History

History

Do people make their own history? Or do circumstances dictate what people can and can’t do? Can individuals change the course of history? Or is history made by deeper trends that people can do little about? What happens when a government loses the support of the people? How can the people change how a country works if the government won’t listen to them? Are things getting better over time? When and where has progress seemed to go into reverse? How do we know what happened in the past? Does an unbiased account of the past exist? Is it a problem if not? If you study history at Chapeltown Academy you will have the chance to grapple with these questions about the past. These lessons from the past will help you to make more sense of the present. History is also one of the most well respected subjects by University Admissions Offices and will help you with your university application for a wide range of different subjects.

Our Approach

• History of the Tudor Dynasty in England from the seizure of the crown by Henry VII in 1485 up to the death of Elizabeth I without an heir in 1603. This breadth study will give you a chance to explore how themes such as royal government, foreign policy, religious ideas, English society and the economy changed over the period. The course will be organised around the reigns of the five Tudor monarchs and will be assessed in an examination at the end of the two years course.
• History of Russia between 1917 and 1953. This depth study will enable you to explore the events of the Russian Revolution and the efforts of the Communists to remake Russia into a radically different country. You will also study the Civil War, as forces loyal to the Tsars attempted to regain control of Russia from Lenin’s Communist government. Much of the rest of the course will then cover how Stalin rose to power, and how he turned the Soviet government into a brutal dictatorship that only began to thaw after his death. This will also be assessed in an examination at the end of the two year course.
• 1750-1850 in Britain, and will give you a chance to choose which aspect of this period you would like to focus on when writing your essay. You will have a chance to think about the origins and events of the Industrial Revolution, the impact that it had on British society, how this created new forms of Working Class organisation and opposition and how this in turn led to major reforms to the political system.