The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future’ – Theodore Roosevelt

“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey

The Birkdale history curriculum helps explain the world as it is by exploring the world as it was. We aim to create a sense of intrigue and encourage students to be ambitious.

We shall base our studies around British history, but our enquiries will be local, continental and global in scale. We aim to emphasise that the past is a ‘foreign land’ constructed in ways which are still contested.

Students will develop their disciplinary thinking, exploring the past from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. We strive to make our curriculum representative of a variety of perspectives and viewpoints. We are aiming to provide the broadest picture while picking up on those details that fascinate, challenge and delight. Combining these threads we want to provide a rich, broad and structured understanding of the past for every student. Our curriculum aims to produce ‘citizen historians’ by helping change how students understand themselves, the world around them and their place within the world. Significantly increasing students’ historical knowledge, curiosity, critical thinking and communication skills are all key functions of our curriculum. Increased knowledge of the past will help inform students’ identity; this curriculum will give them confidence to defend their beliefs and flexibility to incorporate new perspectives into their thinking. The Birkdale History curriculum will help students question and influence the people and communities around them.

Our history curriculum exists within the wider Birkdale curriculum to challenge the students and give them power. We want it to help all our students engage in the discourse and practices of educated people so that they are enabled to enjoy and actively become citizens of the world.

Chronology – when major events occurred and how they are linked whilst being able to construct a narrative

Causation – an understanding of the factors that cause historical events to happen

Consequences – what the results or impacts of the events we have studied

Similarities and Difference -being able to identify and explain where, why and how factors have points in common and points of difference and being able to suggest reasons for this

Change and Continuity – being able to identify and explain where, why and how factors have changed or stayed the same

Historical sources – what are they, how do we use them and how do they help improve our learning

Interpretations– an understanding of why people and events in the past have been viewed differently

Significance- an ability to explain why an historical event or person is significant [being different to important] and the changes or turning points that occur as a consequence.

The studying of History gives students an opportunity to understand the society that they live in and helps to foster skills which gives them an advantage in their social and professional lives. We challenge stereotypes and address misconceptions and provoke curiosity. We do not assume that students can visualise or identify different periods in history so we create that image with them.

Our lessons give the opportunity to make links with works of art, pieces of music, excerpts from literature as well as places to visit [virtually or in person]. We include local history links wherever possible including at Examination Stage where we study a unit ‘History Around Us’ which includes a field study and frequently link our lessons to local places of interest.

We encourage students to read to support their learning and support their access to subject specific vocabulary.

The boys receive equal opportunity to develop their historical capability, by being taught in mixed ability classes. The offer is the same to each year group and there are no tiered or additional papers to access.

All members of the department have and use a visualizer to model and scaffold learning, in order to make challenging content more accessible.

We make use of stories and local history to cultivate curiosity and develop a sense of historical period.

We are developing knowledge organisers for each unit which includes key knowledge and people as well as key vocabulary.

Students are assessed termly across the year to enable students’ progress to be closely monitored and identify areas of success and areas to be developed. To support their study, students can revise through the GCSEpod, BBC Bitesize and Seneca websites where they can use the learning modules to enhance their understanding.