History O'level

The study area SEC History is informed by the National Curriculum Framework (NCF). GSCE History is informed by Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF).

The syllabus helps students towards an understanding of the development over time of social and cultural values. Furthermore, it promotes an understanding of the nature of cause and consequence, continuity and change, similarity and difference, sequence and chronology and empathy in history, and develops essential historical skills when analysing and interpreting primary and secondary sources. It also communicates history, using the appropriate use of historical terms, in written and oral form.

At the end of the programme, the student will be able to: 

• observe, analyse, compare and contrast facts, opinions, positions, motives, bias and objectivity in primary and secondary sources while extrapolating historical information and relating to the dating and chronology, cause and consequence, change and continuity and historical significance of the period or event under study
• discuss and analyse causes, events and consequences about the Italian Renaissance and the Reformation in Europe and the Age of Discovery, Exploration and Colonisation with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• explore the causes, changes and consequences brought about by the French Revolution and Napoleon’s Empire
• trace the origins, the changes and the consequences of the Industrial Revolution in Britain and Germany up to 1914
• explore the causes, changes and consequences that brought about the unification of Italy and Germany, with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• explain the reasons for the origins and the end of the Cold War, discuss its main international incidents and describe the pattern of events leading to the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 with the help of primary and secondary sources
• describe and evaluate some major projects and achievements of the Order of St John in Malta after 1565 and analyse some of the problems for the Order in the eighteenth century with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• trace, describe and assess the French invasion and occupation of Malta and political and constitutional development in Malta up to 1921 with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• trace, describe and evaluate nineteenth and twentieth century social and economic development in Malta with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• trace, describe and evaluate Malta’s political and constitutional development from the granting of self-government in 1921 to membership in the European Union in 2004 with the help of various primary and secondary sources
• discuss and analyse the causes, the political developments and diplomatic incidents that led to the outbreak of the First World War, the technological changes in warfare and the aftermath of that war, the effects of that war on Malta, the developments that contributed to Hitler’s rise to power and the outbreak of the Second World War and the effects of that war on Malta with the help of various primary and secondary sources