KS3 & KS4 history curriculum

This unit uses and builds on all of the historical knowledge that pupils have built across key stages 1 to 4 up to this point. It makes particular use of any units in which pupils constructed or deconstructed historical narratives. This unit prepares pupils for any further study of the modern international order or current affairs.

1. Early causes of tension between the USA and the USSR
2. The impact of the atomic bomb
3. Soviet influence over Eastern Europe
4. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan
5. The Berlin Crisis, 1948-9
6. The origins of the Cold War, 1941-58
7. The growth of communism in China
8. The ‘loss’ of China and the Cold War
9. Outbreak of the Korean War
10. Consequences of the Korean War
11. The collapse of French Indochina
12. US involvement in the Vietnam War
13. Khrushchev and peaceful coexistence
14. The nuclear arms race
15. The Space Race
16. NATO and the Warsaw Pact
17. Hungary and Soviet power in Eastern Europe
18. The U2 Crisis
19. Construction of the Berlin Wall
20. The Cuban Revolution and its consequences
21. The Bay of Pigs Invasion
22. Initial stages of the Cuban Missile Crisis
23. The 13 Days of the Cuban Missile Crisis
24. Consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis
25. The Prague Spring
26. International responses to the Prague Spring
27. The Brezhnev Doctrine
28. Tensions between the superpowers by the late-1960s
29. The reasons for Détente
30. Détente and SALT 1

• A thorough grounding in substantive concepts commonly found across key stages 1, 2 and 3. For example, 'communism', 'ideology, 'international relations', 'conflict' and 'tension'.'.