History Festival & Exhibition

It has been an exciting term for the History department with key highlights being the Lower Sixth and Third Form trip to the Chalke Valley History Festival and the Third Form Renaissance exhibition.  

Over two sweltering hot days in June, the entire Third Form and the Lower Sixth historians went to the first schools days of the Chalke Valley History Festival since 2019. Each group attended several history lectures, including James Holland, The Second World War, Dan Jones, The Crusades and Tim Bouverie, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War. In addition, the boys immensely enjoyed the opportunities to get stuck in to the interactive events, including the 1940’s trench experience, sword training with smugglers and practising giving directions under pressure with the Royal Signals. 

They also enjoyed watching displays of Seige Warfare and field artillery from Dunkirk. The boys all had a lot of fun, learned a lot and appreciated a day of excitement after their recent examinations. It is safe to say that this once-annual event is firmly back on the department’s calendar, and we look forward to visiting again in 2023! 

On the academic front, the Third Form were able to put a year of skills into their Renaissance projects, culminating in an exhibition that filled the entire school library. Each boy chose an aspect of the Renaissance that interested them, and conducted independent research using the library resources, creating either an artefact or an essay exploring the significance of their chosen topic.  They had to include primary source material alongside their secondary research, finally putting it all together to prepare an exhibition board presentation. The results were truly impressive, and the range and depth of interest was incredible, taking in political philosophy, warfare, art, architecture, medicine and technology. Boys and staff from across the School were allowed to vote for their favourites, and the top prize went to Alfie Stirling (3c) for his outstanding project building a printing press. Second and third prizes went to Cassian Ali (3c) and Ivo Finney (3d) respectively, and honourable mentions belong to Charlie Woodger (3a), Toby Ridgeway (3a) and Aeneas Sexton (3a) for their excellent projects and presentations.  

Finally, we said goodbye to the Upper Sixth, several of whom are going on to read History at University, including Finn Grammaticas (U6f) who has an offer from Wadham College Oxford. Despite a severely disrupted GCSE and A level experience due to COVID-19, these boys have been a delight to teach and their hard work and enthusiasm had done them credit. It was wonderful to see them coming out of their final History exam with big smiles on their faces and we wish them well in their future endeavours. 

Charlotte Allen – Head of History & EPQ Co-ordinator 

Flickr album: Chalk Valley History Festival - Trinity Term 2022 | Height: auto | Theme: Default | Skin: Default Skin