Welcome to Year 12 History at Jumeirah College

Introduction
As you can see from the course outline below, the new AS History course is both broad and in-depth.  Through this course, we will be able to build upon and greatly enhance the skills used un the last year of GCSE, as well as introducing new, even more intellectually challenging skills.  The units are designed to complement each other by covering a combination of 19th and 20th century history, of British and European themes, and by presenting the students with both short and long time spans across which to analyse change.

The course to be followed is Edxcel specification 8HI01.

Curriculum organisation

* 6 lessons per week of 55 minutes each
* students are taught in option groups
* the main class course books used by Year 13 students include:
- “The Experience of Warfare in Britain 1854-    1929.(Heinemann)
- “Years of Liberalism and Fascism, Italy 1870-1945” (Hodder)
- “Weimar and Nazi Germany” (Hodder)

Independent Study
Students will be set prescribed tasks and assignments from every lesson.

 Independent study is a very important part of the Year 12 course.  It is essential that each student reads around and in depth the areas covered in class. They should achieve a detailed knowledge of the material in their main textbooks, as well as supplementing this work with additional notes from the course books in the library. This should be undertaken on an on-going basis.

Assessment and reporting
AS graded assessments of differing kinds are used throughout the course to assess each student’s progress in their various skills. Some of these examination practice pieces will be closed book under timed conditions while others will be open book using notes and reference materials.

Students’ progress is also monitored by a range of other methods including on-going file checks and monitoring of performance against target and predicted grades

Skills
The two units develop and assess very specialist historical skills. However, there are a number of generic skills that are required throughout the course and that are explicitly taught and enhanced as fundamental elements of both units. These skills include:
> making inferences from and syntheses from historical sources
> adducing relevant and specific own knowledge to supplement the evidence provided
> structuring evidence and ideas in to paragraphs
> conveying analytical arguments
> comparing historical developments with other events
> analysing multiple causation
> analysing different kinds of change over time
> discerning patterns and trends

Autumn Term course outline
Teaching group B will spend all six lessons per week on Unit 1:
“The Collapse of the Liberal State And the Triumph of fascism in Italy, 1896-1943” and “From Second to Third Reich: Germany 1918-45” and will complete the majority of this unit.

Teaching group D will spend three lessons per week on Unit and the other 3 lessons a week on Unit 2:
“The Experience of Warfare in Britain: Crimea, Boer and First World War, 1854-1929.” They will complete just over half of each of these units.

Spring Term course outline
Teaching group B will complete Unit 1, before moving on to and covering Unit 2.

Teaching group D will continue to spend three lessons per week on each unit and so complete both units at around the same time.

Summer term course outline
Having completed both units, the lessons this term will be devoted to further examination practice, “mock” exams and revision.

Extension
Each sub-unit that the students study offers opportunities to research in to greater depth and breadth. Extended reading and research opportunities will be pointed out to the students. As it becomes clear what grade each student is performing at in each cluster of skills, they will be encouraged to set targets to improve that skill and accompanying strategies for themselves for their forthcoming pieces of work.

Useful websites
www.edexcel.org.uk
www.historytoday.com
www.britannia.com/history
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/history