Curriculum intent

History at East Leake Academy intends to develop students’ knowledge and understanding of their own history as well as that of other people.

Reflecting their history and broadening students’ perspectives is what we aim to achieve at East Leake Academy because we want students to have a rich knowledge and understanding of the past in order to understand modern world and modern Britain. This is why students are taught the development of British and world history through the themes of power and democracy, empire and migration and ordinary lives, these themes allow students to relate to the past and broaden their understanding of other peoples’ lives.

Through each year in key stage 3, students will explore these themes and within them they will learn about local, national and international history. Simultaneously, students will develop the skills to enable them to be effective historians, many of these skills are transferrable to other subjects and a variety of career paths. These skills include analysis, evaluation, significance, cause and consequence, similarity and difference and change and continuity.

At key stage 3, history is taught chronologically because we believed that it is the best way for students to understand the narrative through building an understanding of period, and how themes and events within the periods relate to each other. The GCSE and A Level units have been carefully selected to allow students to continue to build on their prior knowledge and skills in order to reach their potential at these levels and beyond.

History endpoints

  1. An appreciation of the importance of factual knowledge in history, and an ability to recall and place such knowledge within a broad range of time periods.
  2. An ability to formulate arguments, framed around key historical concepts, in order to provide analytical responses to historical questions.
  3. Skills in analysing historians’ work, from a range of schools of thought, and using these works within their own arguments.
  4. Skills in using historical sources independently, in order to carry out a historical investigation.

GCSE

We follow the AQA examination board specification.

Topic areas covered:

  • shaping the Nation: Health and the People, c.1000-present day and Elizabethan England; and
  • understanding the Modern World: Germany 1895-1945, democracy and dictatorship and conflict and tension between East and West, 1945-1972.

Year 10 focuses on health and the people and Elizabethan England, with Weimar and Nazi Germany being taught in year 11.

Method of assessment:
100% examination based>
Paper 1 – Shaping the Nation (50% of final grade)
Paper 2 – Understanding the Modern World (50% of final grade)

Faculty staff

Mrs R Clifton (Head of Humanities)

Additional information

AQA A Level history page

A Level podcasts for Tsarist and Communist Russia and general exam technique