Historians try to explain why people do the things they do. Pupils studying History at Cranleigh do the same.
So, Year 9 pupils consider why British generals launched the Battle of the Somme in the face of significant evidence that it would fail; Fifth Formers try to understand why 37% of Germans voted for Hitler and the Nazis in 1932; and Sixth Formers try to penetrate the mystery of why so many Soviet citizens actively participated in Stalin’s Great Terror in 1937-8. Questions like these lie at the heart of everything we teach; in answering them, pupils taking History are better able to understand the world around them
Lower School
Upper School
Trips and events
We run a variety of trips. In Year 9, we organise an expedition to the First World War battlefields around Loos and on the Somme; in the Fifth Form, we take pupils on a tour of some of the significant sites we study for the IGCSE in Berlin; and in the Sixth Form (in conjunction with the Politics Department), we organise a trip to Washington DC and New York City. We are about to run two new trips in 2017-18: to Moscow and St Petersburg, in support of the Russia A-level paper, and a day-trip to London to support the Britain in the Age of Revolutions topic.
Head of History & Politics
Will Davis
Head of History & Politics