History

Aspects of History are covered within the L4L curriculum.

Year 7 L4L Themes:

• Journey to the Centre of the Earth
• In Days of Old
• Journeys
• Off With Your Head
• Silent Movies

Aspects of History are covered within the L4L curriculum.

Year 8 L4L Themes:

• Pudding Lane
• Coming and Going
• India
• Freedom
• Please Sir
• Over the Top

Aspects of History are covered within the L4L curriculum.

Year 9 L4L Themes:

• Whose Earth is It Anyway?
• Tragedy
• Made in China
• America
• Britain

Year 10 and 11 from 2022: Edexcel GCSE History (9-1)

Edexcel GCSE and GCE 2014 (pearson.com)

Thematic study: Medicine through time c.1250- present with the British sector of the Western Front, 1914-1918: injuries, treatment, and the trenches

Studying Medicine in Britain will give students an overview of the impact that improved knowledge, understanding and technology has had in Britain from 1250 onwards. At its heart, the Medicine in Britain study is the story of change and continuity in medicine and the factors influencing its development. The study begins in the Middle Ages, with a focus on the importance of the Church in controlling medical training and providing care for the sick but also considering its reluctance to abandon faith in old methods for new, untested ideas, or its position of authority in the study of medicine. Following the decline of the power of the Church, the study moves through the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, the process of industrialisation and into the nineteenth century, when new discoveries and developments started to have a big impact on the understanding of disease. The focus moves to the rise of technology and the growing importance of government from the nineteenth century onwards. In the linked historic environment, students learn about the relationship between conditions on the Western Front and their impact on the nature of illness and the provision of medical care, within the broader context of developments in medicine in the early twentieth century.

Key individuals and events are studied as a way of examining change and continuity. For example, the work of William Harvey and Edward Jenner provided important advances in one way and yet could also be said to have had a limited impact on medicine overall. Similarly, comparisons can be made between epidemics such as the Black Death in 1348 and cholera in 1831.

British Depth Study: Early Elizabethan England 1558-1588

This topic touches on many areas of study with which students might be familiar, including the rise of the theatre, Mary, Queen of Scots, the Spanish Armada, and the seafaring adventures of Francis Drake. The interplay and links across the three key topics should ensure students gain an understanding of the complex forces which shaped Elizabethan society.

The three key topics provide a framework for teaching and understanding the option but should not be taken in isolation from each other. There is chronological overlap between the topics and this structure helps highlight the complexity and interplay of different aspects within society.

World Period Study: The American West c1835-1895

To aid this story of the American West, the unit has been divided into three sequential Key topics that help tell this fascinating and interesting story. Firstly, students look at the lives of the Plains Indians, early migration and settlement, and lawlessness in the early settlements, as well as the tensions between the settlers and Plains Indians. They then move on to how settlement on the Plains developed, ranching and the cattle industry, and the impact on the Plains Indians’ lives of events and developments between c1862 and c1876. Finally, students look at further changes in farming, the cattle industry and settlement, conflict and tension between different groups living on the Plains, and the destruction of the Plains Indians’ way of life. All three Key topics are interconnected, however, with threads of settlement, conflict and tensions, and the changing lives of the Plains Indians running throughout. 

Modern Depth Study: Weimar and Nazi German, 1918-39

This modern depth study offers students a fascinating analysis of how, between the First and Second World Wars, a democratic Germany became a one-party dictatorship. Students will examine various political, economic, social, and cultural aspects of this change from a democratic to a one-party state. The specification content is divided into four Key topics which provide a framework for teaching and understanding this option. However, these are not in isolation from one another and there is some chronological overlap between the four Key topics, highlighting the complexity of Germany during the years 1918–39.

Year 10-11 (last exam year 2023): AQA GCSE History (9-1)

(AQA | GCSE | History | Specification at a glance)

Paper 1:  Understanding the modern world: America, 1840-1895: Expansion and consolidation.

This period study focuses on the development of America during a turbulent half century of change. It was a period of expansion and consolidation – the expansion to the west and consolidation of the United States as a nation.

Students will study the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of these two developments and the role ideas played in bringing about change. They will also look at the role of key individuals and groups in shaping change and the impact the developments had on them.

Paper 1: Wider world depth studies: Conflict and Tension: The inter-war years, 1918-39.

This period study focuses on the development of America during a turbulent half century of change. It was a period of expansion and consolidation – the expansion to the west and consolidation of the United States as a nation.

Students will study the political, economic, social and cultural aspects of these two developments and the role ideas played in bringing about change. They will also look at the role of key individuals and groups in shaping change and the impact the developments had on them.

Paper 2: Shaping the Nation: Britain: Power and the People: c1170 to the present day.

This thematic study will enable students to gain an understanding of the development of the relationship between the citizen and the state in Britain over a long period of time. It considers the causes, scale, nature and consequences of protest to that relationship. By charting the journey from feudalism and serfdom to democracy and equality, it reveals how, in different periods, the state responds to challenges to its authority and their impact. It allows students to construct an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of the citizen.

Students will have the opportunity to see how ideas, events or developments in the wider world affected the course of Britain’s political development and will promote the idea that ideas of authority, challenge and rights did not develop in isolation, but these developments should be seen in terms of how they affected Britain and British people.

Paper 2: British depth studies including the historical environment: Elizabethan England, c1568-1603

This option allows students to study in depth a specified period, the last 35 years of Elizabeth I’s reign. The study will focus on major events of Elizabeth I’s reign considered from economic, religious, political, social and cultural standpoints, and arising contemporary and historical controversies.