Curriculum Intent
Historians at Vandyke will study a wide range of world topics across their 5 years at the school, in order to make them more worldly citizens.
In Year 9, the focus is the 20th Century, where students study both World Wars, as well as Germany between 1890 and 1945. The modern focus sees students develop their understanding of political concepts and ideologies such as Democracy, Dictatorship, Fascism and Communism. By the end of year 9, they should have a reasonable understanding of how events in the early 20th century have effected the UK, Europe and the world in which they live, as well as other transferable skills of source inference and longer answer question writing.
For those students that move onto GCSE, we go on to study a wider range of topics and concepts than just the 20th century focus of Year 9. Students can see in particular how this country has been shaped by the reign of Elizabeth I, as well as a thematic study of Health and Medicine to see how modern medicine has improved to today.
Our A Level students build upon prior knowledge at GCSE by adding extra layers to previous topics, or looking at events from a different angle. The focus of the Tudor study is to enhance students' understanding of British history and how we have developed key concepts we see today in that time. The International Relations unit again exposes students to many political concepts and ideas, in order to be able to see how Europe has been shaped and changed by wars in the 20th century.
