Year 8 History

Brief summary of the syllabus:

All boys will be following the National Curriculum in History. The syllabus for the course is as follows:

Terms One and Two: The making of the UK: Crown, Parliament and People 1500-1700

• Renaissance, Reformation and Tudor England
• Tudor government under Henry VII
• The English Reformation: Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Mary I and Edward VI
• James I, Charles I and Parliament and the causes of the Civil War
• The CiviL War, the Commonwealth and Protectorate
• The Glorious Revolution
• Wales, Ireland, Scotland; the political unification of Britain
• Science and superstition

Term Two/Three: Expansion, Trade and Industry, Britain 1750-1900

• Population
• Agricultural revolution, 1750-1914
• Industrial Revolution, 1750-1900, including case studies of individual industries
• Developments in transport, rail, road and canal
• Living and working conditions, including a case study on the factories
• Politics, 1750-1900, including a focus on the Chartists and the development of the Labour Party
• Empire, slavery and overseas trade
• An IT project on Victorian education
• England and relations with the home nations
• If time, a focus on the French Revolution

What skills/attributes are being developed and examined?

Historical evidence

• When looking at evidence do not just read it for information. Think of:
• where it has come from
• what use it will be to the historian
• Evidence will often have to be checked for its usefulness and reliability

Reliability:

1. Is the author of the source in a position to know what happened?
2. Does he or she they have any reason for being biased?
3. Does the source sound logical? Does it make sense?
4. Do other sources agree with the source?
5. Where did the author get the information from?

Usefulness:

1. If the source is factual, do the facts tell you what you want to know?
2. If the source is biased, does it tell you how people felt and their opinions?
3. What are you using the source for?
4. Useful for what? Remember that sources might be useful for one thing and not another, eg, a painting of a person made 500 years after they died may not be reliable for how they looked, but might be reliable for telling you how people thought of them 500 years later and perhaps why.

Historical interpretation

Different historians have different views about what, why and how things happened in history. Bear in mind the following. Historians may disagree because:

1. They use different evidence.
2. They may be writing at different times and therefore have access to different sources.
3. They may be writing at different times and so see the world differently and have different values.
4. They may be writing at the same time and have different values.

Causation

When looking at the importance of causes try to think about the following:

1. How many people does a cause affect?
2. How long are they affected for?
3. Whether or not it led to any other cause

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What can parents expect to see in classwork and homework specifically?

Homework is set on a weekly basis and may take a variety of forms, such as:

1. Comprehension exercises, for example question- and- answer exercises. Answers should always be in full sentences and pupils must either write out the question or include the terms of the question in the answer. If this is not done the pupil's work will have little value when it comes to revision.
2. Source material exercises. Pupils must analyse the question very carefully in order to supply a relevant answer. They may be asked to make deductions, comment on a source's usefulness, put together information from a source, compare the sources, or judge their value. They must give an indication of what the source contains as well as analysing various points.
3. Note-making. The key to success is to read the questions very carefully and only include material that is directly relevant. Bullet point notes and the use of lots of structured headings are useful. Note- making should be just that - it should not be copying out a whole passage.
4. Research. Pupils will sometimes be asked to find out information from reference books, libraries, computers (including the Internet) or by questioning adults. To avoid wasting time pupils should give plenty of thought to what they have been asked to find out and make sure that they write down a list of what they need to find out. Once they have located the information they must not copy out chunks of text, but follow the procedure for note- making above.
5. Other. This could be the preparation of a role play exercise, a piece of work for display (posters, leaflets etc) or a presentation to the whole class.

Much of the emphasis on the Year 8 Syllabus will be on developing essay skills, which are vital in history and require particular skills which have rarely been taught in the primary schools. Boys will be guided through the essay- writing process using grids, diagrams and example essays to explain the techniques involved.

Another strand of their learning will involve sources and the ability to see how historians differ in their opinions of particular events.

To encourage an appreciation of the subject the department aims to run a number of school trips to sites of historical interest, which will include opportunities for the first year to become involved. The department uses also a wide variety of learning material to stimulate historical interest, including the use of role play, video, audio and IT. A web site will be available which that will include exemplary materials produced by members of the school which all pupils will be able to access. The department also encourages boys to bring in relevant newspaper cuttings and magazine articles of historical interest and puts them on display.

