History

KS3 Overview

The overall purpose of History and Government and Politics at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School is to encourage our students to seek greater knowledge and understanding of the world around them, as it was, as it is and as it will be. Our course of study at KS3 embeds a number of key historical skills such as dealing effectively with historical evidence; explaining cause, effect, change and continuity in history; as well as evaluating historical arguments and formulating an informed and independent academic voice. All of these skills are key to students’ abilities to engage effectively with their studies at GCSE and A-level, in both History and Government and Politics.

The department offers a broad range of topics at KS3, from 1066 to the modern day, that aim to support student understanding of options offered at GCSE and beyond, but also allow students to begin to identify and empathise with the experiences of those living in multitude of different places, cultures and times. Understanding of key economic, social and political concepts are also central to our teaching and help broaden pupils’ grasp of the human experience.

Resources for learning

• Medieval Lives - Terry Jones (BBC)
• Roots – Alex Haley
• Horrible History series
• Blackadder Goes Forth (BBC – schools edition).

Curriculum Information

• Class size is 32 with pupils taught in forms
• Classes are taught 3 times a fortnight in one-hour lessons
• Homework is set weekly with some extended tasks
• Pupils are assessed within topics using a variety of assessment including mostly extended writing and historical source analysis.

Extracurricular enrichment

The History and Government and Politics Department also offers extra-curricular opportunities, from political debating clubs and additional trips to local, national and European historical sites to support understanding of the curriculum. Typically, in past years, Year 9 historians have travelled to the Somme to experience the conditions for soldiers on the battlefields of World War One, whilst A Level History students have been given the chance to go to Berlin to immerse themselves in German cultural sites in order to support the writing of their coursework. Politics students have also travelled up to Westminster to see the complex workings of UK Politics first-hand.

Programme of Study

Year 7

KS3: The curriculum is based specific topics of study (see below) but all of these also aim to provide opportunities for the use of a number of historical skills (‘Strands’) that will not only make each student better historians but also more able to cope with the future demands of GCSE study. The ‘Strands’ are ‘Knowledge and Understanding’; ‘Explanation’; ‘Interpreting Evidence’ and ‘Evaluation’ and are intended to be mastered by all students by the end of Year 9.

• What is History?
• The Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest
• The power of Medieval Monarchs
• Life in medieval times
• The development of castles.

Year 8

KS3: The curriculum is based specific topics of study (see below) but all of these also aim to provide opportunities for the use of a number of historical skills (‘Strands’) that will not only make each student better historians but also more able to cope with the future demands of GCSE study. The ‘Strands’ are ‘Knowledge and Understanding’; ‘Explanation’; ‘Interpreting Evidence’ and ‘Evaluation’ and are intended to be mastered by all students by the end of Year 9.

• The Tudors and marriage
• Elizabethan England: A Golden Age?
• The Stuarts: Civil war, revolutions and restoration
• The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
• Industrial Revolution.

Year 9

KS3: The curriculum is based specific topics of study (see below) but all of these also aim to provide opportunities for the use of a number of historical skills (‘Strands’) that will not only make each student better historians but more able to cope with the future demands of GCSE study. The ‘Strands’ are ‘Knowledge and Understanding’; ‘Explanation’; ‘Interpreting Evidence’ and ‘Evaluation’ and are intended to be mastered by all students by the end of Year 9.

• The Causes of WW1
• Fighting WW1
• Causes of WW2
• Controversial Events of WW2
• The Holocaust and Contemporary Genocide.

Expected Equipment

• Blue, black, purple and red pens
• Colouring pencils
• Rubber
• 30cm Ruler
• Highlighters
• Glue

Resources for learning

• CNN Cold war documentary
• AQA GCSE History: Restoration England, 1660-1685 (Hodder)
• AQA GCSE History: Power and the People (Hodder)
• AQA GCSE History: Conflict and Tension between East and West 1945-1972 (Oxford)
• AQA GCSE History: Germany 1890-1945 Democracy and Dictatorship (Oxford)
• My Revision Notes: AQA GCSE (9-1) History (Hodder) – 3 topics covered
• AQA GCSE History: Germany 1890-1945 Revision Guide (9-1) (Oxford AQA GCSE History)

Curriculum Information

• Class size is approximately 25
• Classes are taught five times a fortnight
• Homework is set most lessons with the emphasis on exam-style questions and development of subject knowledge. These are also completed within class as part of timed-assessment
• Additionally pupils complete end of topic tests as well as the school examinations at the end of Year 10.

Extracurricular enrichment

The History and Government and Politics Department also offers extra-curricular opportunities, from political debating clubs and additional trips to local, national and European historical sites to support understanding of the curriculum. Typically, in past years, Year 9 historians have travelled to the Somme to experience the conditions for soldiers on the battlefields of World War One, whilst A Level History students have been given the chance to go to Berlin to immerse themselves in German cultural sites in order to support the writing of their coursework. Politics students have also travelled up to Westminster to see the complex workings of UK Politics first-hand.

Programme of Study

Students will learn about two very diverse topics in Year 10. The first topic on Germany, 1890-1945, studied in the autumn term, is an in-depth world study. This period of study focuses on the development of Germany during a turbulent half century of change. It was a period of democracy and dictatorship – the development and collapse of democracy and the rise and fall of Nazism. Students will study the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of these two developments and the role ideas played in influencing change. They will also look at the role of key individuals and groups in shaping change and the impact the developments had on them.

