Mr. C. Rolph
Mrs C. Rolph
" History is to society as memory is to man"
(Arthur Marwick)
One of the main reasons for the teaching of History is to stimulate an interest in and enthusiasm for the study of the past. The centre of History is in Humanity, and the History student has to develop a heart for the understanding of humanity. It is the cultivation of an informed heart which is so important to the modern person, and which we, in the History Department, hope to foster.
The History student's mind needs to be furnished with facts, as a musician's is with notes, but he, or she, need not know everything. The student's information about the past, the 'facts', are the scaffolding which enable the student to construct an ordered view of the past.
An important feature of History is that every History student is a product of that History. It is very much a policy of this department to awaken in each student the individual sense of participating in History as well as being a product of it.
History is taught throughout the school to G.C.S.E. level with each class having three lessons a week, (four in year 11). The K.S.3 course starts with the Norman Conquest in Year7 and finishes with the Second World War in Year 9. Key topics covered include - The power of the Church and the Monarchy, the rise of parliament, the conflict between monarch and parliament, Tudor and Stuart life, the agricultural and industrial revolutions, the growth of empire, political developments, the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, the Titanic and the First World War.
For G.C.S.E. we follow the Edexcel Modern World History A course. The course is divided into four units. We start with Unit 2A - The Depth study - Germany 1918-39. Next is Unit 1 - Peace and International relations 1900-91, sections 3, 4 and 5. These are both completed in Year 10. Year 11 starts with Unit 4, the Controlled Assessment. The students cover CA6 - Government and Protest in the USA 1945-70. The final unit is 3B - War and the transformation of British society c1931-51.
To support the curriculum many school trips are undertaken, both home and abroad. Students can expect to visit sites as diverse as Little Woodham, H.M.S. Victory, Porchester Castle, the Weald and Downland Museum, Hampton Court, the Tower of London, St. Pauls, London Museum, the London Dungeons, the National Gallery, the Somme battlefields and Ypres. The students are encouraged to display their skills with a variety of 'hands-on' projects during the first three years. These cover topics like the Normans, the Tudors, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
