History is fun as well as facts and dates! It is also more than merely reading books. The past can be explored in many ways.
Year 7 visit Canterbury to recreate a medieval pilgrimage telling tales as if they were Chaucer along the way. A visit to the Black Country Museum in Dudley is to see a reconstructed 19th century town and experience the sights, sound, smells and tastes of the Industrial Revolution. Year 9 visit the Battlefields and Memorial of the Somme. To honour those who died in World War I.
GCSE classes explore the creepy, extraordinary and enlightening exhibits of the Royal College of Surgeons in London and can opt into a visit to Manchester and Liverpool to get a feel for Railway Mania in the days when cotton was king.
Sixth Formers attend conferences in London to hear lectures by eminent historians, such as David Starkey or Sir Ian Kershaw. They regularly visit Prague, Barcelona, Florence, Berlin and Amsterdam. These contrasting destinations give an extra visual, intellectual and emotional dimension to their studies. Two students each year are privileged to take part in a visit to Auschwitz (subsidised by the Holocaust Educational Trust). This sombre experience complements their studies.
And we intend to make lessons live up to the out-of-classroom experience.