Welcome to the History Department

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Intent 

• To create a curriculum that engages all our students, capturing their interest and imagination, giving them a love of History.
• For our students to see the relevance of History to the world today and for the study of History to actively promote the development of positive British values in all our students.
• To develop in all our students the key skills required to study History, allowing them all to have opportunity to achieve their full potential in the subject, including at GCSE level.

 

Why learn History?

The study of History will help our pupils understanding of their local area, their country and the wider world.  It will give them a wider understanding of the world they live in and help them answer difficult questions such as:

• Why do wars happen? 
• Why is Britain a democracy?
• How did Britain become a major power?
• What do we mean by left and right wing in politics?
• Why do we have a welfare system?  
• How have we come to live in a multi-cultural society?

History will also teach our pupils a range of important skills that will help them in their future studies and careers.  These skills include:

• Excellent communication and writing skills 
• How to construct an argument 
• Research skills 
• Investigation and problem-solving skills 
• Analytical and interpretation skills

Finally studying History can lead on to exciting job opportunities in the future in careers such as:

• Journalism 
• Law
• Business 
• Politics 
• Archaeology 
• Marketing 
• Teaching

 

Year 7

During year 7, students will study the following topics:

Fertile question: What is History?

Content

• How we study History.
• The problems of evidence.
• Chronology.

 

Fertile question: How did Britain change from the Stone Age until 1066?

Content

• Britain in the Stone Age.
• The Bronze Age to the Romans.
• The Anglo-Saxons and Vikings arrive.

 

Fertile question: Why was England invaded in 1066?

Content

• The contenders for the throne.
• The Battle of Stamford Bridge.
• The Battle of Hastings.

 

Fertile question: How did the Normans complete the conquest?

Content

• Motte and Bailey Castles.
• The Harrying of the North.
• The Feudal System.
• The Domesday Book.

 

Fertile question: Who had the power in Medieval England?

Content

• The murder of Thomas Becket.
• King John and the Magna Carta.
• The Black Death causes and consequences.
• The Peasants Revolt.

 

Fertile question: Why did England break from Rome?

Content

• The European Reformation.
• Henry VIII and the English Reformation.
• Catholic or Protestant, the battle for religious supremacy under the Tudors.

 

Year 8

During year 8, students will study the following topics:

Fertile question: Why did Britain have an industrial revolution?

Content

• What was the industrial revolution?
• Inventors and inventions (including Richard Arkwright from Preston).
• The British Empire.
• Population Growth.
• Natural resources.

 

Fertile question: How bad were working and living conditions in 19th century Britain?

Content

• Working conditions in the factories and coal mines.
• Living conditions in the industrial towns and cities.
• Local study of sites in Preston.
• Why did conditions improve?

 

Fertile question: What caused the First World War?

Content

• The Great Powers in 1900.
• The alliance system.
• Imperialism.
• Nationalism.
• The Arms Race.
• The Bosnian Crisis.
• The murder of Franz Ferdinand.

 

Fertile question: Why did the first World War turn into a brutal stalemate?

Content

• The failure of the Schlieffen Plan.
• The building of the trenches and the nature of trench warfare.
• Case study of the Battle of the Somme (including a focus on recruitment into the British Army and the use of Pals Battalions).
• The end of the War.

 

Fertile question: Why did Russia turn to communism?

Content

• The nature of autocratic rule under the Romanovs in the 19th century.
• The causes of the 1917 February Revolution.
• What is capitalism?
• What is Marxism?
• The causes of the October 1917 Revolution.
• Communist rule in the Soviet Union.

 

Year 9

During year 9, students will study the following topics:

Fertile question: How good a job did the peacemakers do at the end of the First World War?

Content

• The armistice.
• The aims of the ‘Big Three’ and the extent to which they achieved their aims.
• The Treaty of Versailles.
• The impact of the treaty and wider settlements including the reactions of the Allies, German objections and the problems faced by new states.

 

Fertile question: Why did the League of Nations fail to keep international peace?

Content

• The formation and organisation of the League of Nations.
• The successes and failures of the League of Nations in the 1920s.
• Diplomacy outside the League: Locarno Treaties and Kellogg-Briand Pact.
• The reasons for the failure of the League in the 1930s including the impact of the Great Depression.
• Case study of the League’s failures dealing with the Manchurian and Abyssinian crises.

 

Fertile question: What were the causes of the Second World War?

Content

• Hitler’s’ aims in foreign policy and the Allied reaction.
• The Dollfuss Affair.
• German Rearmament: the Stresa front and Anglo-German Naval agreement.
• The Rhineland Crisis.
• Arguments for and against appeasement.
• The Sudeten Crisis and Munich Agreement.
• The occupation of Czechoslovakia.
• The Nazi-Soviet Pact and the invasion of Poland.
• The outbreak of the Second World War.

 

Fertile question: Why did the allies win the Second World War?

