Thurston Community College

History Curriculum

Intent of History

The Thurston Community College History curriculum helps to explain the world as it is by exploring the world as it was, in an intriguing and ambitious way. Understanding is developed around a spine of British History, but our enquiries proudly explore global, continental and local scales, emphasising the complexity of the past, and the constructed, contested nature of History. To this end, students progress their disciplinary thinking, exploring the past from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. We strive to make our curriculum representative of the inhabitants of the past, aiming to paint and understand the broadest possible picture and the details that illustrate it. These historical threads are combined and sequenced to craft a rich, broad and structured understanding of the past for every student. To achieve this we place scholarship at the heart of everything we do, building a culture of wider reading, and this applies equally to staff and students.

Our curriculum also aims to produce ‘citizen historians’ by helping change how our young people understand themselves, the world around them and their own place within it.

Undoubtedly, increasing students’ historical knowledge, curiosity, critical thinking and communication skills are all key features of our curriculum. Increased knowledge of the past helps inform the identity of our young people; our curriculum will both give them the confidence to build strong arguments of their own, both verbally and in extended writing, and the flexibility to incorporate new perspectives into their thinking. The TCC History curriculum will help students to question and influence the communities of which they are a part.

Our History curriculum sits within the wider Thurston Community College curriculum, allowing students to be inspired, feel empowered and to achieve at the highest level possible. We want our students to leave with the ability to confidently jump into the discourses and practices of educated people, armed with the intellectual weapons to challenge and shape it for themselves.

Threads of powerful knowledge in History

History involves a set of general themes that provide the basis for creating curious and knowledgeable ‘citizen-historians’ who are able to wrestle with the complex relationship between the past and present:

  1. Identity - on local, national and global levels
  2. Diversity - including ethnic, religious and gender
  3. Conflict - its causes and effects
  4. Power and Representation - who holds power and how people have been represented
  5. Protest - focusing on those who have challenged and overthrown those in power
  6. Social structures - the ways in which social groups organise themselves

Cultural reading and enrichment in History

  • Cultural reading is embedded into the curriculum - running from analysing the work of Roman historians in Year 7 to engaging with the latest scholarship on gender history in Year 9
  • The Library complements our curriculum by offering a range of engaging non-fiction texts (such as David Olusoga’s Black and British) and many examples of historical fiction (like Paul Dowswell’s The Great Revolt)
  • The Department currently offers three enrichment activities: History Club; Bright Ideas in History and Philosophy; and Debating Club
  • Student experience is enhanced by a range of trips, including visiting the Houses of Parliament, Great War battlefields and Russia.

Links to Further Information

 

Website design by Greenhouse School Websites

↑