History

History is a vibrant and popular subject at the College. At the heart of our practice is the love of a good story. With our younger students, we strive to add fabric to the narrative of people and places long gone through rich tales across time. As our students move up through the College, they are encouraged to consider History as a dialogue between collected ‘truths’ curated by the historian, rather than objective fact. Through critical engagement with primary source material, we encourage students to look more closely at the authors behind these stories and ask, are they to be trusted? Whose voices are missing? And how might they be meaningfully recovered? In this way we hope to inculcate both a lasting love of the discipline and the healthy suspicion required to analyse the past with skill.

What we teach

Lower School History

Year 7 and 8

In the Lower School we explore the peoples of the British Isles and their connections with the wider world. Students study the history of Britain from the 11th century through to the early 18th century.

Whilst the curriculum holds space for those classic historical events such as the Battle of Hastings and the Break with Rome, the course is far from an insular story of ‘English history’.

Students are given an important chronological grounding to the medieval and early modern world, whilst being encouraged to think more broadly about our past. To appreciate Wales, Scotland and Ireland from their own historical context, and not simply in response to Westminster directives. To understand female Kingship as well as traditional male manifestations of power. And, to know something of the realms of Saladin, Moctezuma II, and the Obas of Benin just as they will that of William, Richard or Elizabeth I.

Middle School History

Year 9

We begin our course with the struggle for mastery in India, c. 1500 – 1770 and the East India Company. We then turn to the struggle for mastery in France and Europe, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The course then explores the nature of the European state system and its imperial dimensions on the eve of the First

World War. Students study the origins of that war, its course, and its conclusion. Each student undertakes an independent study of an OA who fought and died in the conflict. Here, in utilising the wealth of the College’s archival and digital resources, students are encouraged to develop a clear sense of the modern historian’s craft while appreciating something of the human experience of war.

Year 10 and 11

We follow the CIE IGCSE course – a study of international relations from 1918 to c. 1989. We begin by focussing on the attempts to build a peaceful global order in the 1920s, and the failure of this experiment under the pressure of fascism in the 1930s. Students then complete a coursework essay on Britain’s role in the Second World War. The course then examines key flash points in the Cold War – Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam – as well as the nature of Soviet control in Eastern Europe. It concludes with a depth study of Weimar and Nazi Germany.

Upper School History

Year 12 and 13

Perhaps the greatest strength of the Dulwich College History department lies in the diversity of its A level provision, with teachers following their passions and students being the beneficiaries of their expertise.

We follow the AQA syllabus. Students study one British and one non-British option and courses currently taught include:

• The Angevin Kings, 1154-1216
• Tudor England, 1485-1603
• Stuart Britain, 1603-1702
• The British Empire, 1857-1967
• The Making of Modern Britain, 1951-2007
• Louis XIV and Europe, 1643-1715
• Russia in the Age of Absolutism and Enlightenment, 1682-1796
• Italy and Fascism, 1900-1945
• The Transformation of China, 1936-1997

Candidates also undertake a 4500-word coursework essay and students have written on a wide range of topics, such as the Risorgimento, witchcraft in seventeenth-century Scotland, the Opium Wars and British rule in India.

Enrichment

The department offers students many opportunities to lean into their enthusiasm and extend their thinking outside of the traditional classroom setting. We have thriving societies across the Lower, Middle and Upper School and members benefit from wonderful visiting speakers and specialist trips to support their interests. In the Sixth Form we run courses in both the Advanced Electives and Liberal Studies programmes on a range of topics which challenge traditional concepts of the Dark Ages, investigate Japanese artwork and explore European material culture.

History students make visits to various sites of historical significance, such as Caerphilly Castle, the First World War battlefields and European capitals like Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest. In the June of the Remove keen historians are taken on a week of outings to museums, galleries, exhibitions and sites of interest in London and farther afield, with suitable readings paired to each visit. Upon their return they are encouraged to attend our weekly Further History seminars, which introduce students to key themes in historiography in preparation for university applications.

Destinations

Many of our History A level students go on to study the discipline at university. In 2025, three students won places at Oxbridge colleges to study History.

It remains a popular choice because employers rate it highly. Whether students wish to be a solicitor, barrister, politician, policy expert, journalist, activist, broadcaster, documentary-maker, public affairs or management consultant, banker, civil servant, museum curator or almost anything else, History ensures the development of crucial skills such as:

• Critical-thinking, reasoned argumentation and judgement-formation
• Fluent, analytical oral and written communication
• An ability to engage with radically different cultures