Slice of cake anyone?

A collaborative project between Richard Rose Central Academy and University of Cumbria PGCE History trainees to meet the challenges of the A2 synoptic unit.

"If I tell you to eat, you will eat! You wanted cake! You stole cake! And now you've got cake! What's more, you're going to eat it! You do not leave this platform and nobody leaves this hall until you have eaten the entire cake that is sitting there in front of you! Do I make myself clear Bogtrotter? Do you get my meaning?"

And so he shovelled it into his mouth, slice after slice, feeling increasingly sick with every bulging mouthful.

Bogtrotter's encounter with the enormous chocolate cake, as told in Roald Dahl's Matilda, seems an analogy for A Level history in general and the synoptic unit in particular. The task of drawing together...