-:Undertaker:-
14-09-2017, 07:45 PM
Is there anything anybody believes should be compulsory on the curriculum?
My bent is history so I have issues with how it is taught. Was just saying with friends then, it is badly taught at the moment. For example, during one term you'll learn about say the Russian Revolution and Mao's China and then be expected to have an exam on them. But that to me doesn't make sense unless you're teaching to a group of people who know the *general* sweep of history of those regions and countries. And that can't be done in one term. How can you try to explain say Chinese foreign policy under Mao to people who don't even know the historical background to Asia? (ie that China was recovering from imperial collapse, colonialism had just ended, Qing stagnation etc).
I'd re-structure so like 50% would be British history (the more in-depth topics) and the other 50% each term would be more general world history rather than one specific topic. So for example for GCSE...
Term One
- History of the British Constitution
- The Age of Discovery
Term Two
- History of the British Empire
- The Dark Ages
Term Three
- Key Wars and Battles of the British Isles
- Age of Enlightenment and The Renaissance
Term Four
- Modern Elizabethan Britain (1952 onwards)
- Ancient Empires (Roman, Greek, Mongolian, Persia)
Then at A-Level you could go more specific on the topics and build on the general sweep, so...
British in-depth topics
- Constitutional relationship between the Crown and Parliament
- Union of Scotland and England
- British America
- British India
World in-depth topics
- Decline of Qing China
- Unification of Germany
- Fall of the Roman Empire
- Spain as a world power
That way i've built some foundations in the earlier years which people need to know as general knowledge anyway but also so that when it reaches A Level we're not scratching around in the dark trying to learn topics that we've been thrown into w/o background.
what do people think?
or have you got comments on other parts of the curriculum that you'd change?
My bent is history so I have issues with how it is taught. Was just saying with friends then, it is badly taught at the moment. For example, during one term you'll learn about say the Russian Revolution and Mao's China and then be expected to have an exam on them. But that to me doesn't make sense unless you're teaching to a group of people who know the *general* sweep of history of those regions and countries. And that can't be done in one term. How can you try to explain say Chinese foreign policy under Mao to people who don't even know the historical background to Asia? (ie that China was recovering from imperial collapse, colonialism had just ended, Qing stagnation etc).
I'd re-structure so like 50% would be British history (the more in-depth topics) and the other 50% each term would be more general world history rather than one specific topic. So for example for GCSE...
Term One
- History of the British Constitution
- The Age of Discovery
Term Two
- History of the British Empire
- The Dark Ages
Term Three
- Key Wars and Battles of the British Isles
- Age of Enlightenment and The Renaissance
Term Four
- Modern Elizabethan Britain (1952 onwards)
- Ancient Empires (Roman, Greek, Mongolian, Persia)
Then at A-Level you could go more specific on the topics and build on the general sweep, so...
British in-depth topics
- Constitutional relationship between the Crown and Parliament
- Union of Scotland and England
- British America
- British India
World in-depth topics
- Decline of Qing China
- Unification of Germany
- Fall of the Roman Empire
- Spain as a world power
That way i've built some foundations in the earlier years which people need to know as general knowledge anyway but also so that when it reaches A Level we're not scratching around in the dark trying to learn topics that we've been thrown into w/o background.
what do people think?
or have you got comments on other parts of the curriculum that you'd change?