Options in History

Introduction

Options in History was published in 1995-97. In its time it was quite ground-breaking – notably in its insistence that the illustrations should be part of the students' learning, and in its accompanying Scheme of Work.

Time has moved on, of course, and the chapters of the book (on the left) no longer precisely match the Key Stage 3 Curriculum. But there is considerable overlap, and teachers and home-schoolers will still be able to use the materials to cover most of the (non-statutory) topics (right-hand column):

Options in History

KS3 History Programme of Study

The Middle Ages, 1066-1500

1 1066
- • The Last Viking Invasion
- • Harald Hardrada
- • Harold Godwinson
- • Holy Bones
- • King Harold Godwinson
- • William's Invasion
- • The Battle of Hastings, 1066
- • How did Harold Die?
- • William the War-Criminal
- • Feudal England
2 A Villein's Life
- • Feudal Dues
- • The Farming Year
- • Pierce the Ploughman
- • Home is where the Hearth is
- • Having Fun
- • Women in the Middle Ages
3 Church
- • The Power of Hell
- • What the Church did
- • Devoted to God
- • Thomas à Becket
- • Medieval Pilgrims
- • The Crusades
4 Government
- • King Stephen – when things go wrong
- • Henry II – rule by Law
- • Bad King John?
- • Magna Carta
- • King John Reinterpreted
- • The Story of Parliament
5 War
- • When a Knight Won His Spurs
- • Feasting
- • Kings at War
- • Castles
- • Beseiged
- • Good Kinght?
6 A Changing World
- • The Bustling Towns
- • Dirty Old Town?
- • The Guilds
- • The Black Death
- • The Peasants' Revolt
- • Into The Future

Medieval Britain, 1066-1509

The development of Church, State and Society
- • the Norman Conquest
- • Christendom, the importance of religion and the Crusades
- • the struggle between Church and crown
- • Magna Carta and the emergence of Parliament
- • the English campaigns to conquer Wales and Scotland up to 1314
- • society, econom and culture: for example, feudalism, religion in daily life (parishes, monasteries, abbeys), farming, towns and trade (especially the wool trade), art, architecture and literature
- • the Black Death and its social and economic impact
- • the Peasants’ Revolt
- • the Hundred Years War
- • the Wars of the Roses; Henry VII and attempts to restore stability

A United Kingdom, 1500-1750

1 A Tudor Monarch
- • Henry VIII in 1516
- • Katherine's Story
- • The Dissolution
- • The Pilgrimage of Grace
- • Henry's Wives
- • Henry's Kingship
2 Everyday Life
- • Life in Tudor Towns
- • The Streets of London
- • The Poor
- • Birth
- • Upbringing
- • Marriage
- • My Lady Dresses
- • Women in the Early Modern Era
- • Life on the Farm
3 Tudor Religion
- • Tudor Religion
- • Catholics and Protestants
- • Religious Changes
- • Turn or Burn
- • Elizabeth's Middle Way
- • The 1569 Rebellion
- • The Gunpowder Plot and after
4 Philip II of Spain
- • King Philip's Problems
- • All on Board!
- • The Armada
5 A Kingdom Divided
- • The Causes of the Civil War
- • A Time to Decide
- • The Events of the Civil Wars
- • The Execution of Charles I
- • Drogheda – An Everlasting Blot?
- • Women in the Civil Wars
- • The World Turned Upside Down
6 A Kingdom United
- • Oliver Cromwell
- • Restoration and Revolution
- • Scotland and the Act of Union

Britain, 1509-1745

The development of Church, State and Society
- • Renaissance and Reformation in Europe
- • the English Reformation and Counter Reformation: Henry VIII ... to Mary ( 1, 2)
- • the Elizabethan religious settlement and conflict with Catholics (1, 2) including Spain, Scotland and Ireland
- • the first colony in America and first contact with India
- • the causes and events of the civil wars throughout Britain
- • the Interregnum (including Cromwell in Ireland)
- • the Restoration, ‘Glorious Revolution’ and power of Parliament
- • the Act of Union of 1707, the Hanoverian succession and the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745
- • society, economy and culture across the period: for example, work and leisure in town and country, religion and superstition in daily life, theatre, art, music and literature

The Age of Expansion, 1750-1914

1 The Good Old Days?
- • Life in 18th Century England
- • Government in 18th Century England
- • An Age of Change
2 Trade and Empire
- • Clive in India
- • The British Empire – wanted and won
- • The American War of Independence
- • The Slave Trade (7 lessons)
- • Attitudes to Empire
3 Population and Health
- • The Growing Population
- • Why Did the Population Grow?
- • Changes in Eldon
- • Public Health
4 Changes in the Economy
- • Take-off!
- • Farming (4 lessons)
- • The Textile Industry (4 lessons)
- • Coal Mining (5 lessons)
- • Transport (2 lessons)
5 Changing Attitudes
- • Reform!
- • Victorian Women
- • The Suffragettes

Britain, 1745-1901

Ideas, political power, industry and empire
- • the Enlightenment in Europe and Britain, with links back to 17th-Century thinkers and scientists and the founding of the Royal Society
- • Britain’s transatlantic slave trade: its effects and its eventual abolition
- • the Seven Years War and The American War of Independence
- • the French Revolutionary wars
- • Britain as the first industrial nation – the impact on society (1, 2)
- • party politics, extension of the franchise and social reform
- • the development of the British Empire with a depth study (for example, of India)
- • Ireland and Home Rule
- • Darwin’s ‘On The Origin of Species’

4 The Twentieth Century

1 The First World War
- • Causes of the First World War (4 lessons)
- • The Ultimate Sacrifice – WWI poems
- • First World War – an Overview
- • Join Up!
- • Off to War with the Durham Light Infantry
- • The Western Front in Pictures
- • Feelings on the Western Front
- • The Treaty of Versailles, 1919
2 Britain between the Wars
- • Britain in the 1920s
- • The General Strike
- • Living through the General Strike
- • Women through the Wars
- • Britain in the 1930s (the 'Great Depression')
- • The Jarrow Crusade
3 The World between the Wars
- • The Russian Revolution (3 lessons)
- • Mussolini's Italy
- • Hitler's Germany
- • Stalin's Russia
- • America between the Wars

More to follow

Britain, Europe and the Wider World, 1901 to the present day

... including the Holocaust.
- • women’s suffrage
- • the First World War and the Peace Settlement
- • the inter-war years: the Great Depression and the rise of dictators
- • the Second World War and the wartime leadership of Winston Churchill
- • the creation of the Welfare State
- • Indian independence and end of Empire
- • social, cultural and technological change in post-war British society
- • Britain’s place in the world since 1945