Previous National Curriculums

The last revision of the National Curriculum was in 2014. The Historical Association has played a crucial role in campaign and development. In this section you will find a record of previous revisions of the National Curriculum for history and some resources that were written in response to those curriculums.

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  • A Guide to the Key Stage 3 programme

    Multipage Article

    This unit was produced for a previous national curriculum. However, much of the advice remains useful and it provides a context to topics that continue to be very important for history teachers. Subject leaders, ITE providers and others may find it useful to consider how currently relevant topics were thought about...

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  • History in Schools - Present and Future

    Article

    History in Schools - Present and future: Event report This one day conference was organised by the sponsors to raise awareness of the changes in the 14-19 curriculum and initiate discussion on how history, taught from Key Stage 3 to HE level, could be best served and enhanced by the...

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  • Background information: citizenship and history

    Article

    Citizenship was introduced as a National Curriculum subject at key stages 3 and 4 in 2002. Prior to that many schools had taught aspects of citizenship as a cross-curricular theme, often in the context of Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). Much of the impetus for introducing citizenship as a...

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  • Cunning Plan 132: Year 7 and the new National Curriculum

    Article

    How can we plan for a coherent Year 7 that makes the most of the new National Curriculum freedom and its almost limitless possible content? Answer: borders, boundaries (and books) Please note: this article was published before the current 2014 National Curriculum.

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  • Planning and Teaching the New Key Stage 3 PoS

    Article

    These notes, ideas and teaching suggestions have developed from CPD courses run over the last few years and from planning and developing SHP resources for the new KS3 programme. Inevitably, it's a statement of current thinking with ideas constantly developing but I hope it proves useful and practical in helping...

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  • The National Curriculum Attainment Target (from 2008)

    Article

    Level 4 Pupils show their knowledge and understanding of local, national and international history by describing some of the main events, people and periods they have studied, and by identifying where these fit within a chronological framework. They describe characteristic features of past societies and periods to identify change and...

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  • Resources from the HA/CfBT Regional Conferences Part 1

    Article

    The HA has held nine regional conferences across England in London, Norwich, Leeds, Leicester, Reading, Darlington, Bristol, Birmingham and Bolton to train history teachers in ways to tackle the New Key Stage 3 Curriculum. Please find below the PowerPoint presentations that went with morning introduction>>>

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  • Key Stage 3 New Programme of study resources: Part 1

    Article

    The HA supported by the CfBT is in the process of developing resources to enable secondary teachers to tackle the new Key Stage 3 programme of study for history. We shall be devoting an entire section of the website to these resources taking you through the concepts, processes, range and...

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  • ICT Resources for GCSE History Teachers

    Article

    The HA has compiled 3 invaluable spreadsheets that take you through the main History GCSE specifications, topic by topic, providing online resources for each topic and covering all the areas specified by the main awarding bodies. Each spreadsheet takes you through each specification and is filled with links to all the best available...

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  • The importance of history

    Article

    The importance of history: Powerpoint presentation from the Regional Subject CfBT/HA ConferencesStarting point. Creating a departmental vision.The construction of any curriculum begins with questions about the purpose and philosophy of the curriculum. The new orders for history offer departments a ready made statement of history's importance and purpose.

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  • Where do I begin?

    Article

    Planning a new Key Stage 3 Curriculum: A Powerpoint presentation from the Regional Subject CfBT/HA Conferences 3 Curriculum aims are: successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society...

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  • Building a better past: plans to reform the curriculum

    Article

    David Nicholls summarises some of the problems facing history education and offers a commentary on various cases for reform. He argues that we need to look at provision holistically from 5 to 21 and urges collaboration across phases and sectors. By working more closely together, the history community as a...

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  • Modern World History ICT Resources Spreadsheet

    Article

    The HA has compiled 3 spreadsheets that take you through the main History GCSE specifications World History, Schools History Project and the Pilot GCSE which has a compulsory examined element on Medieval England. Each spreadsheet takes you through each specification, topic by topic and is filled with links to all...

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  • Schools History Project ICT Resources Spreadsheet

    Article

    The HA has compiled 3 spreadsheets that take you through the main History GCSE specifications World History, Schools History Project and the Pilot GCSE which has a compulsory examined element on Medieval England. Each spreadsheet takes you through each specification, topic by topic and is filled with links to all...

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  • Pilot GCSE Resources Spreadsheet

    Article

    The HA has compiled 3 spreadsheets that take you through the main History GCSE specifications World History, Schools History Project and the Pilot GCSE which has a compulsory examined element on Medieval England. Each spreadsheet takes you through each specification, topic by topic and is filled with links to all...

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  • Nutshell

    Article

    This edition of 'Nutshell' highlights concerns about the AS/A2 assessments.

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  • More than just the Henries: Britishness and British history at Key Stage 3

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the current national curriculum With the first teaching of a revised history curriculum due in September 2008 the debate over content and order is well under way. Robert Guyver, involved in the design of the curriculum development experiment that evolved into the 1991 version of...

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  • Innovation, inspiration and diversification: new approaches to history at Key Stage 3

    Article

    Good history teaching should not be the responsibility of a single department working in isolation. The history subject community as a whole should work together to ensure that history teaching is of as high a quality as possible. This does not mean that every department, and every teacher, should do...

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  • Tripping over the levels: experiences from Ontario

    Article

    Here in the United Kingdom, we are used to the idea of assessing pupils’ work against Levels. In fact, perhaps we are a little too used to it. Our familiarity with the Level Descriptions in the National Curriculum, and the ways they might inform our Key Stage 3 assessments, can...

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  • Question: When is a comment not worth the paper it's written on? Answer: When it's accompanied by a Level, grade or mark!

    Article

    In this article, Simon Butler advances a strong case for ‘comments only’ marking. Good assessment, he argues, is about encouraging students to reflect on their current performance and take responsibility for their own progress. Assigning Levels to pupils’ work is often justified in terms of the generation of targets which...

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