History

The aim of our History curriculum is to ensure students share an enjoyment of learning and excitement for the past, whilst understanding its importance in shaping both the present and the future. Through engagement in scholarly debate and developing critical thinking, students are inspired to question the world around them and foster an appreciation for the value of history in everyday lives and community. Our students have the confidence to question and challenge ideas and opinions rather than to blindly accept opinion disguised as fact. By the end of Year 11, our students will have fostered a passion for learning and discovery. They will have secure, ‘powerful’ substantive knowledge which will enable them to engage with further study and help their understanding of the wider world. They will be independent thinkers who question the world around them and will be able to actively engage within scholarly debate.

Key Stage 3

History at Kibworth Mead Academy provides a challenging and engaging course of study, planned to inspire, and ignite a passion for learning about the past.

Our Key Stage 3 curriculum is designed to give students a broad, diverse, and balanced understanding of history in Britain and the wider world. We follow a chronological approach, to provide structure and to help comprehension of cause and consequence. History topics are delivered in a series of focused enquiry questions, conceptually based around the questions currently being debated by academic historians. We provide a curriculum that develops young historians, by interleaving not only subject knowledge, but also second order concepts, the skills students require to engage with the process of historical enquiry. These skills and the content covered at Key Stage 3 underpin the GCSE course, securing learning through sequential learning, knowledge organisers and knowledge retrieval tests.

Key Stage 4

GCSE History incorporates modern history and thematic units. The course will inspire students to question and understand why the world in which they live, is as it is. Students will study the people and events that helped to shape this country and Europe.

The qualification consists of two examined papers:

Paper 1 – Understanding the modern world.

Germany, 1890-1945: Democracy and dictatorship. This will focus on the problems faced by Weimar Germany, the rise of Hitler and life in Nazi Germany.
Conflict and tension 1918-1939. This will focus on the impact of the Treaty of Versailles and the failure of the League of Nations. We will also focus on Hitler’s Foreign Policy and the failure of the policy of appeasement.

Paper 2 – Shaping the nation.

Health and the people: c1000 to the present day. This will focus on the changing ideas and methods involved in medicine in this country. We will also study the impact of key factors, such as religion, war, superstition, and chance.
Elizabethan England c1568-1603. This will include studying the character and background of Elizabeth, as well as aspects of Elizabethan England, such as theatre, poverty, exploration, and architecture.

Students will sit two written examinations. Each paper will be:

2 hours in length.
84 marks (4 marks for spelling, punctuation, and grammar).
Each worth 50% of the overall GCSE grade.

The skills developed during the GCSE History course are transferable to many A-level courses. You will develop your skills in research, problem solving and communication analytical skills. These skills are highly valued by universities and employers.