History at Bethany

It goes something like this…

•    Eventually, the Romans conquered the Geeks.  History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.  At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair.  Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.  The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king.  Nero was a cruel tyrant who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.



•    Then came the Middle Ages.  King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks.  Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offence.

•    The Renaissance was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible.  Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes.  Another important invention was the circulation of blood.  Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.



  
•    The government of England was a limited mockery.  Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.  Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen".  As a queen she was a success.  When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, "Hurrah!”  Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
•    The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.  Queen Victoria was the longest queen.  She sat on a thorn for 63 years.  Her reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality.  Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
•    The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.


Or maybe not…  If you want to find the real history, then we can help you!

Why study History?  Quite apart from the fact that you’ll learn about some of the most important and exciting events that have shaped our world, you’ll also develop good reading and writing skills, learn to build coherent arguments and develop the ability to select and analyse evidence, all of which are skills which will benefit you in whatever you choose to do in the future.

History at Bethany is taught by two specialist teachers in dedicated history rooms.  Both classrooms have multimedia projectors and excellent resources, both in terms of textbooks and DVDs/videos.  Teaching and learning is done in a wide range of styles to try to stimulate the interest and imagination of students.

KS3 Curriculum:
Year 7: Rome, Medieval Realms
Year 8: Tudors and Stuarts, Industrial Revolution
Year 9: Industrial Revolution, 20th Century World

Students are given an assessment each half-term so that we can monitor progress and offer as much support as possible in order to improve skills and knowledge.

A good number of students choose to take History at GCSE and A-Level and recent results have been impressive.

GCSE

At GCSE we follow the Edexcel History C SHP course covering the following topics:

 

Year	Topic	Exam/Coursework
10	Medicine	Exam
10	Jack the Ripper	Coursework
11	Nazi Germany	Exam
11	The Holocaust	Coursework

Further details on the GCSE course can be found at www.edexcel.org.uk

AS and A2

From September 2008 we will follow the new OCR History A specification covering the following topics:

 

Year	Topic	Exam/Coursework
12	Germany 1933-63	Exam
12	England 1035-87	Exam
13	Russia 1855-1964	Exam
13	Personal Investigation	Coursework

 

Further details on the AS/A level course can be found at www.ocr.org.uk