General forum for Student life, Leisure & Entertainment
What would you like to study? |
joyride
08-09-2007 08:09
|
At the moment there are lots of people discussing what students should and shouldn't study for GCSE History. It is part of plans to improve what is offered to Year 10 and Year 11 students in the future.
However, I'm really interested to know what students of today feel.
If you are currently doing your GCSEs - what do you think? What would you like to study? What would improve GCSE History?
If you are planning to take GCSE, or even didn't opt to take it - what do you think - what do you think would encourage more people to take history?
Any sensible, well explained suggestions are welcome. In fact, I don't even know why I said that - all good history students make sensible, explained suggestions don't they!
|
|
|
Re: What would you like to study? |
joyride
08-09-2007 08:09
|
I have always been fascinated with History, and I always knew that GCSE History was for me. However in Year 9, I was unaware that there are different syllabuses for each subject. The course that Im studying is the British Social and Econmic course which is extremely interesting but not really my period of History (I prefer WW1, WW2, Cold War etc). I would have liked to have studied Modern World History instead.
Regarding the actual GCSE system, I was shocked to find out that there are no tiered GCSE History exam papers. I understand that the examiners award marks on the basis of detail and evidence of understanding in your answer, but surely this can be also be done on tiered papers? I feel that perhaps the less able students are at a slight disadvantage when they sit the exam.
I believe that there are many ways in which the teachers can encourage students to opt for GCSE History. I believe that school trips can be very useful at achieving this as students love to hear that they will be going on trips! For example, I am studying Jack The Ripper as part of my coursework, and my teacher has arranged a trip to go up to London and go on the Jack The Ripper night tour. When my teacher told our class this, all of a sudden, there was a great interest in Jack The Ripper (although many of us were already very keen on the JTR coursework). I am really looking forward to the trip as I believe (and obviously my teacher) that it will really help my understanding on the topic, and it will be something different anyway
|
|
|
Re: What would you like to study? |
keane
08-09-2007 08:10
|
I am currently doing AS history, and I am studying British history 1860ish - 1914ish and Germany from Bismark to the Nazis. At GCSE we did modern world history of the Liberal reforms and Weimar and NAzi Germany (our head of history wanted us to take AS history about something we had already recieved good background knowledge on)
However, although no history is boring (just some periods are less colourful than others), British history of that era is not the most stimulating and interesting due to rigid workings of politics. Everything was so orderly. I feel that a topic to learn at any level would have to be medieval England, Tudors and Stuarts. Especially medieval England with all the back stabbing, greed and wars. Makes for much more interesting time than "the passing of this act and the passing of that act"!People in Britian feel we are forgetting our heritage and were we come from so we should learn British history. To lure people i would recommend an era that was slighty different to ours but recognisable and understandable like that of medieval England....fasinating
|
|
|
Re: What would you like to study? |
mike
08-09-2007 08:12
|
Excellent and interesting ideas. Thank you. Do encourage others to post their views.
|
|
|
Re: What would you like to study? |
hooligan
08-09-2007 08:12
|
How does the amount of content in the History courses compare with the amount in other subjects? It would be very interesting to hear what pupils think about this area, especially as decisions about content of courses are being made fairly soon.
|
|
|
| |
