Arthur Mellows Village College

Delivering learning for life within an aspirational culture

History

The History Department is a popular department which has seen a steady increase in student numbers over recent years. The department benefits from having regular attendees of the Teaching and Learning Group within this group.

We have consistently achieved 80% plus grades 9-4 at GCSE.  A Level results have also been consistently high. We have been proud to see a number of our A Level students go to some of the best universities in the country to study History, including Cambridge and Oxford.  We work as a team on anything from creating and updating Schemes of Work to devising meaningful assessments across the Key Stages.

In Key Stage 3 we follow a varied curriculum where the necessary skills are taught to allow our students to successfully transfer to GCSE.  Such topics are taught in Years 7-9 as Empires, Revolutions, the Civil Rights movement and World War One along with the rise of the dictators. 

At GCSE we follow the 9-1 GCSE.  This includes Crime and Punishment 1000-1900, Elizabeth I and the Cold War 1941-1991.  We also study Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1939.  All units are examined and we continue to have a high number of students choose History at GCSE.

Our numbers continue to grow at A Level where we have had very successful results whilst studying American Westward Expansion, the English Civil War and Interregnum, Russia and its Rulers and The Cold War.

We run 2 trips every year. In Year 9, students are invited to attend the Battlefields of World War trip to Belgium and France which takes place over a weekend in March.  In Year 11 our GCSE students are invited to attend a weekend visit to the D-Day landing beaches of Normandy.  Year 9 students are invited to hear a Holocaust survivor speak in school as part of their study of Nazi Germany.

We hold regular department meetings to discuss both student progress and where the department can look to improve. We will always look to contact home if we feel it is necessary and make regular use of the SIMS Points Behaviour system to praise our students.

The aim for the department is to continue our good work at GCSE and A Level, ensure our Key Stage 3 students are prepared for a History GCSE should they choose to take History as an option and to improve the number of A/A* that the department has achieved over recent years.