History Curriculum Intent Statement

Our History curriculum is designed with vocabulary and literacy foremost. Students develop a rich lexical and conceptual vocabulary to help them understand complex topics such as empire, trade, religion, and technology, all whilst studying key historical events from around the world – though mainly from Britain and Europe.

Our goal is that, by studying key topics that shaped the British Isles and our Democratic system, we will give students the tools they need to be active citizens and help to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, tolerance, and respect for the Rule of Law. 

The Key Stage 3 Curriculum

The History Curriculum has been designed to:

Give students a broad base of historical topics whilst focusing on building their literacy and vocabulary at year 7, before moving on to more in-depth work in Years 8 and 9.
 

Knowledge and Understanding of Key Concepts 

Key ideas such as government and the economy feature heavily in our topics, as do movements of resistance and rebellion. Students are asked to constantly evaluate the relative flux of events that built the world we take for granted. 

Content

We are committed to providing engaging ways of covering the statutory aspects of the National Curriculum. To this end, during Years 7, 8 and 9, students will learn about key events and developments within the following studies:
 

• The Roman Empire

• The Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms

• The Danelaw

• Medieval England

• The Tudors

• The Stuarts and the Civil War

• The American Revolution

• Slavery in the Americas

• The Mughal Empire

• The Industrial Revolution

• The First World War

• European Politics, Democracy, and Governance at the turn of the Century

• The Russian Revolution

• The Great Depression

• Germany in the 1930s & 40s

• The Holocaust
  
   

Rationale: 

The Development of Skills

The curriculum has been structured to provide students with the skills needed  to create their own structured accounts of events, including written narratives and evaluation of evidence. Many of these skills are transferable and there is a big focus on structured, extended writing tasks. Students will also develop the ability to understand and be able to deploy the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence (both sources and interpretations) is tested to make historical claims, and to discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

Links to the Present Day

Because not all students will continue their History studies at Key Stage 4, significant 20th century events such as the Russian Revolution, the Holocaust, the rise of dictatorships, and Britain’s place in the modern world are studied in Year 9. This is because this is when the students are at an appropriate age to understand the complexity and significance of these events. This is essential so that the current issues such as anti-Semitism and political extremism are given a proper historical context.
 

Development of active citizens

At WCHS, we believe that students should be well-rounded citizens who see themselves as leaders in their communities. Our History curriculum aims to follow core concepts of democracy as they develop to help students grasp why democracy is precious and their role in sustaining it for future generations. 

Assessment

Graded assessment at Key Stage 3 is holistic and tests students' ability to construct cohesive written texts using their knowledge from lessons, wider academic vocabulary, and their inclusion of specified stimulus materials such as sources and written work by historians.

Students are levelled against a performance rubric which seeks to develop fluid and detail-oriented writers.

At Key Stage 4, students are assessed using a mixture of exam-style questions as well as mock papers to build their confidence in and understanding of the GCSE assessment framework.

We teach the Edexcel History GCSE and students study 4 exciting topics:
Medicine Through Time
Early Elizabethan England 1558-1585
Superpower Relations and the Cold War
Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1939