History

Our History department is located in the main school building with three teaching rooms. We currently benefit from the enthusiasm and experience of 4 teachers. The team’s dedication to providing stimulating lessons continues to be rewarded with large numbers of students opting to take History at GCSE and A Level with good results.

The courses we offer aim to stimulate interest and enthusiasm for the study of the past, and develop an understanding of the historical concepts, processes and periods studied.

The department is well resourced with regularly updated schemes of work, accompanied by Power Points and worksheets, as well as a range of textbooks and DVDs. The History curriculum is enriched with visits to the Black Country Museum, the Imperial War Museum and the FWW Battlefields.

Key Stage 3

In years 7 and 8 students receive 5 lessons per fortnight, usually with a single teacher. There are four or five topics a year with each topic lasting about 10 weeks and a test takes place at the end of each unit. Homework includes spelling tests, research activities and model making.

The topics students learn about in year 7 are:

• Why are people crazy about castles? – Medieval castles, the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror.
• Could rulers do what they wanted? – King John and the Magna Carta, the Tudors and the religious rollercoaster.
• Would you have killed the King? – The English Civil War and the man who cancelled Christmas
• Should we be ashamed of the British Empire? Slavery and the impact of the British Empire
• Was life in the past all muck and misery? – Medieval and Tudor life. The impact of illness and invention on human life.

The topics students learn about in year 8 are:

• Why do people risk their lives to fight? – The causes, nature and effects of the First World War
• Why do civilised people do evil things? - The rise of the Nazis, WW2, the Holocaust and the atomic bomb.
• Is one man’s freedom fighter another man’s terrorist? - Human rights, the Suffragettes, Mandela and Northern Ireland
• Was America a melting pot in the 1920s? - A decade of consumerism, racism, gangsters, flappers and prohibition.

Parental advice - Encourage students to produce mind-maps or flash cards and help them to develop the skills to learn independently.

GCSE

In years 9, 10 and 11 students receive 5 lessons per fortnight. Students study the Edexcel syllabus and the 3 examined units cover a wide variety of historical eras, time periods and geographical contexts. Students will study parts of each topic in each year of the GCSE course. This enables our students to ‘taste’ all the topics annually and allows them to revisit, review and build on their knowledge in stages.

The topics students learn about over the course of their GCSE studies are:

• Medicine through time: Consider when, why and how much, ideas about causes and treatments have changed over time from the Middle Ages to present day. This includes a study of the trenches, injuries and treatments on the Western Front during the FWW.
• The American West: explore the culture of the Plains Indians and their changing relationship with the white settlers. There's more to the American West than cowboys and Indians!
• Elizabethan England: Explore why religion was so dangerous, our relationship with Spain, the role of explorers and how everyday life was different to our own.
• Weimar and Nazi Germany: Investigate the state of Germany at the end of the FWW, how Hitler came to power and the way he ruled.

Parental advice - Students need to apply the knowledge they learn to new situations. The main reasons for students struggling are related to not remembering key ideas or terms or failing to include enough detail in answers. Ensure your child learns the key facts as they go through topics and get them into the habit of producing revision resources such as mindmaps and flash cards as they go along. Try to test them on these so you can see how much they remember. To help you the school provides subject guides with key facts, common questions and checklists. Get your child to show you and ask them questions from it. More extensive revision guides are available to buy. The students also have access to Google classroom and GCSE pod.