Course Outline – History

Welcome to the History Department. We are committed to fostering a love of history that will last a lifetime. We aim to consistently deliver thought-provoking, engaging and challenging lessons, to enable all students to make outstanding progress in their historical understanding. Students are encouraged to make sense of the world they live in by rigorously examining the past and developing an awareness of the range of interpretations of key events. We have three specialist History classrooms and we are extremely well-resourced with a wide-range of textbooks, digital resources, subscriptions to historical magazines and websites, as well as an extensive Sixth Form History library within the Department. We provide a wide range of support for students with lunchtime, after-school and holiday revision sessions, as well as developing mentoring and homework help sessions run by Sixth Formers.

Beyond the classroom we offer a wide range of trips and extra-curricular activities. Years 7, 8, 9, 11 and the Sixth Form participate in trips, ranging from visiting local historical sites, museums and Parliament in London to trips abroad to the Great War battlefields and to Russia. We work with the Holocaust Educational Trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project to send two Sixth Formers to Auschwitz-Birkenau every year and to develop Holocaust education within the school. We provide extra-curricular opportunities within school, ranging from a Year 7 History Club to a History Society for the Upper School. We also run a Sixth Form Debating Society and facilitate a Lunchtime Lecture series for the Upper School. Students are encouraged to participate in a number of competitions, such as essay prizes run by Oxford and Cambridge colleges.