History

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.” – Martin Luther King

The History Department at All Hallows Catholic High School is a vibrant and exciting area of the school. We are committed to delivering high quality, challenging, interesting and appropriate learning experiences to all our students, both inside and outside of the classroom. In 2022 the department achieved its best results for a very long time as 88% of students achieved 9-4 passes, with 12.5% passing at grade 9 and 36% at grades 9-7.

History is a popular subject at All Hallows and we work hard to provide our students with the tools to be successful so that our students don’t just learn about the subject but also gain invaluable transferable skills that will be an essential part of their adult lives. These include skills in research, comprehension and analysis of source material; forming reasoned interpretations, and developing the ability to make sound judgements and communicate these in different formats.

Accomodation

The History Department has two purpose built rooms, each containing an interactive whiteboard.

Teaching Staff

• Mr D Wallbanks (Head of History)
• Mrs  Washington (Teacher of History/Assistant Headteacher)
• Mr L Jenkins (Teacher of History)
• Miss M Eaves (Teacher of History and Geography)

We offer a varied and engaging curriculum at Key Stage 3. All students follow a structured programme of study at Key Stage 3 in two lessons per week during Years 7, 8 and 9. Pupils have the opportunity to work individually, in pairs and in collaboratively during the following topics.

Extra-Curricular Enrichment and Visits

The department believes in bringing History to life and offers opportunities to enrich students’ experience of learning about History. To further develop cultural capital these opportunities are designed to add colour to students’ learning experience and their understanding of the world around them.

Every Tuesday lunchtime there is an Activities Club for Key Stage 3 students.

All Year 7 pupils visit Beeston Castle in the summer term as part of the development of castles topic. All Year 8 pupils visit Liverpool Museums as part of their work on the British Empire and slavery topics.

Year 10 pupils have had the opportunity to visit the Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London as part of their studies on Elizabethan England.

In recent times the department has run visits to London, the battlefields of the First World War in France and Belgium and the Horrible Histories theatre show and will hope to run these again in the future.

After-school revision sessions are held every week by the department’s teachers.

Curriculum Statement: History

Professor Johnston often said that if you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a leaf that didn’t know it was part of a tree. –  Michael Crichton

Our History Department’s Intent

History is a vital part of a student’s life. It provides a structured knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world and helps students to understand the complexity of people’s lives, change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as giving them a sense of their own identity and the challenges of their time.

• Provides students with a broad range of historical knowledge and understanding, including a sense of development over time, and an appreciation of the culture and attitudes of societies other than our own;
• Allows students to gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts;
• Gives students power over their own knowledge allowing them to evaluate critically the significance and utility of a large body of material, including evidence from contemporary sources and interpretations of historians;
• Enables students to engage directly with questions and present independent opinions in arguments that are well-written, clearly expressed, coherently organised and effectively supported by relevant evidence;
• Allows students to gaining the confidence to undertake self-directed learning, making the most effective use of time and resources, and increasingly defining one’s own questions and goals.

Curriculum features

The History department aims to equip our students with the knowledge and skills required to become well-rounded individuals. Our curriculum is structured to nurture a love of History through the development of key historical skills and a broad range of knowledge. Students develop the five key concepts using evidence, interpretations, significance, change and continuity and cause and consequence. These concepts are used as tools for students to make sense of, and understand, the volume of knowledge required for the development of expertise. Students study a wide range of historical periods from Roman Britain to the modern day. This enables them to study the past from a variety of standpoints and to make connections and comparisons over time.

The History Department will seek to ensure that all pupils:

• Attain the highest possible standards of achievement.
• Are enabled to communicate their ideas and views to the best of their ability.
• Enhance their social skills through a variety of learning opportunities, activities and settings.
• Develop confidence and understanding in Literacy, Numeracy and ICT

Curriculum intent

Our curriculum is designed to:

• To instil within each student the joy and value of studying History.
• To develop within each student an understanding of the world around him/her.
• To promote the idea that all civilisations have contributed to human’s development and progress in a variety of ways at different times.
• To encourage students to empathise with individuals and experiences outside the normal range of their personal interrelationships.
• To help students’ value and enjoy the historical legacy of past peoples left as architectural, literary and scientific signposts to man’s progress over the centuries.

Curriculum 2022 / 2023

The History curriculum aims to provide a personalised experience for our learners. This is achieved by:

• Treating students as individuals
• Planning learning to meet the needs of all our students.
• Offering a comprehensive range of subjects to be studied.
• Focusing on developing students’ skills
• Providing a range of learning experiences outside of the classroom.
• Ensuring students have access to high quality information, advice and guidance.

Key Stage 3 Curriculum Content

Pupils will build upon the knowledge and skills learned in Key Stages 1 and 2 and become more confident in applying these and develop a greater understanding of society and the world in which they live.

We will teach students to explore aspects of the History of Britain, their local community and the wider world. These studies of people and societies will be done through a variety of approaches on which students are encouraged to constantly question, make opinions and discuss the knowledge gained.

Key Concepts  

• Chronological understanding – students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of this concept through the identification and placing of ideas within a historical Period and what it was like to live at that time.
• Change and Continuity – Through the study of a wide period of time which spans 800 to 1950, students are able to identify change and continuity within and across periods of history.
• Causation – Students are given many opportunities to look for and identify the reasons for why things happened in the past.
• Significance – Students are able to assess the importance of events and people and how they brought about change.
• Interpretation – Students will analyse how and why the past has been interpreted in different ways, throughout Key Stage 3
• Cultural, ethnic and religious diversity – In studying Britain and the wider world, young people are able to identify a range of ideas, beliefs and attitudes from past societies.

Key Processes 

• Historical enquiry
• Using evidence
• Communicating about the past

Homework Expectations

Students are expected to complete 30 minutes of extended work each week. The work will be varied and may include research, a writing task, revision of a topic, planning and project work. When students are not set formal work they are expected to review their work and read around a topic that they are studying in class.

Key Stage 4

Students will develop a secure understanding of chronology, knowledge and understanding of history on different scales and contexts, apply historical concepts and processes and engage with the nature of evidence and interpretation. In each pathway, students will engage with a variety of perspectives, such as political, social and economic, and investigate the contributions of key individuals and groups. In this way students will be able to draw parallels and make links between the distinct areas of study.

Assessment:

Pupils will be assessed against four major objectives:

1. Demonstration of knowledge and understanding.
2. Analysis of events and periods studied.
3. Source analysis.
4. Analysis, evaluation and judgements about interpretations.