Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

Matt Stanford is not exactly fed up of marking essays, but he could do with a change. His pupils, he realises, could too. History assessments have often been based on words - either the written word, or, increasingly, the spoken word - but Stanford suggests that it might sometimes be appropriate to assess students' historical understanding through a completely different medium. He outlines a way in which Year 7 can be encouraged to think about the Renaissance, and then assessed based on the images which they produce rather than on any words at all. He produces a convincing rationale for doing this, and an at least partly visual markscheme, which provides a brief opportunity for CPD, as readers might try to mark Figures 1 and 5 using it. Stanford finally provides some suggestions on other ways in which history teachers could get away from marking students' words and focus on their ideas instead: this is an idea which could help to transform your assessment procedures across Key Stage 3.