For a great many people, history is a set of facts, a collection of events, a series of things that happened, one after another, in the past. In fact, history is far more than these things– it is a way of thinking about and seeing the world.

In S1, S2, and S3 History, pupils will learn about:

S1

Part 1: An Introduction to History – measuring time, understanding sources, working with evidence. Pupils will also develop their literacy skills by creating short stories based on an adventure through time!

Part 2: The First World War (1914-18) – pupils will learn the reasons for the outbreak of war in 1914, following the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Pupils will go on to develop their knowledge of recruitment, propaganda, trench warfare, and how the war changed the lives of British women.

S2

The reign of Mary Queen of Scots – This course will focus on Scotland in the 16th century as we firstly learn what life would have been like for people of all classes in the Stewart era. We also learn about the respective reigns of Mary’s predecessors, James I to James V. In this course, we also develop our understanding of Anglo-Scots relations and our ‘Auld Alliance’ with France. Mary Stewart lived a very eventful life, and we will examine her personal relationships, rumours of her involvement in various murder plots, and execution for treason in 1587.

Classes will also complete a personalised project, which is a literacy investigation on a historical topic of their choice.

S3

In S3 History, pupils will learn about:

American History: Civil War to Civil Rights – African American struggle in the ‘Land of the Free’

This topic will investigate the story of African-Americans, from the era of slavery to the Civil Rights crusade in the 1960s. In this unit, pupils will learn about life for African Americans on cotton plantations in the ‘Deep South’ and the American Civil War. Pupils will also learn about life after the abolition of slavery and ‘Jim Crow’ laws, which caused great prejudice, racism and discrimination for African-Americans. We will also develop our understanding of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) a white supremacist group who terrorised America’s black community, before focussing on heroes of the civil rights movement, such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.

The Cold War

Following the completion of their studies on the USA, pupils will also learn about the Cold War, learning about hugely significant events that followed the end of World War Two, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and both the construction and fall of the Berlin Wall.