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History

History is...

...INTERESTING

Students enjoy History because they find it interesting. They enjoy learning about famous and influential people, studying lives and times very different from our own and making discoveries about their own and more exotic places in the past. An interest in people and places is common among students who study History.

...USEFUL

History trains its students in lots of useful skills. You learn to investigate, research and analyse, develop writing skills, argue a case, present conclusions clearly and persuasively. These types of skills help History students in all types of different careers in later life.

...EMPLOYABLE

Employers think highly of History students because they can think and present arguments well. Some History students become teachers, or work as archaeologists, librarians or museum curators. Others become journalists or lawyers. More get jobs as managers in administration, finance and government.

...FUN

A high-point of the study of History at Key Stage 3 are the Field-trips students go on. These involve travelling to different centres where students learn by seeing historical buildings and artefacts for themselves, or by dressing up in costumes. These Field-trips are highly enjoyable and show that learning History can be fun.

Year 8 students have visited Carrickfergus Castle to study the Normans.

Year 9 students have visited Draperstown and Bellaghy to study the Ulster Plantation and the changes it brought to the north of Ireland.

Year 10 students have visited the Ulster American Folk Park to investigate life in Ireland around the time of the terrible Famine.

 





















 

History is one of the most popular subjects in Thornhill College with students studying the subject from Year 8 to A Level. Examination results at G.C.S.E and A Level are excellent, and a high proportion of our students go on to study History or related subjects at University.


Key Stage 3 History

Year 8 students study the Indians of North America and the Middle Ages in Europe. They learn about the Indians and Cowboys, medieval kings, knights, ladies, monks and peasants. These are strange and exotic topics, full of interest.

Year 9 students study great Artists of the Renaissance (Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Raphael), how Christians became Catholics and Protestants, how Henry VIII married six wives (and chopped the heads off two of them) as well as Irish History around the time of the Plantation and the Siege of Derry.

Year 10 students study the long campaign for equal rights for women in Ireland and Britain, and then look at the History of women’s lives in China where girls’ feet were crushed and young women were sometimes sold to their husbands. Students study the Great Famine in Ireland and the division of Ireland in two.

GCSE History

At G.C.S.E. level our students study the Modern World, dealing with such major topics as Northern Ireland and the ‘Troubles’, Hitler and the Nazis, the contest between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. in Europe and Vietnam. These are subjects which continue to have great effects on the lives we live today.

Our programmes of study are designed to be interesting and relevant and appropriate for developing skills which people use throughout their lives in many different ways.
Assessment

Assessment is partly through internally marked coursework (20%) and partly by an external examination (80%)
A-level History

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