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Key Stage 3 history · World history

KS3 world history: a significant society beyond Britain

Key Stage 3 history includes at least one study of a significant society or issue in world history and its connections with other developments around the world. It is where pupils step outside Britain and see the past from another point of view. The curriculum suggests four examples, and each school chooses one or more of these or another society or issue altogether. The aim is to understand a society in its own right, and also to see how it was linked with the rest of the world.

A significant society in world history, explained

The curriculum says pupils should be taught “at least one study of a significant society or issue in world history and its interconnections with other world developments”. It offers four non-statutory examples: Mughal India from 1526 to 1857, China’s Qing dynasty from 1644 to 1911, changing Russian empires from about 1800 to 1989, and the USA in the twentieth century. Schools can choose from these or from other societies and issues entirely. So if you are asking what your child is studying, the best answer comes from the school, and the same skills apply whichever one is chosen.

A good world history unit gives the society a proper story of its own, with rulers, ideas, beliefs, economy and everyday life. Mughal India, for example, was one of the largest and wealthiest states of its time. It was founded when Babur won the Battle of Panipat in 1526, reached a high point under emperors such as Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605, and left architecture such as the Taj Mahal, built for Shah Jahan between the 1630s and the 1650s. Pupils study how it was governed, how different religions and communities lived within it, and why it later weakened as the Mughal emperors lost power to rival rulers and to the East India Company.

The second half of the curriculum phrase, “interconnections”, is as important as the first. Pupils look at how a society was linked with others through trade, empire, migration, religion, ideas, technology and war. These links run in both directions: Indian cotton was sold across Asia and Europe, Persian was used at the Mughal court, and European traders and later rulers affected India’s fortunes. Studying the connections stops the past from being told as a series of separate national stories, and helps pupils see why events in one place affected people far away.

As in other history units, the emphasis is on method as well as content. Pupils are asked to identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts and analyse trends. They also learn how different types of historical sources are used to make claims, and how and why people reach different interpretations. This matters especially in world history, where many sources were written by outsiders, and where the same events can be remembered quite differently in different countries.

Words your child will hear

Empire
A large state made up of different peoples or territories under one ruler or government.
Dynasty
A line of rulers from the same family, such as the Mughals in India or the Qing in China.
Interconnection
A link between societies, such as trade, travel, ideas or conflict, that affected both sides.
Trade route
A path by land or sea along which goods, people and ideas travelled.
Revolution
A sudden and far-reaching change in the way a country is governed, often by force.
Perspective
A point of view shaped by who you are and where you stand. The same event looks different from different places.
Significance
How much something mattered, judged by how many people it affected and how long its effects lasted.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 3 says:

  • Pupils should be taught about at least one study of a significant society or issue in world history and its interconnections with other world developments
  • Pupils should extend and deepen their chronologically secure knowledge and understanding of British, local and world history, so that it provides a well-informed context for wider learning.
  • Pupils should identify significant events, make connections, draw contrasts, and analyse trends within periods and over long arcs of time.
  • Pupils should understand how different types of historical sources are used rigorously to make historical claims and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: connecting a society to the wider world

How was Mughal India connected to the rest of the world in the 1600s?

  1. Choose types of connection to look for: trade, politics, religion, language and ideas. Putting them in a table stops an answer from becoming a single story about one kind of link.
  2. Trade: Indian ports such as Surat sent cotton cloth, spices and indigo to markets across Asia, Africa and Europe. In return, large amounts of silver flowed into India. This made the Mughal economy part of a world network, not an isolated one.
  3. Politics: The Mughal dynasty’s founder, Babur, came from Central Asia. Later emperors dealt with Persia, the Ottoman world and the Europeans. English merchants first came as traders: the East India Company was founded in 1600, and in 1615 King James I sent Sir Thomas Roe as ambassador to the court of Emperor Jahangir to ask for trading rights.
  4. Culture: Persian was the language of the court, which linked India with a wider Persian-speaking world. Architecture, art and poetry drew on both Indian and Persian traditions, and the empire’s people followed many faiths.
  5. Weigh the connections. In the 1600s the Mughal emperors held the power and Europeans were requesting favours, so influence did not run only one way. Ask how and why this changed by the 1700s and 1800s.

A model answer might say: “In the 1600s Mughal India was closely linked to the wider world through trade, politics and culture. Its cloth was sold across Asia and Europe, its court used Persian, and its rulers dealt with other empires as equals. European traders such as the English East India Company were at that point junior partners seeking permission. This matters because it shows that India was not isolated, and that the later growth of British power was a change from an earlier situation.”

Common mistakes and how to help

Thinking societies outside Europe were cut off until Europeans arrived

Many school stories begin when Europeans “discover” somewhere. But India, China, Africa and the Americas all had long-standing links of their own, through trade, travel, religion and conquest, long before European ships arrived.

What helps: Look at a map of old trade routes and ask who was already using them. Ask what the Europeans were joining, rather than starting.

Reducing a society to a single image, such as the Taj Mahal

One famous building or ruler is easy to remember, but it hides how much changed across more than 300 years. Akbar, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb ruled in different ways, and Mughal India held people of many religions and regions.

What helps: Ask what a society was like at the start, the middle and the end of the period. Compare two rulers and notice how they differed.

Confusing an empire with a nation, for example Russia with the Soviet Union

Names are used loosely. The Russian Empire included many peoples, such as Poles, Ukrainians and Georgians, and the Soviet Union that followed in 1922 was a different state again. Russia was one part of it.

What helps: Draw a rough map of the empire at the start and end of the period and see which areas are included. Ask who lived there and what they might have called their country.

Assuming “interconnection” just means conquest

The word empire makes children think of armies. Connections also came through trade, religion, migration, ideas, disease and technology, and these often mattered as much as war.

What helps: Ask for two or three kinds of connection that did not involve fighting, and how they affected ordinary people.

How to help at home

  • Trace everyday objects around the world. Look at the labels on clothes, spices and tea in your kitchen and find where each came from on a map. Ask how things like cotton and spices have travelled for centuries, and who gained from the trade.
  • Find the society on a map. Ask your child to show you the region they are studying and what lies around it. Looking at neighbours and routes makes the idea of interconnection easy to see.
  • Look at art and buildings. Use library books or museum visits to look at the art, clothing or architecture of the society, and ask what it suggests about beliefs and everyday life. A local museum may have objects from the period.
  • Listen to more than one voice. Ask whose account of an event you are reading and whose is missing. If possible, find a second account from another country or perspective. It practises the interpretation skill on a bigger scale.
  • Connect it to people you know. Many families have roots in countries studied in world history. Ask relatives what they know or were told about it, treat it as one source among several, and compare it with what your child has learned.

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