History department

This year has been busy for Harrogate Grammar School History Department. We have consolidated activities from previous years, such as the crosscurricular Who Do You Think You Are Day, which has taken place for the third time this year, involving History, Geography, RS, Science, and PE.

History students meet Robert Lacey

We also took 88 Year 9 students to the Western Front battlefields, a trip which has been taking place for more than a dozen years. A number of new activities also took place, including a wide range of trips and visiting speakers.

A very special event was a talk from Holocaust survivor Iby Knill to all year 9 students and a number of sixth formers. Two of our sixth formers also took part in the Holocaust Education Trust's Lessons from Auschwitz programme.

We continued to encourage students in all years to enter national competitions and a year 13 student won the Women's History Network essay competition, a year 12 student won the Parliamentary Press Gallery Political Writing Competition and a year 10 student won the Speaker's Writing Competition. As part of their prize the latter two students visited parliament, one having tea in number 10 while the other lunched with the Speaker.

A group of year 7 students took part in a joint Engineering and History day at Knaresborough Castle where they learned the technology of making trebuchets and got to fire their models, as well as having a guided tour of the castle.

We also have a new website for Sixth Form History and Politics and are using it to make resources easily available for students.

Harrogate Grammar School is a National Teaching School in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. It is a mixed school for students aged 11-18, with over 1,800 pupils and nearly 600 in the sixth form. The school achieved an 'Outstanding' grade in its recent Ofsted inspection, the highest possible. As a member of the Red Kite Alliance, Harrogate Grammar School delivers all of the National College Leadership programmes. In addition the school is a leader in CPD, facilitating nationally recognised programmes such as the ITP and OTP, as well as their own NQT programme. The school is involved in a number of R&D projects and is at the forefront of digital technology in the classroom with the use of the 1:1 iPads for Learning scheme.