History

Exam Board: Edexcel

Course: GCSE History (1HIO)

Edexcel GCSE History is a rigorous, internationally-respected and employer-valued academic qualification, which will provide an excellent foundation for future study. It will also lead onto a very wide range of careers, including Law, government, journalism, media, and many others.

Members of the Department:

Mrs. H. Spurling, Head of History
Mrs J. Jude
Mrs. L. Ramsay
Miss J. Ralfs

vision

History at Debenham High School teaches us to understand how people were ruled, how they lived and what they believed.  We explore how we know this and how the study of this affects us today.

Introduction

History helps us to understand the world in which we live in all of its complexity.  

Pupils will investigate Britain’s relationships with the wider world, and relate past events to the present day.  

In pursuing this understanding, pupils will evaluate sources, identify and analyse different interpretations of the past, and learn the importance of supporting any judgements they make with relevant evidence.  

History encourages mutual understanding of the historic origins of our ethnic and cultural diversity, and helps pupils develop a healthy and balanced sense of national identity.

PROGRAMME OF STUDY

Each subject programme of study will:

• Provide a clear and coherent learning journey
• Foster subject-based understanding of new knowledge, concepts and methods
• Ensure students acquire knowledge and give opportunities for recall and application of this knowledge so that fluency is developed
• Require students to think and reason for themselves
• Explanations and resources enable students to engage with and master learning
• Learning should develop a depth of understanding that brings richness to the subject but also a breadth of understanding that enriches wider life and learning
• Develop a readiness for the next stage: be this the next lesson, the next unit of work, the next year or key stage; it prepares students for both academic, A Level, and future degree study, or vocational learning
• Contain appropriate, regular and robust assessment methods for measuring student progress and to allow intervention where progress is not as expected.

In order to see an overview of the sequence and progression of learning please see their Programme of Study:

  History Programme of Study

Trips and Visits

Year 7 – Colchester Castle.  This forms the basis of an assessed piece of written work, about the changing use of an historical site.

Year 9 – 1-day excursion to Ypres, to investigate this part of the Western Front, with a particular focus on medicine and surgery in the First World War.

Year 10/11 – Residential study tour to Berlin.  This covers sights related to both the Nazi era, and the development of the Cold War.

KEY STAGE 3

Year 7 - Introduction to History
Historical Skills and Overview of Roman Britain
1066, Norman Britain and the Crusades
Medieval Britain c1200 to 1500 including Magna Carta, the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt 

Year 8 - Britain 1500-1750
The German Reformation and its impact on the Tudors and Stuarts
The Age of Revolution, including France and British Industrial and social change 1750 - 1900
The British Empire

Year 9 - Modern World
USA - The experience of Black Americans
The struggle for the vote in Britain, (universal suffrage for men and women)
The early Twentieth Century including both World Wars and the Holocaust;
The later Twentieth Century, including an overview of the Cold War and aspects of social change.

KEY STAGE 4

YOU WILL STUDY: 

• Medicine in Britain, c1250–present
• The British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: injuries, treatment and the trenches.
• Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–39
• Superpower relations and the Cold War, 1941–91
• Early Elizabethan England, 1558–88.

ASSESSMENT:

Three exam papers will be taken in the summer of Year 11:

Paper 1: Thematic study and historic environment  (Medicine & WW1) (1 hour and 15 minutes: 30% of the qualification)

Paper 2: Period study and British depth study (Cold War/ Elizabeth) (1 hour and 45 minutes: 40% of the qualification)

Paper 3: Modern depth study (Germany) (1 hour and 20 minutes: 30% of the qualification)

There is a single tier of assessment, covering grades 9 to 1.