As always there is a balancing act to be done. On the one hand you have to deal with the immediate and the urgent; on the other you know that you cannot afford to ignore...
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Prioritising in history at Key Stage 4
Leading History
Developing your staff at key stage 4
Teaching GCSE presents its own set of challenges, not least learning the code that you will need to crack to bring your students GCSE success. Because the GCSE history exam has become so formulaic, it...
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Monitoring performance in history at KS4
The best way of monitoring students' performance is to set frequent exam based activities, broadly under test conditions and then to mark them WITH the students using GCSE criteria. Students should be asked to IMPROVE...
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Using data in history at Key Stage 4
Twelve years or so ago the only meaningful data we had for GCSE was the percentage of students achieving each grade. The headline everyone was interested in was of course the A*-Cs. Then NFER started...
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Raising attainment at Key Stage 4
This section of the site contains four different types of advice. There is general advice, outlining factors that usually explain success at GCSE and a short paper entitled 'Smoking Out Underachievement'. Then there are five...
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Self-evaluation in history at Key Stage 4
Getting ready for a history subject review: knowing what OFSTED inspectors are looking for and the criteria they are using It is essential that you keep up-to-date with current OFSTED thinking against which...
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Policy and vision at Key Stage 4
Many of you will feel that having a separate history policy at Key Stage 4 is unnecessary, and yet you will be surprised how many departments have never really articulated the aims of their GCSE...
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Forward planning in history at Key Stage 4
There are probably four separate strands that you need to weave into your forward planning. To start with there will be the need to plan for any externally imposed curriculum change. The way needs to...
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