Wellington boots and clipboards are not just for geographers

Why ‘do’ local history? The new (grades 9–1) GCSE specifications place a lot of importance on the local environment. The rationale for this is to get students to situate a site in its historical context, and to examine the relationship between local and national developments. Initially this change was the driving force for us considering a greater use of local history at Key Stage 3. By engaging with this earlier, in Year 9, we will be able to prepare students to consider this with a greater degree of flexibility than we would have by beginning in Year 10: we could go beyond looking at the relationship between local and national, and get students to unpick the validity of ‘national trends’.