In the spring and summer terms, students shift focus to look at a thematic study focused on political change in Britain from 1170 up to the present day. This will enable students to gain an understanding of the development of the relationship between the citizen and the state in Britain over a long period of time. It considers the causes, scale, nature and consequences of protest to that relationship. By charting the journey from feudalism and serfdom to democracy and equality, it reveals how, in different periods, the state responds to challenges to its authority and their impact. It allows students to construct an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of the citizen.

Students will have the opportunity to see how ideas, events or developments in the wider world have affected the course of Britain's political development and will promote the notion that ideas of authority, challenge and rights did not develop in isolation, but these developments should be seen in terms of how they affected Britain and British people.

In Year 11 students have to learn two additional topics. The first allows students to study in-depth a very eventful period in British History, the restoration of the monarchy. The study will focus on the major aspects of Charles II’s reign considered from economic, religious, political, social and cultural standpoints of this period and arising contemporary and historical controversies.

The second is a more broadly focused, wider, world-depth study that enables students to understand the complex and diverse interests of different states and individuals and the ideologies they represent. It considers revolutionary movements during this time. It focuses on the causes and events of the Cold War and seeks to show how and why conflict occurred and why the tensions which arose during the Cold War proved difficult to solve. This study also considers the role of key individuals and groups in shaping change and how they were affected by and influenced international relations.

History

The overall purpose of History and Government and Politics at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School is to encourage our student’s to seek greater knowledge and understanding of the world around them, as it was, as it is and as it will be. Our course of study at KS3 embeds a number of key historical skills; such as dealing effectively with historical evidence; explaining cause, effect, change and continuity in history; as well as evaluating historical arguments and formulating an informed and independent academic voice. All of these skills are key to student’s abilities to engage effectively with their studies at GCSE and A-level, in both History and Government and Politics.

Expected Equipment

• Blue, black, purple and red pens
• Colouring pencils
• Rubber
• 30cm Ruler
• Highlighters
• Glue

Resources for learning

• AQA A-level History: The English Revolution, 1625-60 (Oxford)
• AQA A-level History: Tsarist and Communist Russia, 1855-1964 (Oxford)

Curriculum Information

• Class size is approximately 20
• Classes are taught 5 times a fortnight
• Homework is set most lessons with the emphasis on exam-style questions and development of subject knowledge. These are also completed within class as part of timed-assessment.
• Pupils engage in rigorous independent reading to broaden their understanding of what historians have written about different periods of study and to further their own understanding of historical understanding and debate.
• Pupils complete end of topic tests as well as the school examinations at the end of Year 12.  

Extracurricular enrichment

The History and Government and Politics Department also offers extra-curricular opportunities, from terms political debating clubs and additional trips to local, national and European historical sites to support understanding of the curriculum. Typically, in past years, Year 9 historians have travelled to the Somme to experience the conditions for soldiers on the battlefields of World War One, whilst A-level history students have been given the chance to go to Berlin to immerse themselves in German cultural sites in order to support the writing of their coursework. Politics students have also travelled up to Westminster to see the complex workings of UK Politics first-hand.

Programme of Study

History (AQA)

Across Year 12 and 13 the course consists of two units of study, one focussing on breadth of knowledge (Unit 1), ‘Tsarist Russia and the Soviet State, 1855-1964’, the other depth of knowledge (Unit 2), ‘The English Revolution, 1625-60’. In Year 12, Unit 1 charts the collapse of Russia’s autocratic rule as well as the long and short term reasons for the 1917 revolution. Whilst in Year 12, Unit 2 begins analysing the long and short term reasons for the ‘Failure of Absolutism’ as the country edged towards civil war 1625-42.

Both units continue chronologically through to Year 13. Unit 1 concludes, by assessing the workings of the Soviet state 1917-64 primarily focussing on its successes and failures post revolution. In the second part of the Unit 2 course, the changeable constitutional state of the English nation is explained between 1642 and 1660. The coursework component also applies in Year 13 and will focus on the establishment and evolution of the German state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Throughout the A-level course, essay writing skills and an ability to individually assess historical information objectively feature prominently. Great focus will be placed on this in lesson as well as

Politics (Edexcel)

In Year 12, the focus of study is primarily concerned with the current state of UK Politics. Component 1 analyses the changing importance of fundamental elements of representative democracy today – democracy, elections, parties and voting behaviour. Component 2 evaluates how the UK is governed by focussing in on the UK constitution, its structures and relevant institutions, the role of parliament as well as the Prime Minister and cabinet. Time will also be left at the end of the year to consider differing political ideas in more depth, like Conservatism, Liberalism, Socialism and Feminism.

The focus of study shifts substantially in Year 13, with most of the year of study concerned with Component 3, Global Politics. Power and development, regionalism, the role and power of the state and globalisation, as well as Global Governance, feature prominently. All areas of study are considered from a number of political perspectives that encourages critical thought and debate.

Expected Equipment

• Blue, black, purple and red pens
• Colouring pencils
• Rubber
• 30cm Ruler
• Highlighters
• Glue