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KS4 option - History

Subject lead: Mr Dowds

At Key Stage 4 students have the opportunity to take GCSE history as an Option.

GCSE History

GCSE specifications in History support students in learning more about the history of Britain and that of the wider world. The study of history at GCSE will inspire students to deepen their understanding of the people, periods and events studied and enable them to think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, make informed decisions, and develop perspective and judgement. This, in turn, will prepare them for a role as informed, thoughtful and active citizens.

GCSE specifications in history will enable students to:

  • develop and extend their knowledge and understanding of: specified key events
  • periods and societies in the history of their locality, Britain, and the wider world;
  • and of the wide diversity of human experience
  • engage in historical enquiry to develop as independent learners and as critical and
  • reflective thinkers
  • develop the ability to ask relevant questions about the past, to investigate issues
  • critically and to make valid historical claims by using a range of sources in their
  • historical context
  • develop an awareness of how and why different interpretations have been
  • constructed about people, events and developments from the past and why they
  • may have been accorded significance
  • organise and communicate their historical knowledge and understanding in
  • different ways and reach substantiated conclusions
  • recognise that the discipline of history and a knowledge and understanding of the past helps them to understand their own identity and significant aspects of the world in which they live, and provides them with the basis for further wider learning and study 

AQA GCSE 8145

History syllabus

Paper 1 – Understanding the Modern World:

AB – Germany 1890-1945 Democracy and Dictatorship

BB – Conflict and Tension – The Inter War Years 1918-1939

Paper 2 - Shaping the Nation:

AA – Britain, Health and the People c1000 – present day

BA – Norman England c1066-1000

West Kirby School and College, Meols Drive, West Kirby, Wirral, CH48 5DH

0151 632 3201