History

Curriculum Vision

We believe that the evidence-based study of the past stimulates our natural curiosity and nurtures both imagination and personal growth. History challenges us to move beyond simplistic and superficial views, fostering informed citizenship and empowering critical thinking. Through understanding the past, students become better equipped to shape the future and make sense of the world—whether at a personal, local, national, or global level. Above all, history enriches us by making us more articulate, literate, and engaging individuals.

As part of our wider responsibility to one another, we are committed to exposing students to diverse perspectives, cultures, and alternative viewpoints. This encourages understanding, empathy, and informed debate.

Teaching and learning are a partnership. We expect our students to be resilient in the face of challenges, to take pride in their work, and to embrace advice and constructive criticism with an open mind. At times, patience and a willingness to look beyond the obvious are needed. History is a fascinating subject—one that opens doors to insight, creativity, and meaningful dialogue.

Curriculum Intent

Our Key Stage 3 - 5 curriculum is chronological in nature, embedding key concepts of change, significance, continuity, cause and consequence. We have designed our curriculum based on wider domains of knowledge, which interlink each year group and Key stage. This allows students to revisit key themes and topics in increasingly complex ways, deepening students’ knowledge, skills and historical understanding. This approach helps them make meaningful connections across periods and contexts, fostering a comprehensive understanding of the past.

Through rigorous, challenging, and thought-provoking enquiry questions, we encourage students to think like historians — critically analysing sources, interpreting evidence, and debating multiple viewpoints. We equip students with the knowledge and skills to understand historical change and continuity, recognize bias, and appreciate the complexity of human experience across local, national, and global contexts.

Our curriculum encourages students to question assumptions, challenge stereotypes, and engage actively in historical debates, becoming independent investigators rather than passive consumers of information. We include diverse historical narratives and perspectives, drawing on recent scholarship and varied sources to broaden students’ understanding and empathy.

Students develop their historical enquiry skills through source analysis, reasoning, argument construction, and extended writing. Through using a variety of resources, both contemporary and engaging with the wider historiography, students are prepared to be thoughtful, informed citizens who understand the significance of history in shaping the contemporary world. 

A video introduction to our History course in LPGS6 (our co-educational Sixth Form)

 

Our Key Stage 3 curriculum is based on the use of enquiry questions within lessons and across a series of lessons so that students can engage with the past and reach their own conclusions. At a glance the curriculum provides students with an understanding of the history of Britain and the World from the Middle Ages until the present day. We are currently in the process of updating the curriculum, however below is what each year group are studying this year:

 

Autumn

Spring

Summer

Year 7

The Middle Ages 

  • When and what were the Middle Ages

  • What was the world like in the Middle Ages 

  • The Benin Empire 

  • The Islamic world

  • Contenders for the Throne

  • The Battle of Hastings 

  • How did William gain control of England?

Complete the Middle Ages

  • Religion in the Middle Ages and Thomas Becket

  • How successful was King John?

  • Magna Carta

  • Black Death 

  • Peasants Revolt

The Tudors

  • Tudor Society

  • What was the experience of black people in the Tudor period?

The Tudors and Stuarts 

  • How far did religion change during the Tudor period?

  • The Spanish Armada

  • The Civil War

  • Restoration

Year 8

The Industrial Revolution

  • Reasons for the industrial revolution

  • Urbanisation

  • Life in Industrial Towns

  • Public Health

  • Medicine, including the role played by women

  • Democracy

  • The transport revolution

  • Votes for women

The Empire

  • Reasons for Empire building. Case studies looking at India, the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and African colonies

  • Experience of the colonies in the British Empire, including India, New Zealand, Australia, the West Indies and African colonies

  • Interpretations of the Empire

  • Why the British Empire declined

The Fight for Female Suffrage

  • Arguments for and against women gaining the vote

  • Suffragettes and Suffragists

  • Case Study: Emily Davison

  • Women's actions during WW1

  • Why did women win the vote?

