YEAR 8 HISTORY AT FARRINGTONS SCHOOL

Year 8 is dedicated to the study of 16th-17th Europe - this includes the Tudors, Stuarts and Italian Renaissance. As with Year 7 content and skills are taught together. Assessment is based on specific pieces of assessed work completed throughout the year as well as an end of year examination. Pupils get two 50 minute lessons and homework is set once a week.

As with Year 7 we use a variety of methods and resources in Year 8. These include ICT and the web; textbooks; role-play; films and video; power point slides; and worksheets. When the pupils study the Spanish Armada we use role-play, textbooks, worksheets, internet lessons and ICT combined to help the pupils understand why the Armada set sail - what happened to the Armada (the events) - and why it was defeated? Another example would be the study of the Gunpowder Plot. As we all know from our own History lessons, this was a Catholic plot to blow up the King and all his ministers at Westminster, and replace him with one of his daughters and make Britain a Catholic Kingdom again. We all know the story and we all know who is to blame. Or do we? By using new evidence the pupils get the chance to question the standard tale and to come up with their own version of events and who is to blame. This is done by looking at the standard story through a timeline exercise followed by some source work to reinforce the evidence for this version of events. The pupils are then given new evidence through a documentary hosted by Nick Knowles (DIY SOS fame!), which suggests that the plotters were framed, and which shows that parts of the traditional story never happened (eg - they never dug a tunnel and did you know that Guy Fawkes was actually caught days before the fifth in the cellar with the barrels of gunpowder but was not arrested, even though they were looking for a suspicious looking man with barrels of gunpowder). Based on these two slightly different and conflicting stories the pupils then need to decide what they think happened using all the information they have. At this point we also look at why there might be more than one story and so we begin to look more closely at propaganda and bias. As you can see the pupils are encouraged to reach their own conclusions based on good supporting evidence.

Over the last four years we have taken the pupils to the London Dungeons for their work on the Plague and the Fire of London. I hope to include a visit to Hampton Court in the future.

To sum up Year 8, we study 16th-17th Europe; this includes Henry VIII and his children; Elizabethan poor/beggars; the Spanish Armada;  the Gunpowder Plot; the English Civil War; Cromwell; the Italian City states; da Vinci and the use of perspective and the changes in art.