History

The History Department seeks to foster a love of the subject throughout the School. We teach in a lively and stimulating way, allowing all students, with all their different skills and abilities, to flourish. Each of our classrooms has an interactive whiteboard and we use a variety of approaches, including ICT, to enable students to acquire the skills of critical thinking, innovation of approach and independent learning. Our aim is to foster the skills of analysis, research and essay writing, evaluation of a variety of sources and an awareness of the historical process.

Over three-quarters of the School takes History at GCSE and nearly half of the School continues History at A level. We run a variety of extra-curricular trips and societies, perhaps the most popular being the annual visit to the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France. Both inside and outside the classroom we prize the intellectual rigour of our subject and the hard-working and enthusiastic nature of our students.

Staff

Year 7-9

History is compulsory in Year 7-9. Students have the opportunity to explore continuity and change in Britain and the world from the earliest medieval times to 1918. The course aims to explore concepts of cause and consequence, change and continuity, and examines the nature of the revolution in different societies and periods. Girls are taught a range of skills, including source evaluation and essay writing, and are encouraged to form independent opinions about the significance of past events. Key subjects are nature and results of religious conflict during the Crusades in Year 7, and the consequences of the idea of re-birth during the Renaissance in Year 8. In Year 9 we examine the concepts of political, economic, industrial and social change and study the forces driving these changes. We explore the background to some significant issues which are still faced by Europe today, such as the troubles in the Balkans and aim to ease the transition to GCSE studies by considering the causes of the First World War, and events on the Western Front 1914-1918.

GCSE

GCSE History is concerned with understanding the past and with the interpretation and evaluation of evidence. The aim of the course is to provide students with a greater understanding of the modern world and to encourage the development of the following skills: argument, analysis, critical thinking, source interpretation and evaluation, and the formation of balanced judgements. Key subjects for study are The Rise of the Nazis in Post-War Germany, Depression, War and the Welfare State in 1930s Britain and The Cold War.

A Level

The aim of this course is to encourage students to read widely, selectively and critically in order to acquire knowledge and understanding of several periods of history. While doing this they learn to use historical evidence and knowledge to form their own judgements and to develop and defend their opinions both orally and in written format. During the course students explore the significance of events, individuals, issues and societies in history and by doing this understand the nature of historical evidence and the methods used by historians in analysis and evaluation. Key studies of characters such as James I, Stalin and Gandhi help students develop an understanding of how the past has been interpreted and represented. We also seek to increase understanding of the nature of historical study, that History is concerned with judgements based on available evidence and these judgements may be provisional, and most importantly, to develop students interest in, and enthusiasm for, History.