Senior Cycle History

The essential aims of History at Senior Cycle are to provide students with more challenging and rewarding experiences in which to develop their disciplinary literacy, i.e. primary and secondary source analysis to build up a picture of the past, the enhancement of conceptual understanding of bias, objectivity, reliability, criticism, judgement and argument. These experiences will enable students to interpret, evaluate and make balanced judgements in the world outside school which will empower students to become independent learners capable of success in a variety of contexts.

• Students will understand how we find out about the past through the study of primary and secondary sources
• Students will learn how to use and evaluate different sources as evidence
• Students will learn how the actions and experiences of previous generations have affected successive generations
• Students will gain an understanding of the causes, course and consequences of the topics set out in the syllabi
• Students will be able to understand Irish history within an international context
• Students will learn how past events are shaped by the thinking of that era and must be judged with this in mind