In addition to the National Curriculum aims, our ambitious curriculum for History at DSTC is designed to:

• Enable students to have a clear understanding of British values such as Democracy and Equality. Students will know how these values have developed over time.
• Gain an insight into cultures and traditions from around the world in order to broaden their horizons and teach a mutual respect for others.
• Develop critical thinkers. Students will learn how to question opinions and motives. They will develop the ability to formulate their own conclusions based on evidence.

Complementary Subjects:

Geography, Religious Education, English

KS3

 

The Year 7 curriculum begins by focussing on the basics of what is History? Using a range of different styles of lessons, students learn about the main historical skills and how they are used. From this we then start chronologically looking at the Norman Conquest, Medieval life in Britain, the Crusades and the Black Death.

In Year 8 students study the Tudor period, the English Civil War, the Plague and the Great Fire of London, the Scientific Revolution, the Slave Trade and the British Empire and finally the Industrial Revolution.

Year 9 begins when Year 8 history finished by looking at the political system of Britain, then moving on to World War One. Following this, we move on to study further conflicts that have taken place during the 20th century, specifically, the Russian Revolution, World War Two and the Cold War, including a focus on the Holocaust. Finally, we study the Witch Trials of Early Modern England, with a focus on source analysis. This is designed to help prepare students for the GCSE Crime and Punishment Unit.

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Year 7	Historical Skills	Early settlers and the Norman Conquest	Medieval Britain	The Crusades	The Problems of Medieval Monarchs	The Black Death and the Peasants’ Revolt
Year 8	Challenges to the Catholic Church	The Stuarts and the Civil War	The Enlightenment	The Slave Trade	The British Empire	The Industrial Revolution
Year 9	Getting the vote	The First World War	Conflict in the 20th Century	The Holocaust	The Middle East	Witchcraft in Early Modern England

In Key Stage 3, homework is set on a termly basis and is project-based providing supplementary learning to the lessons in the classroom with an element focussing on the local history of Dartford and Kent.

As part of the extracurricular activities, we take part in the 'Dora Love Prize' which is linked with Holocaust Memorial Day and is a project designed by students.

Further Reading/Resources:

• Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
• Dangerous Days In Elizabethan England by Terry Deary
• Stolen History by Satnam Sanghera
• Suffragettes and the Fight for the Vote by Sarah Ridley
• The Diary of Anne Frank

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KS4

 

The Key Stage 4 curriculum follows four topics under the Edexcel exam board:

Year 10: British Depth Study: Early Elizabethan England 1558 – 88 and British Thematic Study and Historical Environment: Crime and Punishment 1000 – Present Day and Whitechapel.

Year 11: Period Study: The American West 1835 – 95 and Modern Depth Study: The USA 1954 – 75: Conflict at Home and Abroad

Students start Year 10 by studying Early Elizabethan England. This focuses on a key question about whether the years 1558 – 88 could be considered a ‘Golden Age’. Students aim to assess three areas of this period. We start by looking at the start of Elizabeth’s reign and the problems that she faced as well as how successfully she overcame these issues. This moves onto the conflict that both her and the country faced at home and abroad. Finally, we look at life for Elizabethans under Elizabeth’s rule and whether their lives improved or not through education, hobbies and leisure, poverty and exploration.

Next, students move on to study Crime and Punishment in depth. Students look at a range of different time periods from 1000 and the time of the Anglo-Saxons and Normans, through the Middle Ages and Early Modern Britain, the 18th and 19th Centuries through to modern day. Through these periods, students focus on the changes and continuities of the crimes most common during these periods and what factors determined what was a crime or not, the attitudes of punishments and how these changed over time and the development of law enforcement. This topic ends with an in-depth case study of the area of Whitechapel during the time of the Jack the Ripper murders and the characteristics of the area that led to these crimes being able to take place unsolved as well as the part that the police played in Jack the Ripper not being caught.

In Year 11, students start with the topic of the American West. We start by looking in depth at the Plains Indians and their way of life before looking at the settlers that started to move to America and the desire to move West leading to conflict and tension. We then start to look more in depth to the settlement of the West and what made this possible, with some focus on specific groups such as the Mormons. We also focus on the ranching and cattle industry and how this developed and the effect that the settlement of the West had on the lives of the Plains Indians. Finally, we look at how elements of settling such as farming developed with new technology, the further conflict that came with more and more people moving West, such as wars and lawlessness and putting more pressure on the areas that the Plains Indians had access to and finally the destruction of the Plains Indians' way of life and what happened to them as a result.

