Aims

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The National Curriculum for history states that:

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‘A high-quality history education will help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain's past and that of the wider world.... teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement.....'

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The aims of studying History at Loreto include:

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• Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world; the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies.

• Understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses.

• Understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

• Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short-term and long-term timescales.

Resources

The History department currently has four teachers: B. Murphy (Head of Department), S.L. McGoldrick, E. Harkin and I Cunning. We have three designated classrooms, and the department is well-resourced with a History Library, audio-visual equipment and modern, well-written textbooks. All classrooms are equipped with large touch screen Activ Panels.  It is the intention of the department that a wide variety of teaching techniques should be used to allow all our pupils to develop their own individual potential.

Educational Visits

Whenever possible the department offers a number of trips during the year. Visits outside school are considered very important. The Year 8s visit Carrickfergus Castle at the end of their first year. Our Year 9 students visit Derry City to see the Walls and Tower Museum. GCSE students are given the opportunity to go on a trip to Berlin. The trip is undertaken as part of their course, focusing on the Cold War in Berlin and Hitler’s Germany. Such trips are useful in establishing an interest in the subject and encouraging our students to work independently, and this will stand them in good stead when it comes to A Level.  Plans are underway to organise a Year 14 trip to Dublin as part of their study of Ireland 1900-25.