History
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history
is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach"
Aldous Huxley
Key Stage 3
Year 7’s focus is ‘Empire to Empire’. We begin with the arrival of the Romans in Britain and their rise and fall, the subsequent arrival of the Normans, through the Peasants Revolt, the English Reformation, and on to the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th Centuries, which made Britain ‘the Empire on which the sun never sets’.
Year 8’s focus is ‘Rights and Freedoms to Rights and Freedoms’, starting with the Slave Trade and Britain’s role in it, moving into the causes and consequences of the Great War. We then develop our syllabus to the start of the Second World War and the atrocities committed during this period. We do this to see how greater freedoms evolved across Europe and the world as a result of the Second World War, only to then be jeopardised by the capitalist/communist global divide.
Year 9 focuses on crime, law enforcement and punishment in Britain over 1,000 years. From the arrival of the Normans in 1066, to the treatment of conscientious objectors during the First World War, this unit is designed to ignite debate as to the nature of punishments and the establishment of what actually constitutes a crime over a 1000-year period. This unit features the gunpowder plotters, William I, Elizabeth Fry and the wrongful hanging of Derek Bentley, which led to the end of the death penalty.
Year 9 finish the year with a Case study on Whitechapel at the time of the Jack the Ripper murders - the terror driven into a community by an individual we still haven’t been able to identify!
Key Stage 4
At the start of Year 10, our students continue their learning from year 9 in their depth study of Germany 1918 - 39 - from the minor annoyance of a few hundred members, the National Socialists (Nazis) became the dominant force in Germany, changing forever the shape of Europe once more. Our students learn how Hitler was voted into power and how the road to war that comes to dominate the depressive years of the 1930s came to be. Students engage in this in-depth study to formulate an understanding of how a forward-thinking country can commit unforgivable atrocities.
Super Power Relations 1941-91
As the Second World War comes to its bitter end, a new division emerges across Europe. The ideological divide between the East and West becomes permanent with the erection of the Berlin Wall, a tangible construction that explains two halves of a globe. James Bond is based around this intrigue with spies, new weapons and murderous collusions and forms the syllabus our students learn at Key Stage 4. The journey takes us from inevitable divide to wondrous unification of Europe by 1991 and the fall of Communism in the East.
Early Elizabethan England 1558-88
Elizabeth I becomes Queen following years of tumultuous religious and political difficulties. Can a mere woman and a Virgin Queen unite her nation and restore it to the powerful Empire of former years? From the decision to murder her own cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, to the Spanish Armada, we see how Elizabeth strikes bargains, fights wars and leads her country through the most difficult times – particularly for a female in a world dominated by men.