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What can parents do to help in this subject at this stage?

1. Ensure history homework is well ordered and presented and sufficiently detailed.
2. Discuss work with your son, concentrating particularly on the way he justifies his views.
3. Help him in gathering extra material, particularly for research assignments.
4. Discourage him from trying to explain the past using the attitudes and values we hold today as tools of analysis.
5. Encourage visits to places of historical interest in your locality and the reading of historical material.
Anything that stimulates interest in the first instance is of value - even the Horrible History series, for example, can provide a starting point.
6. Ensure that books and revision files are complete and well ordered with revision summaries.

Historical sites of interest for Year 8

Tudor and Stuart	Hampton Court Palace Kensington Palace Kew Palace Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield
Georgian and Victorian	Victoria and Albert Museum The Mansion House Keat's House, Hampstead Buckingham Palace

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Setting:

Setting is undertaken strictly on the basis of test results since it is performance in tests that bests evaluates the ability of the pupil.

Boys are divided into two years halves - PSU and BHL. There is a top, middle and bottom set in each year half.

Performance in tests throughout the year will determine whether boys move up or down. Boys will be reset twice yearly at the end of the Christmas and Summer Term since two tests or more are really necessary to gauge if a long-term improvement/deterioration in performance has taken place.

Apart from the standard textbook, pupils will sometimes be provided with additional materials. This might include a rather more difficult textbook which they will be able to borrow for the completion of certain homework assignments, or they may be provided with an extension booklet. The latter policy is particularly relevant for the top sets. The department strongly believes in taking pupils to the maximum of their potential and has provided a challenging extension booklet for tops sets which includes GCSE and even in some places A-level- type materials (broken down more simply so that younger pupils can understand them). Examples from the Year 8 booklet on The Making of the UK, for example, include work from Arthur Marwick and historical interpretations of the Civil War. These provide pupils with a more complex understanding of the material they are learning and also achieves a higher level of historical skills.

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Final Examination:

The final examination is taken in the Summer Term. This, the other tests and class work help calculate National Curriculum levels at the end of the year.

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Tests:

The test will be held either side of each holiday period (i.e. the week before or after half/end of term) and boys will be examined on aspects of the topic/s they will most recently have been learning about.

Tests last between 35-40 minutes and focus the boys' ability to:

1. Recall their knowledge and understanding of events, people and changes in the past, identifying causes and consequences
2. Explain how and why historical events, people situations and changes have been interpreted in different ways

Tests will take one of the following formats:

• Source analysis skills (boys' ability to identify, select and use a range of appropriate sources of information, but also to evaluate the sources' usefulness and use them to reach an independent conclusion)
• Essay- writing skills (boys' ability to communicate their knowledge and understanding of history using both structured narrative and substantial explanation)
• Some tests will be a combination of both. Boys will be told in advance which skills are being assessed

For tests involving source analysis, boys will be required to extract information from a particular source, identifying what they can learn about an individual period in history. In addition, is likely that they will be asked to consider the usefulness of a source. They should focus not only on what the source tells them about an individual or period but also the extent to which it may be biased, to consider whether it has any limitations as a piece of evidence, considering the nature, origin and purpose of the source. Boys could also be asked to cross-reference a set of sources, i.e. judge how far two or more sources agree or disagree with each other.

For tests involving essay-writing skills boys will be required to identify the reasons for and/or consequences of something happening. Marks will be awarded according to the student's ability to go beyond the simply describing events and factors by analysing, identifying connections between causes and consequences and substantiating what they write with evidence.

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Revision Guidelines:

Revision must be active. It is not appropriate for boys simply to read through material. Pupils should try to use spider diagrams, charts or other knowledge- recall techniques to plan their work in order to see connections between points/factors. For source analysis, boys should look at the source used in textbooks on a particular topic and for each source try to identify how the source is useful, but also whether or not it has any limitations, i.e. is not useful, or should be considered with caution. This could be presented in a T-chart, with headings "Useful" and "Not useful".

If pupils are concerned about upcoming tests they should primarily consult their class teacher for more advice and help. In addition, history clinic is held weekly in the History Office.

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