History

Course summary

History combines the excitement of exploration and discovery, involving the investigation of pivotal periods of change which have shaped the world we find ourselves in today. History is about research and enquiry, forming arguments and reaching balanced judgements based on evidence. We actively encourage discussion and debate in our lessons as we analyse sources and question historians’ interpretations. We study topics from the Medieval and Modern periods of British, European and US history. This allows for a rich and varied study of history at this level, which is different from most topics undertaken at GCSE level and thus gives our historians a broader base of historical understanding. The Crusades unit allows for a fascinating insight into a crucial period of history that still has much relevance today in the Middle East and western world. This is complemented by the unit on the Angevin Empire, which provides much European context, and at the same time it allows the pupils to gain an in-depth understanding of the nature and extent of change in government, society and the church in the period. Our final unit addresses Civil Rights and Race Relations in the USA. This allows for both a breadth and in-depth study of the change in the rights and treatment of black Americans, and resistance to this change, from the abolition of slavery, under the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, to the inauguration of the first black American president, Barack Obama. This topic continues to have great significance today in the US and wider world, as demonstrated by the events surrounding the death of George Floyd in May 2020 and the Back Lives Matter movement, and as such it forms a key part of the History A Level syllabus.