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St Augustine's Catholic College

History

What I love about teaching History is how fundamentally important it is to help understand the world we live in today. At St Augustine’s we aim to give our students a broad, diverse and engaging curriculum that represents a range of time periods, locations and people. I think it’s really valuable for students to engage with historians to help them really understand the discipline.

From using Peter Frankopan’s work on the Silk Roads which have been the ‘world’s arteries’ for hundreds of years to Ian Mortimer’s Time Travellers Guides or Emma Griffin’s Liberty’s Dawn which provide a glimpse into the daily lives of people in England, we can consider specific historical skills like change and continuity, cause and consequence and significance. The uncovering of the lived experience of different groups of people in the past is fascinating and we are, for example, embedding David Olusoga’s seminal work Black and British to help us find out about the complex history of Britain and beyond. By studying topics like Power and the People at GCSE and British political history from 1930-97 at A Level, it’s great to see students build upon their views of how past events have influenced and evolved into the British values we see today.

History at St Augustine’s offers students insight into the local history of Trowbridge and beyond, as well as opportunities to go on incredible trips to Berlin for GCSE and the Battlefields of the Western Front in Year 9. We hope students will relish the chance to take incredible journeys through the past to help inspire them in making history in the future.

Mrs S Hartsmith, Head of History

Key Stage 3 

Year 7

  1. How did civilisation grow in Britain before 1066?

  2. Did the Normans bring a ‘truckload of trouble’ to England in 1066?

  3. How successfully did Medieval rules navigate power?

  4. How successfully did Medieval rules navigate power?

  5. What was the impact of war, disease and revolt on 14th century England?

  6. How did the Silk Roads shape the world?

Year 8

  1. How did the Reformation impact Tudor England?

  2. In what ways was Britain turned upside down in the seventeenth century?

  3. How did the British Empire develop?

  4. What are the origins, impact and legacy of transatlantic slavery?

  5. What did ‘revolution’ mean in the Age of Revolution?

  6. Was the Industrial Revolution ‘disastrous and terrible’ or the ‘dawn of liberty’?

Year 9

  1. Was the Industrial Revolution ‘disastrous and terrible’ or the ‘dawn of liberty’?

  2. Why did the Great War become a global conflict?

  3. How did people fight for rights in the 20th century?

  4. How significant were the interwar years?

  5. What can sources reveal about the Second World War?

  6. How and why did Holocaust happen?

GCSE

Paper 1

1A/B Germany, 1890-1945: Democracy and dictatorship

This focuses on the development of Germany during a turbulent half century of change. It was a period of democracy and dictatorship – the development and collapse of democracy and the rise and fall of Nazism.

1B/C Conflict and tension between East and West, 1945-72

This study enables students to understand the complex and diverse interests of different states and individuals and the ideologies they represented. It focuses on the causes and events of the Cold War and seeks to show how and why conflict occurred and why it proved difficult to resolve the tensions which arose during the Cold War.

How is this assessed?

2hr exam, 84 marks (incl 4 SPaG), 50% of GCSE

Paper 2

2A/B Britain: Power and the People, c1170 to present day

Students will gain an understanding of the development of the relationship between the citizen and the state in Britain over a long period of time. It considers the causes, scale, nature and consequences of protest. By charting the journey from feudalism and serfdom to democracy and equality, it reveals how, in different periods, the state responds to challenges to its authority and their impact. It allows students to construct an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of the citizen.

2B/C Elizabethan England, c1568-1603

This option allows students to study in depth a specified period, the last 35 years of Elizabeth I's reign. The study will focus on major events of Elizabeth I’s reign considered from economic, religious, political, social and cultural standpoints, and arising contemporary and historical controversies.

How is this assessed?

2hr exam, 84 marks (incl 4 SPaG), 50% of GCSE

A Level

A Level History
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