The historian James Joll said that “the aim of the historian, like that of the artist, is to enlarge our picture of the world, to give us a new way of looking at things.” In this department we seek to develop the girls’ understanding of past human experience in all its diversity. While the focus is mainly on British history we also consider other cultures. In studying a particular period we aim to show the interplay of factors: religious, political, social, economic and cultural. We develop the skills of the historian: use of sources, evaluation, analysis, rigorous argument, both oral and written, and the appreciation of historiography.
Introduction of a new GCSE specification, autumn 2009.
Development of new lower school courses, from autumn 2009.
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On Wednesday 18th November Upper VI History, Politics, Economics and Business Studies students attended the YouthVoice conference hosted by York University.
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Here the approach is broadly chronological.
Year I
Creation of the Tudor Dynasty
Henry VIII and the Reformation
Mid-Tudor crisis: the reigns of Edward VI and Mary Tudor
Elizabeth I: religion, Mary Queen of Scots, Spanish Armada
Causes, events and significance of English Civil War
Commonwealth and Restoration
Plague and Fire
Year II
European exploration
Origins and development of Empire
Slavery
Agricultural & Industrial revolutions
Social impact of industrialisation
Growth of democracy: USA and GB
Early feminism
Year III
World War I : trench warfare, war at sea and in air, Somme, 1918, the Home Front
Interwar dictatorships: Stalin and Hitler
World War II: individual studies on e.g. Churchill or the Holocaust
Cold War with special emphasis on the Cuban Missile crisis
Civil Rights in the USA: Martin Luther King
Women’s Rights in the twentieth century.
History is one of the most popular options at GCSE. We follow the OCR specification, History A: Schools History Project.
This specification requires both a “study in development”: Medicine through Time, and a “study in depth”: the American West, 1840-1895. There is also a “Historical Source Investigation” which is linked to the development study: Developments in British Medicine, 1200- 1945. Finally there is a compulsory coursework element, the “controlled assessment” and this will be on local history and involve the school site and the village of Escrick.
Our broad theme is “Absolutism”. At AS the girls study two periods, one British and one European: Britain, 1483-1529 and Life in Nazi Germany, 1933-45. At A2 we complete our study of the Tudors: Britain 1547-1603, but also undertake compulsory coursework on the Early Modern Church and heresies.
Government & Politics (Sixth Form) The History department also teaches AS and A2 level Government and Politics. We think that it is essential that every girl should have the opportunity to understand the political system under which we all live and we wish to encourage “active citizenship”. We follow the Edexcel specification, for which the web address is:
www.edexcel.com/quals/gce/gce08/gov
At AS the girls study “People and Politics”: democracy & political participation, parties, elections and pressure groups; and “Governing the UK”: constitution, parliament, executive and the judiciary. At A2 we choose to do political ideologies such as liberalism, socialism and conservatism as well as anarchism, feminism and ecologism.
The school is a member of the Historical Association and the current Head of Department serves as a committee member of the York branch of the HA. Consequently one of the Branch HA lectures is held at QM each year, and girls can attend lectures in other schools. The department undertakes to make educational visits, e.g. in the last few years we have made “battlefields visits” to WWI sites in France and Belgium, and we have also visited “Tudor London”.
The department runs the very successful Modern Studies Society which is open to all girls in the Sixth Form. Under the auspices of this we have lectures on political themes, film nights and current affairs quizzes. Recent speakers include Lord Norton and Peter Riddell. We attend annually a conference in Westminster for sixth-formers studying Politics.