History

History offers us the opportunity to explore and interpret our past - and to understand how the past influences the lives we live today. It encourages an enquiring mind, the ability to look at the bigger picture, ask pertinent questions and weigh up and evaluate the answers given. History is a subject which can ultimately lead a pupil to a broad spectrum of possible careers: the law, media, journalism, and many areas of business and public life, for example.

At St. Edmund's, we focus on nineteenth and twentieth century world and British history, including the two world wars and the events surrounding them. A depth study explores the rise of the Nazis, and the way they controlled Germany and her people. Our pupils also cover the lead-up to the Russian Revolution and the early years of the Soviet state, whilst a further depth study concentrates on the USA between the world wars. The impact on the make-up of Britain itself is a key theme, as we explore the changes in democracy (including the struggle for votes for women), major social reforms, and the impact of war on the home front.

Our approach to teaching history ensures that our pupils develop a broad range of abilities, realising their potential to construct well-reasoned arguments based on a solid understanding of the pertinent facts. Pupils have the opportunity to work with a wide range of source materials, including films, documentaries, novels and the internet, and we encourage them in the key skill of evaluating contradictory, conflicting or unfounded sources. The depth studies in particular develop our pupils' research, analytic and descriptive skills.

Outside the classroom, we bring history alive for our pupils through field trips: to the First World War battlefield of Ypres, to the Nazi legacy in Berlin, and even to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Pupils have frequent opportunities to hear professional historians talk in London, whilst our own History Society invites prestigious guest lecturers to talk to us, as well as encouraging in-house presentations from within our own ranks.