By now, most of you will have taught your new KS3 curriculum for over four years. It might seem a strange time to now think about tweaking it, but I am suggesting that you have a close look at how well your KS3 aligns with the new requirements of your chosen GCSE history curriculum. Specifically, how strong is your thematic study in terms of preparing students for the new GCSE thematic study? The same could also be said of the local.
To help your deliberations I am posting a sample KS3 curriculum which you might like to discuss as a department. You’ll know how keen I am on having a rationale for all you do. It is your curriculum after all. All we have are 7 guiding headings – Gove’s Magnificent Seven. It is for us to weave these threads into a meaningful curriculum.
So have a look at the model offered as a downloadable file below. You’ll notice that it:
- is enquiry question driven. These enquiries become more open-ended and encourage more independence in Y9
- is broadly chronological in Y7 and 8 using two-thirds of Y9 to look back retrospectively
- employs 2 thematic modules at the end of Y9,
