Welcome to the Kingsmead School History Department
The vision is for all students at Kingsmead is to enjoy the history curriculum and develop relevant knowledge that will enable them to become contributing members of society, empowered with the skills and values necessary to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world. By raising awareness of the past and its legacies students will be ready to enter meaningful historical controversies and debates. Students will be aware that historians make different claims and arguments about the past. They will challenge, using evidence gained through personal curiosity, histography, teaching and research. Learning about other times, places, cultures and beliefs, as well as their own, will enable students to develop a sense of personal meaning and place in the world.
The KS3 Curriculum is built-up from KS2 and is based on Age Related Expectations assessed through DOYA. (Deepening, On track, Yet to be on track, At an earlier stage), with progression of content and concepts carefully sequenced in-line with the Cabot Learning Federation (CLF) Curriculum. The curriculum is our opportunity to inspire children to develop disciplinary knowledge beyond the subject, that supports children to be successful individuals and historians. The chosen topics provoke children to have opinions so that they build a sense of self and place, giving them agency now and into adulthood.
Our post 1066 History curriculum has a mix of local, national and international events/individuals, with some compulsory elements, such as the teaching of the Holocaust. The chosen KS3 syllabus enables pupils to practice x7 key History skills based on Historical interpretations, Significance, Change and Continuity, Historical perspectives, Causation, Historical evidence and Enquiry. The x7 key History skills, and the lessons and assessments in which they are applied, are linked to the exam skills pupils require for the Edexcel GCSE curriculum in Years 10-11. Some topics at KS3 have been chosen as an introduction and link to the chosen KS4 syllabus. For example, religious changes in the time of the Tudors and the reign of Elizabeth 1st, both studied in Year 7, complement the depth study of Elizabeth in Year 11.
At Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8 & 9) students have 3 hours of History lessons per fortnight and are taught in mixed ability groups. At Key Stage 4 Year 10 and 11 have 5 hours of History lessons per fortnight and are also taught in mixed ability groups. KS4 pupils study the Edexcel History GCSE, which is examined as three papers at the end of Year 11. Topics for this GCSE include Crime and Punishment, c1000-present; Early Elizabethan England, 1558-1588; Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-1991 and USA Home and Abroad, 1954-1975.
