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Progression in GCSE history |
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Little has been written about progression in history at Key Stage 4, almost as if following the specification would take care of that. As many of you will know, whilst examination groups set out the content in helpful key questions and bullet points, they offer little advice regarding progression. You might argue that it is less necessary as the Key Stage is effectively only five terms long. And yet we all know that some students find it difficult making the adjustment to Key Stage 4. Much of this will be due to the amount of unfamiliar content to be covered in a short time, and to the fact that the examination and its predictable questions tend to drive most teachers' preparation. |
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So, what am I advocating? All you can helpfully do is to make sure that students genuinely do progress in their understanding of key historical concepts by pitching the learning objectives higher. You should be able to see the extra challenge being built into KS4 work. You should see in their folders and exercise books the more demanding types of questions that students are answering and the increased sophistication with which they deploy relevant material to argue their case. In the classroom you will see students being given more responsibility to work independently and arrive at substantiated conclusions of their own. This section is divided into TWO : general advice and by strand In the first, general section, there is a list of the sorts of things you ought to be bearing in mind when you plan and teach the five or even eight terms of KS4. Students may well be starting GCSE in Year 9 and will need to have that taken into account. The second, and arguably more useful, section looks at progression within strands. By using the word strands here I am deliberately trying to show some link and continuity with KS3 (though you'll have to look hard to find it in some specifications, despite what they say!). We often try really hard to get this right at KS3, but we need to do so at KS4 too, not least because in some schools the GCSE course runs for longer than KS3!
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Progression at Key
Stage 4 general advice
Progression at Key Stage 4 by strand (assessment objectives) |
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