  • 1928 enfranchisement

  • Interpretations of the Suffragettes and Suffragists

Year 9

World War One

  • Causes of WW1

  • The experience of different soldiers during WW1, including German, Turkish, Indian and black soldiers

  • The impact of WW1 on the world, including technology, women, medicine, European borders and relations

  • The Treaty of Versailles

The Inter War Years

  • Causes of the Russian Revolution

  • Democracy and dictatorships

  • The rise of Hitler

 

World War Two

  • Causes of WW2

  • Key turning points in WW2, including Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Nazi invasion of Russia, Pearl Harbour, the atomic bomb, the enigma code and role played by Turing

  • The impact of WW2 on Britain - evacuation, rationing, women etc

The Holocaust

  • Who were the Jews of Europe?

  • What is anti-Semitism?

  • Persecution of Jews by the Nazis

  • Resistance

  • Remembrance

 

Race in 20th Century Britain

  • Windrush

  • British response to immigration

  • Notting Hill race riots

  • Bristol bus boycott

  • Government response to immigration

Course Description:

Students will follow the AQA History Specification. The course will allow for the development of the historical skills already acquired in Years 7-9. The content builds on some of the work done at Key Stage 3 including The Tudors in Year 8 and the Twentieth Century in Year 9. However, it also includes a number of exciting new topics such as Medicine through Time and an in-depth study of life in the USA. It includes both national and international history as well as study of the historical environment.

Paper One: Understanding the Modern World (50% of the GCSE)

The paper includes:

  • America, 1920-1973: Opportunity and Inequality

This course includes a study of American people and the ‘Boom’, Americans’ experiences of the Depression and New Deal and Post-World War Two America.

  • Conflict and Tension, 1918-1939: The Inter-war Years

This course includes a study of the peace treaties after World War One, the work of the League of Nations and international peace and the origins and outbreak of World War Two including the role of Hitler

 

Paper Two: Shaping the Nation (50% of the GCSE)

The paper includes:

  • Britain: Health and the People: c1000 to the Present Day

This course looks at the development of medicine and public health in Britain from the Middle Ages until the Modern Day and studies how factors such as war, chance and the government led to changes in treatments.

  • Elizabethan England: c1568-1603

The study will focus on the major events of Elizabeth I’s reign considered from economic, religious, political, social and cultural standpoints, and arising contemporary and historical controversies. Within this course students will also study an aspect of the historical environment, each year a site of historical interest will be chosen, for example an Elizabethan theatre or Tudor manor house, and this will further enrich students’ understanding of the Elizabethan period.

This course, whilst interesting in itself, is intended to help students understand better the world they live in and prepare them for further study at A-Level and beyond. All students sit the same examination which covers all ability grades from 9 to 1.

The AQA website contains a range of useful information about the GCSE Specification. You may find it useful to look before opting for History to get more information about the content, and during the course for more advice and support.

Course Description:

The course consists of three externally examined papers and coursework. The course is linear and all assessment happens at the end of the A-Level in Year 13.

The following units and topics are studied:

  • In search of the American Dream: the USA, c.1917-96.

  • South Africa, 1948-94: from apartheid state to ‘rainbow nation’.

  • Protest, agitation and parliamentary reform in Britain, c.1780-1928.

  • Interpretations of the Russian Revolution.

Skills Required:

A historian needs to enquire beyond the obvious and the superficial. You will need to think, to listen, to read and, above all, to write analytically. A willingness to interpret historical information, and the ability then to express your findings, whether in discussion, or in writing, are required. You should be able to analyse and to evaluate historical sources and interpretations.

Method of Assessment:

Paper 1: Option 1F - In search of the American Dream: the USA, c.1917-96 - 30% of total marks.

Paper 2: Option 2F.2 - South Africa, 1948-94: from apartheid state to ‘rainbow nation’ - 20% of total marks.

Paper 3: Option 36.1 - Protest, agitation and parliamentary reform in Britain, c.1780-1928 - 30% of total marks.

Coursework: Interpretations of the Russian Revolution (3,000 to 4,000-word essay on a chosen question) - 20% of total marks.

Progression:

Success in History, at all levels, indicates an ability to present an argument (written or verbal) and to consider all the implications of complex issues. Such abilities are the foundation for any career which provides its own additional, specialist training. This explains why those with History qualifications are found not only in the more obvious areas of history teaching, archives and museum administration, but also, in greater numbers than ever, in law, computing, the financial services, advertising, marketing, publishing, politics and so on. Any History qualification enhances employability and makes you more interesting too!