There are three years of compulsory history in secondary school. That’s just nine terms. If history at primary school is about awakening the love of learning, and more advanced study is about in-depth study and the development of historiographical skills, the best way of using these three years is by ensuring that everyone who goes through them as a broad overview of the sweep of human history and how different historical events and their legacy contribute to making the world in which we live today.
I like your aims, and agree that an overview is helpful before diving down into methodology and detailed study of an individual period. (I'm a little nervous about limiting knowledge of bias and evaluating sources to GCSE students only (which I think was the case in our day and today). Similarly I not only think we should teach supply and demand in Geography, but we probably ought to teach it before GCSE - it's so fundamental to how the world works that probably everyone ought to know it.)
However for my part I think you're being much too ambitious in the scope covered here. Remember that kids are only getting 1-3 hours of history a week! As a result my changes are all about what I'd drop, not what I'd add
7.1 Drop Ancient Egypt (cool, but of little lasting importance), and cover Persia very briefly. Love the inclusion of China.
7.2 Drop British Romans - cover what you need in 7.1. We probably need to drop one of Democratic stirrings, 100 years war and War of the Roses, but I can't decide which.
7.3 I don't think you should do the English Reformation divorced from the Reformation. This is going to spoil your scheme, but as you enter the Early Modern period, British history becomes too intertwined with European history, so we're going to have to swap 7.3 for 8.1, and then pull material from 8.2 in. (Good thing to, 8.2 is drowning in material.)
8.3 Drop the great voyages as seperate topics (obviously you still spend 5 minutes going 'this happened, and ushered in [actual topic]'
9.2 There is too much here! You have to have the British in India. I think you scrap Boxer and Meiji.
9.3 There is way too much here! You definitely scrap the end of history and make the fall of the Berlin Wall an epilogue to the Cold War. Doing 1st and 2nd World War back to back is depressing, and tends to lead to blurring as to what belongs in each one. I'd seriously consider reducing WW1 to background for WW2, and then sneaking some methodological stuff into the Cold War.
Byazantium -> Byzantium
[T]he traditional topics
I like your aims, and agree that an overview is helpful before diving down into methodology and detailed study of an individual period. (I'm a little nervous about limiting knowledge of bias and evaluating sources to GCSE students only (which I think was the case in our day and today). Similarly I not only think we should teach supply and demand in Geography, but we probably ought to teach it before GCSE - it's so fundamental to how the world works that probably everyone ought to know it.)
However for my part I think you're being much too ambitious in the scope covered here. Remember that kids are only getting 1-3 hours of history a week! As a result my changes are all about what I'd drop, not what I'd add
7.1 Drop Ancient Egypt (cool, but of little lasting importance), and cover Persia very briefly. Love the inclusion of China.
7.2 Drop British Romans - cover what you need in 7.1. We probably need to drop one of Democratic stirrings, 100 years war and War of the Roses, but I can't decide which.
7.3 I don't think you should do the English Reformation divorced from the Reformation. This is going to spoil your scheme, but as you enter the Early Modern period, British history becomes too intertwined with European history, so we're going to have to swap 7.3 for 8.1, and then pull material from 8.2 in. (Good thing to, 8.2 is drowning in material.)
8.3 Drop the great voyages as seperate topics (obviously you still spend 5 minutes going 'this happened, and ushered in [actual topic]'
9.2 There is too much here! You have to have the British in India. I think you scrap Boxer and Meiji.
9.3 There is way too much here! You definitely scrap the end of history and make the fall of the Berlin Wall an epilogue to the Cold War. Doing 1st and 2nd World War back to back is depressing, and tends to lead to blurring as to what belongs in each one. I'd seriously consider reducing WW1 to background for WW2, and then sneaking some methodological stuff into the Cold War.
It is entirely possible this is a Feynman Lectures in Physics type overly-ambitious! Perhaps an advanced syllabus for the top set?