The final topic studied in Year 11 is the USA focussing on the conflict at home through the Civil Rights movement and abroad with the Vietnam War. With the Civil Rights aspect of this module, students study what life was like for Black Americans in the 1950s and the segregation they faced. Through this we look at the progress that was made in education as well as the many different protests that were staged during this time in order to achieve an integrated society, including events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Greensboro Sit-Ins. We study all the developments and progress that was made as well as the opposition faced during this time. We also study key individuals and what they achieved, such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. The second part of this module focuses on the Vietnam War that was taking place during the same time. As part of this section, we look at why America became involved in such a War as well as the tactics used by both the Americans and the VietCong. We study the many changes to the policy of involvement under the presidencies of Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon as well as the attitudes towards the war of the public and the world as this was the first televised war. Finally, we look at how America withdrew from the Vietnam War and what led to America’s overall failure.

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Year 10	Early Elizabethan England	Early Elizabethan England	Crime and Punishment through time	Crime and Punishment through time	Whitechapel : Case Study	Whitechapel : Case Study
Year 11	USA - Conflict Home and Abroad : Civil Rights	USA - Conflict Home and Abroad : Vietnam War	The American West	The American West	Exam Season	Exam Season

Further Reading/Resources:

• The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England – Ian Mortimer
• A History of Britain - Simon Schama (Book and TV Series)
• Burnt my heart at Wounded Knee - Dee Brown
• The Five - Hallie Rubenhold
• Turning Point - The Vietnam War (TV Series)

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KS5

 

Students in Year 12/13 will study AQA A Level History. This course consists of 2 exam units and an NEA(coursework). The exam units are The Tudors and Democracy and Nazism in Germany. The NEA has a degree of flexibility. However, they cannot produce work on their examined topics.

Students can go on to do a range of things with history after leaving education, such as journalism, editorial work, humanitarian work or education to name a few. History develops analytical thinking, so any area of work that requires you to analyse information would benefit from the skills learned in history. This could then lead to studying history at a more specialised level at University depending on what areas of history the individual feels are most interesting and useful for them.

	Autumn 1	Autumn 2	Spring 1	Spring 2	Summer 1	Summer 2
Year 12 Tudors	Henry VII	Henry VII	Henry VIII	Henry VIII	Edward VI	NEA
Year 12 Germany	The Weimar Republic - Early years	The Weimar Republic - Early years	The Weimar Republic - Golden Age	The Weimar Republic - Golden Age	The Weimar Republic - The collapse of Democracy	The Weimar Republic - The collapse of Democracy
Year 13 Tudors	Mary I	Mary I	Elizabeth I	Elizabeth I	Exam season	Exam season
Year 13 Germany	Nazi Dictatorship	The Racial State	The impact of war on Germany	The impact of war on Germany	Exam season	Exam season

Further Reading/Resources:

The Tudors

• D Murphy (ed), England 1485-1603, Collins, 1999
• N Fellows, Disorder and Rebellion in Tudor England, Hodder, 2009
• R Lockyer & D O’Sullivan, Tudor Britain 1485-1603, Longman, 1993
• K Randall, Henry VIII and the Government of England, Hodder, 2001
• K Randall, Henry VIII and the Reformation in England, Hodder, 2001
• J Warren, Elizabeth I: Meeting the Challenge, Hodder, 2008

 

Germany

M Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History, Pan, 2001

Sir I Kershaw, The 'Hitler Myth': Image and Reality in the Third Reich, Oxford Paperbacks,

2001

F McDonough, Opposition and Resistance in Nazi Germany (Cambridge Perspectives in

History), Cambridge University Press, 2001

• A McElligott, Weimar Germany (Short Oxford History of Germany), OUP, 2009

L Rees, Auschwitz : The Nazis & The 'Final Solution’, BBC Books, 2005

• L Rees, The Nazis: A Warning From History, BBC Books, 2006

A Weale, The SS: A New History, Abacus, 2012