History

The vision of the History department, which also includes the teaching of Politics, is ‘Developing Enquiring Minds’.

Through the History Curriculum at Ridgewood School we create academically successful and intellectually curious historians, whose fascination with, and thirst for the subject drives many of them to continue to pursue the discipline in their futures.

Our History Curriculum will provide extensive and wide-ranging opportunities by:

Studying topics and events of historical significance at a local, regional, national, international, continental and global level.

Enabling students to gain a chronological understanding of how Britain, Europe and the world has changed over time.

Having a knowledge-first approach to the curriculum, allowing students to master and retrieve precise details from each unit, including: names, dates, places, facts and figures.

Supporting students to develop an understanding of how to apply and write about historical concepts such as causation; continuity and change; significance; consequence; diversity.

Allowing students to reach developed and reasoned judgements.

Exposing students to a high level of historical and conceptual vocabulary and scholarship.

Explicitly teaching students sophisticated terminology and literacy devices to include in their written and verbal responses.

Teaching students how to write like a historian, including through the use of academic devices like footnotes and bibliographies.

Incorporating a variety of sources and historical interpretations, of multiple types, to be analysed and evaluated.

Helping students to be able to present and debate with clarity, fluency and passion.

For more information about A level History and A Level Politics, please visit our Sixth Form course pages.

KS3

Year 7

Half-term 1 (September – October)	Romans
Half-term 2 (Until Christmas)	Romans and Hastings
Half-term 3 (Up until February)	Hastings
Half-term 4 (Until Easter)	Medieval Life
Half-term 5 (Until May)	Tudors
Half-term 6 (Until the end of the school year)	Stuarts

Students will undertake a knowledge test every two weeks. The information students need to know will be provided to them on a Knowledge Box and we will expect students to produce their own revision material from these and self-test regularly to ‘drill’ the content.

Students will be assessed regularly on content and skills covered since September.

Support

At the start of each topic, students will be given a Knowledge Box which summarises all of the key information students will need to learn. Please test your child on these and ask to see that they have made extra revision notes from them.

We set homework every week; it will be to revise the key content from previous lessons (using the Knowledge Box).

Useful web links:

Year 8

Half-term 1 (September – October)	Age of Revolutions
Half-term 2 (Until Christmas)	World War One
Half-term 3 (Up until February)	Weimar Republic
Half-term 4 (Until Easter)	Hitler's Germany
Half-term 5 (Until May)	Hitler's Germany
Half-term 6 (Until the end of the school year)	Treatment of Jewish peoples, 1933 - 45

Students will be assessed regularly on content and skills covered since September.

Support

We set homework every week; it will be to revise the key content from previous lessons (using the Knowledge Box).

Useful web links:

Year 9

Half-term 1 (September – October)	Miners’ Strike
Half-term 2 (Until Christmas)	Ireland and Empire
Half-term 3 (Up until February)	Slavery
Half-term 4 (Until Easter)	Discrimination in the USA and South Africa
Half-term 5 (Until May)	Russia
Half-term 6 (Until the end of the school year)	Cambodia and the British Civil Rights Act

Students will be assessed regularly on content and skills covered since September.

Support

We set homework every week; it will be to revise the key content from previous lessons (using the Knowledge Box).

Useful web links:

KS4

Students follow the Pearson/Edexcel History GCSE specification.

We would strongly recommend students purchase the Revision Guides which accompany each topic to support their learning. There are four in total which summarise all the key information and provide tasks and practice questions within them.

The topics we study are:

Paper 1) Crime and Punishment with Whitechapel
Paper 2) Early Elizabethan England
Paper 2) Cold War
-Paper 3) USA, 1954-75

The School Shop sells these at a reduced rate of only £2.45 each.

Alternatively, they can be purchased via this link:

https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/history-2016.resources.html?filterQuery=category:Pearson-UK:Publisher%2FPearson

Topics (Year 10)

Half-term 1 (September – October)	Civil Rights: USA
Half-term 2 (Until Christmas)	Civil Rights: Vietnam
Half-term 3 (Up until February)	Cold War
Half-term 4 (Until Easter)	Cold War
Half-term 5 (Until May)	Whitechapel
Half-term 6 (Until the end of the school year)	Assessment preparation

Topics (Year 11)

Half-term 1 (September – October)	Early Elizabethan England
Half-term 2 (Until Christmas)	Early Elizabethan England
Half-term 3 (Up until February)	Cold War Revision
Half-term 4 (Until Easter)	Paper 3 Revision
Half-term 5 (Until May)	Revision
Half-term 6 (Until the end of the school year)	Exams

Assessment

There will be three terminal examinations at the end of Year 11 – Paper 1 (Crime and Punishment with Whitechapel, which is worth 30% of the overall qualification), Paper 2 (Elizabeth and the Cold War, which is worth 40% of the overall qualification) and Paper 3 (USA, which is worth 30% of the overall qualification). There is no coursework.

Students will have a knowledge test every week, and a diagnostic assessment at least every 4 weeks. We will also have end of half-term assessments which will cover all the content students have covered in class from the beginning of Year 10 up to that point.

Support

Homework

What we will ask students to do

How parents can support

Revision

We will tell students there will be a knowledge test on a particular topic and provide them with revision materials. We will expect students to produce their own notes / flashcards / mind-maps and self-test themselves regularly.

Ask to see the notes your child has prepared.

Test them on the content.

Practice questions

We will give students a set of practice questions to answer.

Check the presentation of the work.

The homework should take at least an hour – please check to ensure sufficient time has been spent on it.

Read the answers to check it achieves each criterion on the structure sheets / checklists provided.

Encourage your son / daughter to use the revision materials on this webpage to supplement their answers.

Useful web links:

Please get in touch via the enquiry form on our Contact Us page, should you have any further questions about our History Curriculum or to speak directly to our Leader of History, Mr Dominic Carlin.

History KS3 Steps Grid
PDF File