Key Stage 3 History
A range of themes are explored, which enables boys to discuss and develop their ideas through a number of key topics and questions.
Skills Developed
A range of skills are developed throughout KS3 History by the following Key Performance Indicators:
- Develop and extend their knowledge and understanding of specified key events, periods and societies in local, British, and wider world history; 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 why people, events and developments have been accorded historical significance and how and why different interpretations have been constructed about them.
- Organise and communicate their historical knowledge and understanding in different ways and reach substantiated conclusions.
Year 7
Key Topics Covered
- What is History?
- The Norman Conquest
- Study from before 1066
- e.g. Fortifications/Castle
- Monarch – Church v State – Murder of Becket
- John, Magna Carta and Parliament
- Society – Peasant Life, including Black Death
- Crusades
- 1509-1175 (i)
- Religious Change
- Society – The Witch Craze
Year 8
Key Topics Covered
In year 8 boys are able to learn and investigate the following events:
- 1509-1175 (ii)
- Society – The Witch Craze
- English Civil War
- Monarchy and political change – 1160-1750
- Jacobite’s
Year 9
Key Topics Covered
In year 9 boys are introduced to the GCSE topics from the AQA syllabus:
- 1745-1900
- Local Study – Saltaire
- 1901-2000
- World War I
- British Empire – India
- Rise of Hitler in Germany
- World War II
- Holocaust
- The Cold War
- An aspect of post 1945 British History
- A study of a significant society or issue – Civil Rights in USA

How is This Subject Assessed?
Pupils are assessed using the above Key Performance Indicators and GCSE 9-1 grades. Forms of assessment include: scored tests and assessment of written homework. Specific unit assessments are completed to enable pupils to monitor their own progress against the above Key Performance Indicators.
