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Curriculum Vision

The History curriculum at KEVI HWGA seeks to build upon, but does not rely upon, any previous study of History at KS1 and 2, whilst serving as a foundation for any future study of History at KS4. The curriculum is designed to enable students to build a coherent knowledge base and understanding of some of the key developments, changes, and turning points in both the history of Britain, and selected examples from the wider world. The curriculum combines both overview and depth studies to help students understand both the long arc of development and the complexity of specific aspects of the content. Students are equipped to take an inquisitive approach to their History studies and are able to expand their knowledge and understanding as they progress through each year of study.

The core purpose of our study of History at KEVI HWGA:

  • Promotes an enquiry-based approach that encourages students to question and evaluate ideas and concepts. Helping students to recognise that History is contested, constructed, inescapable and fascinating.
  • Engages with Britain’s past and that of the wider world in order to promote students becoming active in historical debate and using evidence to make judgments with confidence.
  • Ensures students become good citizens in the wider community and develop the analytical tools they need to succeed.

Overview

Key Stage 3

Students in Year 7 are introduced to the essential Historical skills and features at the beginning of their studies before going onto explore these concepts in greater depth through thematic studies of particular periods of British History across Year’s 7 to 9. They will become confident in recognising and discussing the characteristics of different historical periods, analysing historical interpretations and working with sources of historical information to make well-reasoned judgements. Areas of study are set out below:


Year 7 units of study are:

  • How and why did sanitation change in Britain through time? 
  • How did migration change early England? 
  • How did the Norman Conquest change England? 
  • What were the Crusades and what impact did they have? 
  • What was life like in Medieval England? 
  • Who was the best medieval king?

Year 8 units of study include a focus on:

  • How did the Tudor Monarchs overcome the problems of their reigns? 
  • How much did England change in the 1600s?
  • What was the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade?
  • What impact did the British Empire have on its colonies? 
  • How did the Industrial Revolution change Britain? 
  • Was a war at the turn of the century inevitable? 

Year 9 units of study are the following: 

  • How did the Civil Rights Movement change lives of African Americans? 
  • To what extent have civil rights for women and LGBTQ+ improved since the 1900s?
  • Why did Britain emerge victorious from WW2?
  • How and why did the Holocaust happen? 
  • How has migration shaped Britain? 
  • What period saw the biggest changes to crime and punishment?

Key Stage 4

At GCSE students build upon and reinforce the sequence of learning from their Key Stage 3 studies. Our curriculum follows the Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) History qualification.

The curriculum has been constructed so that students can understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence (sources and interpretations) can be used to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed. They should also gain an increasing historical perspective by being able to place their growing knowledge into different contexts understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history, and between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history, and between long and short term timescales, with a consideration of change and continuity over the last 1000 years.

Students sit three papers at GCSE:

  • Paper One: British Thematic Study: (20%) Medicine Through Time c1250 – present and Historical Environment: The British Sector of the Western Front; Injuries, treatment and the trenches.
  • Paper Two: (40%) Early Elizabethan England 1558 -88 and The American West 1835 – 1895.
  • Paper Three: (30%) Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918 – 1939.

Key Stage 5

Students who go on to study History at A-Level at KEVI HWGA will deepen their knowledge of historical themes in British and World History and the debates within the discipline. Students are given the tools and guidance to become independent learners and prepare them for future study and work-based settings. We follow the OCR A Level History A course. Topics for each paper are as follows:

  • Paper One: (25%) British period study and enquiry: Y106 England 1485-1558 The Early Tudors and Mid Tudor crises 
  • Paper Two: (15%) Non-British period study: Y221 Democracy and Dictatorships in Germany 1919-1936
  • Paper Three: (40%) Thematic study and historical interpretations: Y319 Civil Rights in the USA 1865-1992 
  • Coursework Enquiry (20%)

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