History
History is about everyone because it is about people. People are complex, fascinating and frustrating. History is probably the most comprehensive and certainly one of the most intriguing subjects. It can also be inspiring, alarming, heartening and disturbing, a story of progress and civilisation and of catastrophe and inhumanity.
It is a discipline as well as a subject matter. We develop qualities of mind that are valuable to anyone who wants to seek the truth and think clearly and intelligently about the most interesting and challenging intellectual problem of all: people.
History fires pupils’ curiosity to ask questions, to discover more about Britain’s past and that of the wider world. Waldegrave pupils are encouraged to develop a chronological framework of British history that will enable them to make sense of the new knowledge they acquire. This will also allow them to understand the process of change, to see how we arrived ‘here’ and help them to make sense of the present.
The purpose of our curriculum is to give students a broad (mostly chronological) knowledge and understanding of significant people, events and developments and their impact, from the classical world to the 21st century. Within this, there will be aspects of depth study and aspects of thematic study. Our Key Stage 3 curriculum aims to provide a good foundation and smooth transition for those who opt to study History at GCSE and A Level. We focus on understanding significance and explaining causes, developments and consequences. We develop pupils’ ability to analyse source material and to deconstruct historians’ differing interpretations of evidence. We teach our students to communicate enthusiastically and knowledgeably about the past and we aim to develop high levels of written and verbal communication, so that pupils gain the confidence to argue their point of view convincingly, not just about history, but about the wider world around them.