History
Academic > Departments > History
How can you make sense of the present unless you have a good understanding of the past?
How can you understand why the place where you live looks the way it does?
How are you going to change the world if you haven't looked at how it got into its present state?
How are you going to participate in society if you don't know how it works?
How will you carry on building up your own set of values without looking at how others have done so in the past?
Answer: by taking History.
History is a core subject for all boys in their first year. The course aims to bring the subject alive and to cover ground fresh to pupils, regardless of periods studied before. The extensive history of the school and the town is covered in some depth. Pupils are asked to research some of their own family history as a project. We then follow the final stages of the National Curriculum Key Stage 3, focusing on the causes, nature, and immediate consequences of the Second World War. As a supplementary study unit we study the recent history of South-East Asia and the Vietnam War.
At GCSE all pupils study the Midland Examining Group's Modern World History course. This covers the First World War, the search for international order between 1919 and 1929, the rise of aggressive nationalism in the 1930s, and the emergence of the Cold War after 1945. This has proved popular with pupils and allows for a wide range of activities, including regular trips to the First World War battlefields. Coursework is given a 30% weighting in the final examination.
In the Sixth Form pupils can make a choice of periods according to their interests. Numbers divide almost equally between the Sixteenth & Seventeenth centuries, and the Nineteenth & Twentieth centuries. In both cases, a wide variety of visiting speakers, trips, and related activities is offered to help bring the period to life.
Pupils studying history will be expected to have the ability:
- to have demonstrated knowledge and understanding of historical themes, topics and periods they have studied
- to assess the significance of individuals, ideas and events in their historical context
- to make links and draw comparisons between different aspects of the period, theme or topic studied in order to demonstrate breadth of historical knowledge and understanding
- to demonstrate that they have conducted investigations of historical questions, problems or issues
- to draw on historical evidence, accounts, arguments and interpretation to explain, analyse, synthesise and make judgements
- to analyse, interpret and use historical sources in their historical context
- to demonstrate their understanding of methodological concepts such as cause, change and development and of organisational and period-specific concepts and to use them in appropriate ways.
The Department has its own resources centre and a plentiful supply of books. It is well equipped with audio-visual material and slides. We subscribe to most of the important journals relevant to the GCSE and A Level courses. We aim to make the subject enjoyable, to provide a valuable training of the mind, and to give our pupils a powerful tool for understanding both the past and the present.