History

From Year 7 to 11 students will learn about British and European History covering the Roman invasion of Britain over 2000 year ago to Thematic Studies such as Crime and Punishment (as well as a non-European society before 1900, the Indigenous People of North America).

Apart from being interesting, History is very useful.  Students will develop skills that allow them to know how people tick, what motivates them, what they think and feel.  They will be able to gather and read different kinds of information and will know how to check it for bias or propaganda.  They will have the opportunity to read maps, graphs, diagrams, analyse sources and interpretations using them to show that they can communicate their ideas verbally, on paper and using ICT packages such as MovieMaker.

We aim to ensure that the History students study here at Sir James Smith's is exciting in the short term, as we know that it will prove useful to them for a long time after they have left.

Please click here to see the information in the Curriculum Handbook

 For great information and games the BBC website is worth a look.

Outside of the Curriculum

In addition to the curriculum outlined above, we make sure all students enjoy History through extra-curricular activities and Deep Learning Days.  The department is responsive and adapts the curriculum to take advantage of particular interests or anniversaries.  Over the last year we have done much more work with local and family History with students in Year 8 as TV programmes such as 'Who Do You Think You Are' inspire our students to want to find out more about themselves and their local area. 

Many of our GCSE students go on to study History at A Level and University and the department is always delighted to hear from former students.  This isn't restricted to students, a number of local History teachers completed their initial teacher training within our experienced department and keep in touch to share ideas and resources.  We are a popular and successful department, always looking to do better and would love to hear from you with suggestions for our curriculum or resources we might use.