Advanced/Advanced Subsidiary GCE History (16th Century)

Advanced/Advanced Subsidiary GCE History (16th Century)

Entry Requirements
Students wishing to study History at A Level will certainly benefit from having grade B in the subject at GCSE (or grade B in English). If you have not had the opportunity to study GCSE History then this does NOT prevent you from joining the subject at A Level although we would expect you to have a grade 'B' in your GCSE English.

About the Course
The history course will follow the OCR specification.

· Which male leader of a rebel state was arrested wearing a woman's dress?
· Who said "I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be" and then had his head chopped off?
· Where and when did Jacob's Cream Cracker factory become a venue for rebellion against the British Empire?
· Who considered the English to be 'a nation of shopkeepers'?
· Who were the Vietcong, and how did they defeat a superpower?

All these questions and many more will be answered in the new History A Level offered in College from September 2008. This single qualification will give you the opportunity to study broad periods and topics of History based around the key theme of Rebellions and Civil Struggle.

'A little rebellion now and then is a good thing'.
Thomas Jefferson - 1787

Themes will include:

· AS - The English Civil War
· AS - The USA - Expansion West, Civil War and Reconstruction
· A2 - Britain and Ireland 1798-1921
· A2 - Coursework - Napoleon, Vietnam War, Gladstone and Disraeli

There will be opportunities for you to investigate a broad range of themes, countries and individuals. Lessons will be exciting opportunities to explore and discuss issues of conflict within established states and struggles for independence against empires and crowns. You will be introduced to a wide range of fascinating individuals:

· Oliver Cromwell - wanted to be painted 'warts and all'
· Carlo Fantom - no interest in Kings, only 'handsome English woemen'
· Constance Markiewicz - Polish name, Irish rebel
· Robert E Lee and Ulysses S Grant - US Civil War generals
· Abraham Lincoln - US President, assassinated
· Dredd Scott - free born American or slave?
· Ho Chi Minh - leader of the Vietcong guerrillas
· Elizabeth O'Farell - nurse and revolutionary
· Stonewall Jackson - Confederate general, shot by his own side

· Studying this new course will give you a broad perspective in aspects of British, American, Irish and some European History.

· The course will help you to develop your historical and transferable skills such as research, critical evaluation, historical investigation and document appraisal.

· The course will complement skills that you will be developing in other Humanities subjects such as Law, Government and Politics, Geography, RS and Sociology yet will provide you with an interesting and varied balance should you choose to combine the subject with a mostly science based programme (where you will also find many of the skills developed in History transferable to the written aspects of studying sciences).

· The course will give you the opportunity to take part in visits linked to the English Civil War in Year 1 and will also offer you the opportunity to visit Strasbourg, in France. In Year 2, for those students with a specific interest in Irish history there will be an opportunity to visit Dublin and 'Walk the Revolution'.