In History students get to explore the whole world. They learn about how our countries were formed and who the key people who built our ideas and nations were.

Students study history to gain an understanding of the mechanisms and motivations of ordinary people and powerful people who have made significant impacts around the world both in the past and today. Our curriculum is designed to help students to understand the nature of what we call “British”.

The curriculum is built around a broad chronological story of Britain and its relationship with the rest of the world. We begin in pre-history and end our Key Stage 3 study with the cold war and 20^th century superpower politics. We believe this gives our students a coherent framework to hang their learning on and allows them to understand the progression of politics, economics and society through the ages. It also provides them with a firm basis to build their GCSE studies on.

The entire curriculum is underpinned by the principle of gaining knowledge through review and layered understanding of cause and consequence. Students will develop an understanding of how the big decisions are made, based on their understanding of how people develop and prioritise their aims and intentions in life.

Students travel around the world on our history curriculum journey, learning about the early settlers here in Britain and the people who struck out across the planet to live in the Americas. They also find out about and question some of the darker times in our history when the British Empire was responsible for some appalling crimes against other nations of the world and they learn about the chaos of Europe in the 20^th Century.

Our approach to history is based on nurturing curiosity and feeding the desire to understand why and how we came to be the Britain we are today.

Our key stage three curriculum has been ordered in a chronological sequence to ensure clarity of building up the big picture. By the end of year 9 students will have an understanding of the way that Britain developed and became the nation it is today through a study of the development of our constitution and culture. Students will be able to confidently tackle the second order concepts through structured questioning  and will understand how to organise and apply knowledge. Students will have embedded skills in learning and recalling information

In lessons, progress is measured through deep dive, dip, discover quizzes at the start of the lesson. Checking and green pen of the class activities, engagement with and successful completion of the skills activities, and skilled questioning by the teachers. Deep dive, shallow dive and dip questions are also set on a rolling program of Satchel One quizzes to support practise and retrieval.

Feedback is crucial because it allows us to head off any misconceptions and make sure that we are building on a secure base of knowledge and understanding. Feedback is live and is provided by the green pen activities and by teacher circulation and verbal feedback on work.

Second order knowledge is tracked by the systematic allocation of skills across the key stages to ensure that all of the required skills for history are practised and mastered by the end of Key Stage 3 in preparation for GCSE.

Summative assessments are diagnostic and test the ability of our students to recall the knowledge they have absorbed and apply it to extended writing. In order to achieve both aims, they are a combination of comprehension activities and extended writing.

All key terms and vocabulary are shared in the knowledge organisers in the front of the booklets and tested in deep dive, dip, discover tasks.

Homework is centred around practise and focusses on our key comprehension questions. 10 questions are set per week. They are 50% recent learning from the current session (dip), 30% older learning from earlier in the year (shallow dive) and 20% from previous years  previous years (deep dive). Students are required to attempt the quiz 3 times or until they achieve 100%

In history we like to mark key historical events with competitions which are an opportunity for students to build on the information we provide through the pastoral team in form time and assemblies.

History GCSE is one of the most respected qualifications so can support anyone in going on to any further education. It provides students with the skills to perform academically in any subject but is particularly useful in research based subjects like history, English Literature, Philosophy sociology, law A-level. The nature of our broad and inclusive curriculum means that our students embark on their post-16 studies with an excellent understanding of the world around them and the cultural background of our country which is also helpful in any career that requires the ability to understand and work with people.