History is a very popular and extremely successful subject at CCHS. Our students relish the opportunity to grapple with some of the great themes of human history, and to use the knowledge they gain to help them understand the society in which they live. They learn to analyse evidence and to write in an informed and analytical way about the events of the past. They also learn to question orthodoxies and to argue with clarity and rigour.
Key Stage 3
- In Year 7 students study Medieval and Tudor England. The second half of the year is spent investigating the life and history of case studies in Africa and the Middle East during the same period.
- In Year 8 we examine the English Civil Wars, the transatlantic slave trade. The course investigates life in India and Africa during the same period. The focus is then switched to the French & American Revolutions, the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions of the eighteenth century and the development of the franchise in Britain.
- Year 9 History is entirely concerned with ‘the twentieth century world’: the First World War, the 1920s and 1930s, the Second World War, the Holocaust, Indian independence, African history. We finish our Year 9 course with an investigation into Civil Rights in the USA and Britain.
GCSE
Our History GCSE aims to provide the students with both breadth and depth studies of various points in world history. The course develops a variety of source skills and essay writing techniques.
At GCSE, students’ study AQA Modern World History focusing on: Conflict & Tension from 1918-39, Germany 1890-1945, Elizabethan England c.1568-1603 and Power and the people 1170 to the present day.
A Level
There are two exam units in A Level History, AQA History A, each of which focuses on a hugely significant area of History: The British Empire c.1857-1967 and France in Revolution, 1774-1815’.
The final NEA unit focuses on the struggle for Civil Rights in the United States of America between 1865 and 1980.
Extra-Curricular Activities
The Department is also proud to be able to offer a Humanities Society. This is entirely optional series of lectures delivered by the students, followed by a debate discussion. It provides students with a space in which to reflect on the history, nature, and function of the discipline of history, and to consider questions far beyond the ever-narrowing confines of examination syllabi.
