IGCSE History focuses on some of the most important global themes and developments of modern history and will appeal to anyone with an interest in the events of the past or in how the world of today came to be. It requires pupils to develop key skills that will be of enormous value for the rest of their lives and, more immediately, skills that are highly prized for IB or A Level and at university. They will learn to write analytically and thematically, interpret documents critically and to debate beliefs and views with others. Pupils will also need the sensitivity necessary to understand people involved in events far removed from our own everyday experience. They need to be aware of different explanations and interpretations and be prepared to challenge them with confidence and independence of thought. The IGCSE is a stimulating course that offers a genuinely global study that helps explain today’s world.
History at IGCSE is the CIE course. There is no coursework provision and assessment is through three exams at the end of the 5th Form. Pupils will study the Core content in Option A The nineteenth century: the development of modern nation states, 1848-1914, followed by Depth Study B Germany 1918-45.
The IGCSE course begins with a series of case studies taken from the 19th and 20th Centuries: the US Civil War; the experience of European empire across Africa, India, the Caribbean and Pacific; and the causes of the First World War. Pupils will also build on their 3rd form course with a study of the impact of migration and empire on Spitalfields in London, which will be accompanied by a site visit in the 4th Form. Layering over this will be a study into the rise and fall of the German nation from the 1848 Revolutions to the defeat of Germany in 1945. Pupils will have the opportunity to consolidate this topic with a trip to Berlin in the Easter holiday of the 5th Form year to visit a city that has witnessed, like few others, the ebb and flow of history and discover how a nation wrestles with the weight of its past in the present day.
Link to CIE IGCSE specification
Cambridge IGCSE History (9-1) 0977 2024-2026 (cambridgeinternational.org)
Contact for further information
Mr BP Lewsley: bpl@wellingtoncollege.org.uk