HISTORY

Staffing

Mrs J Dibben - Head Of Department

Mrs J Chapman - Lead Practitioner, Head Of Intervention, Teacher Of History

Mrs K Drake - Smsc Coordinator, Teacher Of History

Mr J Foster - Head Of Year, Teacher Of History

Miss B Nicholls - Teacher Of History

Vision

History lessons aim to be entertaining, enjoyable and informative. Through a wide range of teaching and learning techniques, the department gives students an insight into how societies change and progress.
Through historical investigation, students learn a range of transferable skills: critical thinking, evaluation and the ability to construct a reasoned argument and clarity of expression.

Learning and Teaching

The History Department aims to:
• interest and motivate students by using a wide range of learning activities that cater for students’ differing learning styles.
• give students the ‘Big Picture’ of what happened in the past by improving their knowledge and understanding of those times.
• teach a range of historical concepts and skills including: knowledge and understanding; second order historical concepts including cause, consequence, continuity, significance, similarity and difference.
• teach students transferable skills such as how to conduct an enquiry, write a narrative account, research, critical thinking, problem solving, how to write and present a convincing argument and justify their position.

The History Department has three teaching rooms within the Humanities base. Each classroom has a computer, smartboard and webcam. The department shares six computers and a bank of laptops with the Geography department. All ICT facilities are used by the pupils for research and extended learning.

Enriching learning

The department offers a variety of extra-curricular experiences including a Belgian and French battlefields tour. A Holocaust survivor comes into school annually to speak to Year Nine.

At Key Stage Four, the department offers students the opportunity to attend after-school revision classes to prepare for their GCSEs; one to one tuition is available for students who are not achieving their target grades.

Assessment

Assessment at Key Stage Three:

Aims:
• To show pupils that their work is valuable and matters
• To get pupils to take responsibility for their own learning and progress
• For pupils to get regular feedback to aid progress
• For pupils to experience a wide range of assessment tasks
• For pupils to have, and know, their flightpath and be working towards achieving them

Pupils will complete 6 key assessment pieces a year, which will be assessed using progress criteria and flightpath.

Assessment at Key Stage Four:

Aims:
• To show pupils that their work is valuable and matters
• To get pupils to take responsibility for their own learning, progress and exam preparation
• For pupils to get regular feedback to aid progress
• For pupils to experience assessment tasks that reflect the GCSE examination
• For pupils to have, and know, their target grade and be working towards achieving them
• For pupils to achieve their predictions in the final examination.