History Department

The History team is passionate about History and about learning!  We believe History is a vital part of everyone’s education – no wonder it’s so popular on television these days.  People have a natural inquisitiveness about their past and we want to develop that with fun and interesting lessons. 

We believe History is valuable to young people because:

• It helps them to appreciate their own culture and heritage – as citizens of Britain and the wider world
• It allows them to understand and value the cultures and heritages of other people
• It stimulates their curiosity and imagination
• It enables them to think through complicated issues, and present their judgements as reasoned arguments
• It gives people particular skills that are not developed elsewhere – like chronology, or interpretations of the past
• By studying political, economic, social and cultural developments, it prepares people to be citizens of the modern world

As teachers, we are an unbeatable team.  We support each other in developing and trying new ways of making lessons lively and fun.  We share ideas and work together.  We want our students to love History as much as we do. 

Therefore, we aim to:

• Enable all pupils to achieve their full potential by providing a stimulating and challenging learning experience which meets all the requirements National Curriculum and exam specifications.
• Develop Key Skills such as literacy, numeracy and ICT for all pupils.
• Empower pupils by working alongside them in identifying their next steps in the learning process – and how to achieve them.
• Support the professional learning of staff, by providing a supportive and dynamic environment where good practice is shared and staff development is valued.

History at Rivington and Blackrod High School is about more than just a getting a good G.C.S.E or A’ level, even though those things are important to us.  Our students achieve excellent results, especially compared to similar students nationally – in fact, we are among the top 10% of schools in the country for our A’ level results.  We want students to enjoy studying History in school, and we know they do because so many of them choose to study it for G.C.S.E and A’ Level.  We’d like them to develop a love of History that they take with them from Rivington, so they can keep an interest in History for life.