Assessment and Progression without levels: where do we go from here?

The new (2014) Primary History National Curriculum is finally upon us. The first thing you might notice is that the level descriptions have gone. These were first introduced in 1995 and became the mainstay for assessing pupil progression and attainment in Key Stages 1, 2 and 3 across schools in England.

So what on earth do we do now? In fact the new curriculum does set out the outcomes we should expect from pupils in each key stage; we will come back to this a little later. To begin with, however, it is worth exploring what progression actually looks like in history. The absence of level descriptions, does not mean that there are any significant changes to the way pupils make progress in history...