History is taught with the aim of fostering each pupil's lifelong interest in the history of this country and of the wider world. We are aware that a pupil's years of studying history as a compulsory subject are almost over by the time they leave the prep school and so we offer a broad historical syllabus and one which is so stimulating and inspiring that a large proportion of pupils will, and do in fact, choose to continue to study history when it becomes an option for GCSE after Year 9.
As far as possible, we have retained a chronological approach. In the prep school History is taught as a separate subject by enthusiasts and by specialists using a wide variety of teaching styles in a lively and active way. Our course is designed to cover the History Study Units of the National Curriculum in their entirety throughout Key Stage 1 and 2, as well as six of the units at Key Stage 3. An additional Medieval History Unit is taken in Year 5. Pupils are fully prepared for Common Entrance, Scholarship and other entrance exams.
Living History comes to us when we run our History Days and we take groups of pupils out of school on a regular basis. Many if not all school trips have a historical element and opportunities for cross curricular work are seized wherever possible. Recent examples include visits to Windsor Castle, the Victorian village at Blists Hill and to Ironbridge, trips to Rome, Pompeii, St. Albans, Fishbourne Roman Palace and Bath, visits to Normandy including the Bayeux Tapestry and the Normandy Beaches, Art department trips including one to Stanley Spencer's WW1 murals at Sandham Memorial Chapel, and trips to the Somme Battlefields and to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam. The History department organises regular visits to the Tower of London, Highclere Castle, Warwick Castle and The Imperial War Museum.
