KS3 History
Course Introduction
A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world. It should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the past. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time.
Pupils should extend and deepen their chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, so that it provides a well-informed context for wider learning. Pupils should identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts, and analyse trends within periods and over long arcs of time. They should use historical terms and concepts in increasingly sophisticated ways. They should pursue historically valid enquiries including some they have framed themselves, and create relevant, structured and evidentially supported accounts in response. They should understand how different types of historical sources are used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
Student Objectives
The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:
Know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
Gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.
Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Course Content
Year 7
Autumn 1: The Nature and Logic of History
Autumn 2: Why does Britain have a history of invasion? The Roman Empire.
Spring 1: The development of Church, state and society in Medieval Britain 1066-1509 – Norman Conquest and Control.
Spring 2: The development of Church, state and society in Medieval Britain 1066-1509 – Everyday life in Medieval Britain
Summer 1: The development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745 – The Tudors
Summer 2: The development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745 – The Stuarts
Year 8
Summer 1: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day. – The First World War
Summer 2: – The First World War
Year 9
Autumn 1: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – Black Civil Rights Movement in America. Rosa Parks and Martin Luther.
Autumn 2: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – The Second World War
Spring 1: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – The Holocaust
Spring 2: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – Living In Nazi Germany – Democracy to Dictatorship
Summer 1: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – Living In Nazi Germany – Control and Opposition
Summer 2: Challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day – Living in Nazi Germany – Changing Lives