Content

• The defeat of France and Dunkirk.
• The Battle of Britain.
• Pearl Harbour.
• The Battle of Stalingrad.
• D-Day.
• The death of Hitler.

 

Fertile question: Why did the Holocaust happen?

Content

• The history and causes of ant-Semitism in Europe.
• Why did Hitler hate the Jews?
• Nazi Policy against the Jews in the 1930s.
• The development of genocide including the ghettos and the death camps.
• The consequences of the Holocaust.

 

Year 10

During year 10, students will study the following topics:

Fertile question: Why did the USA expand west in the 1840s and 1850?

Content

• The geography of North America: attitudes to the Great American Desert (the Great Plains).
• The belief in ‘Manifest Destiny’.
• Why the early settlers went west and the challenges they faced: including the pioneer farmers, the Mormons and the gold miners.
• The problems of the journey.
• The life of the Plains Indians.

 

Fertile question: Why was there increasing conflict on the Plains?

Content

• The Fort Laramie Treaty (1851) and the failure of the policy of concentration.
• The Indian Wars (1862–1867): reasons for and consequences of the Wars; 
• The Sand Creek Massacre and Fetterman's Trap.

 

Fertile question: What were the causes and consequences of the American Civil War?

Content

• Differences between North and South.
• Issues of slavery, westward expansion and free states abolitionism; breakdown of the Missouri Compromise, John Brown.
• The roles of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.
• The social and economic impact of the American Civil War on civilian populations.

 

Fertile question: How were the Great Plains settled?

Content

• The Homesteaders, reasons for going west; government actions and laws; land and railroads; farming problems and solutions. 
• The resolution of ‘the Indian problem’ after 1865: the small reservations policy; attitudes to the native Americans; Battle of the Little Big Horn; The Dawes Act; Battle of Wounded Knee; the closing of the frontier and its impact on native Americans.

 

Fertile question: Why did medicine stand still in medieval Britain?

Content

• Who treated the sick in medieval Britain and the approaches used, including natural and supernatural methods?
• The ideas and influence of Hippocrates and Galen.
• The training and beliefs of medieval doctors.
• The contribution of Christianity to medical progress and treatment.
• The nature and importance of Islamic medicine and surgery.
• Public health in the middle ages.
• The Black Death in Britain, beliefs about its causes, treatment and prevention.

 

Fertile question: Why did the Renaissance have a positive impact on medicine?

Content

• The impact of the Renaissance and the work of Vesalius, Pare and Harvey.
• Opposition to change.
• Dealing with disease including plague.
• The growth of hospitals and changes to the training and status of surgeons and physicians.
• The work of John Hunter.
• Prevention of disease: inoculation, Edward Jenner and vaccination.

 

Fertile question: Why was there a revolution in medicine in the 19th century?

Content

• The development of the Germ Theory and its impact on the treatment of disease in Britain.
• The importance of Pasteur, Koch and Ehrlich.
• A revolution in surgery: the development of anaesthetics, including the work of James Simpson: antiseptics and the work of Joseph Lister.
• Improvements in public health, including the impact of cholera epidemics and the work of public health reformers.  
• Local and national government action.

 

Fertile question: Why did medicine and public health advance so quickly in the 20th century?

Content

• Modern treatment of disease: the discovery of penicillin, the development of the pharmaceutical industry.
• The impact of two world wars and advancements in technology on medicine including; plastic surgery, blood transfusions, X-rays, transplant surgery etc.
• Modern public health, the Liberal reforms, the impact of two world wars, the Beveridge Report, the creation of the NHS.

 

Year 11

During year 11, students will study the following topics:

Fertile question: How did the Normans conquer England?

Content

• The causes of the Norman Conquest.
• The military aspects: Battle of Stamford Bridge, Battle of Hastings.
• Historic Environment of Norman England – Battle.
• Establishing and maintaining control: the Harrying of the North, revolts 1067-1075, William II and his inheritance.

 

Fertile question: How much did life change under the Normans?

Content

• Feudalism and government: landholding, patronage, changes to government, military service, justice and the legal system, inheritance, the Domesday Book.
• Economic and social changes and their consequences: life in towns and villages, buildings, work, food, seasonal life, Forest Law.

 

Fertile question: How did religion change under the Normans?

Content

• The Church: Archbishop Lanfranc and reform of the English Church, William II and the Church, the wealth of the Church, relations with the Papacy, the investiture controversy.
• Monasticism: the Norman reforms, building of abbeys and monasteries, monastic life, schools and education; Latin usage and the vernacular.

 

Fertile question: Hoes does a specific historical site link to the wider events of the period studied?

Content

• The following aspects of the site should be considered
  •    Location.
  •    Function. 
  •    The structure.
  •    People connected with the site.
  •    Design.
  •    How the design reflects the culture, values, fashions of the people at the time.
  •    How important events/developments from the depth study are connected to the site.

 

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