History

Intent (based on the National Curriculum)

Our aim is to create enthusiastic students who have a broad, detailed and rich knowledge of the past and who use the process of historical enquiry and evidence interrogation to mirror the academic discipline of real historians.

Students will extend and deepen their chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, so that it provides a well-informed context for wider learning. Students will identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts and analyse trends within periods and over long arcs of time. They will use historical terms and concepts in increasingly sophisticated ways and will pursue historically valid enquiries including some they have framed themselves. Students will create relevant, structured and evidentially supported accounts in response. They will understand how different types of historical sources are used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

In planning to ensure the progression described above through teaching the British, local and world history outlined below, teachers will combine overview and depth studies to help students understand both the long arc of development and the complexity of specific aspects of the content. There will be an emphasis on diversity.

We will connect history to the lives of our students and strive for a history curriculum that encourages students to become curious and to develop their own opinions and values based on a respect for evidence. Students will build a greater understanding of the present by engaging with and questioning the past.

Implementation

Students will be taught about:

• The development of the Church, state and society in Medieval Britain 1066-1509
• The development of the Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745
• Ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain 1745-1901
• Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day (including the Holocaust)
• A local history study
• The study of an aspect or theme in British history that consolidates and extends students chronological knowledge
• At least one study of a significant society or issue in word history and its interconnection with other world developments

Key Themes:

• Power
• Religion
• Economy
• Empire
• Warfare

Links to KS2:

• Detecting bias.
• Understanding chronology.
• Primary and secondary sources.
• Extension of historical terminology learnt.
• Formulation of more advanced and analytical historical questions and informed responses.
• Recognition of key time periods taught e.g. Roman, Greek, Anglosaxon, Egyptian (depending upon what has been taught in local primaries).

Relationship to the wider KS3 curriculum:

• RP: Development and reform of Christianity, conflict between Christianity and Islam during the Crusades Eastern Orthodox Church*
• Geography: Study of local area, migration, rise of empires
• English language: Spelling, grammar, punctuation, written analysis, written investigation
• Music, Drama and Art: understanding that different periods and cultures developed different styles and modes of expression.
• Languages: Architecture, joint extra-curricular ventures, history of specific places where languages are spoken.
• Classical Civilization*: Roman and Byzantine eras.

* Denotes applicable to St Andrew the Apostle School

Links to KS4:

• Students learning to evaluate the usefulness of primary sources
• Inference skills
• Evaluation of evidence and interpretations (secondary sources)
• ‘Follow up’ and investigation of sources
• Understanding chronology
• Understanding cause and effect

Extra Curricular Ventures/Cultural Capital: