History is both the past and the study of it; it influences all aspects of our lives. It shapes the customs and beliefs of the communities to which we belong. Learning about what went before helps children and young adults to make sense of the world they live in today.
The past is full of amazing stories, incredible characters and valuable lessons that all feed into our present day cultures and societies. For these reasons, the study of the past is an important element of any education.
He who does not know his past cannot make the best of his present and future, for it is from the past that we learn
Sheikh Zayed
In addition to the passion for learning from our history, the study of History at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi develops key skills to equip pupils with the means to perform at a high standard in life beyond school. Our teaching ethos shapes the following:
The Prep School curriculum follows a blended approach for Humanities, with History and Geography both feeding into each unit. Pupils at Cranleigh are introduced to key historical skills such as chronology, research, and making comparisons between the past and the present. By Year 4, the students continue to develop their historical skills which are integrated into our 21st century skills based curriculum. This is evidenced in project-based learning tasks wherein the pupils are guided to carry out their own basic independent research to help prepare to give presentations to their peers thus developing communication, collaboration, information literacy and digital literacy.
The History elements to the Humanities units up until Year 6 also have strong cross-curricular components consciously embedded into the curriculum with direct links to English, Art, PE, Mathematics, Design and Technology and Computer Science.
From Year 5 onward, Cranleigh learners continue to refine their historical skills such as how to sequence events into the correct chronological order and to accurately use timelines. A project based learning approach is also used at different stages in each unit throughout the Prep School.
Year 7 sees History become its own distinct subject in the Prep school and consequently the students gain more hands-on experience of the proficiencies of archaeologists and historians. A strong emphasis is placed on source evaluation skills and the students use a range of case-studies to develop their competencies in this area. The students are also introduced to scaffolded versions of the GCSE source based questions.
As the Year 8 students come to the end of their journey in the Prep school, we continue to develop their historical skills to help better prepare them for the GCSE assessment criteria such as evaluating change and continuity over time.
Discover more about the Prep School
In Year 9 we continue to develop the engagement and passion of our young historians as we focus on the key events of the 20th century. History has proved to be a very popular option choice for GCSE and the content and skills focus in Year 9 is perfect preparation for this.
The uptake and results for History GCSE at Cranleigh Abu Dhabi have been outstanding, with over 70% achieving grades at Level 8-9. We follow the IGCSE (9-1) Pearsons Edexcel.
Discover more about the Senior School
In the A Level specification, we develop independent research and analytical skills further, with the current focus being on The French Revolution, 20th century Russia, The Cold War in Asia and Civil Rights in the USA. Students can also opt for Politics at A Level, with a focus on UK and US Government and Political Ideologies.
Discover more about the Sixth Form
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
Activities that happen here:
UK Prep School
UK Senior School 
Cranleigh China 
Cranleigh Foundation 
