits, including visits to the Battlefields of France and Germany, Beamish and the Medical Museum in Leeds.  We also invite guest speakers, including Holocaust survivors, to enrich student understanding of the events and issues of the past.

The History curriculum enables students to develop an array of employability skills including analysis, verbal and written communication, problem-solving and independent research. Staff within the department embed opportunities within their lessons to discuss the jobs and/or employability skills linked to History.

Miss Collins – Subject Leader

Mrs James – Teacher of History

Mr Murray - Teacher of History

Mr Macdonald - Teacher of History