Cricket: Boys' 1st XI vs Chalke Valley Cricket Club
Throughout a pupil’s time at King’s, we hope to foster a love of history, primarily through engaging and rigorous courses, but also by enrichment opportunities – for example through trips in the UK or abroad to destinations such as Northern Ireland or Berlin, or the Fitzjames Forum, our weekly, informal History society. We hope to engage pupils through a diverse range of teaching, through debate and through the richness of human stories.
History is a very popular and successful option at both GCSE and A level and pupils regularly go on to study History or a related subject at University.
The 3rd Form (Year 9) curriculum focuses on the enormous changes that occurred through the 20th Century. We begin by examining the First World War, centred around the visit to the Battlefields of Northern France and Belgium each October. We then examine some of huge consequences of the conflict both short term and long term, for example women’s suffrage, the rise of Nazism and the growth of the Civil Rights movement in the USA. We also hope to explain some of the big issues of our modern world – perhaps the problems in the Middle East or the legacy of Empire to name but two.
Further up the School the curriculum at both GCSE and A Level is supported by an annual trip to Central or Eastern Europe.
Our priority, above all else, is to ensure that all pupils enjoy History and so we aim to make lessons thoroughly engaging by utilising a wide range of methods and styles of teaching and delivery.
The IGCSE course builds on the foundations laid in the 3rd Form and covers a range of periods and countries – from 1920s America through to the crushing of the protests in China in 1989. Once again, as well as being fascinating periods of history in their own right, it allows us to place some current events in context – be it the presidency of an ‘America First’ Republican or the hostility between Russia and Ukraine.
The A level course continues the modern theme – studying Britain between 1951 and 2007 and Germany from 1871 to 1991. Both courses examine the dramatic social, economic and political changes that occurred in each country. The A level course also includes a piece of coursework (NEA) which can cover a topic of the pupil’s choice and provides a valuable and exciting opportunity for pupils to go further back into the past. Recent topics studied have ranged from Ancient Greece through to the East India Company or the American West.
