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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  • What is good citizenship education in history classrooms?

    Article

    Ian Davies, Geoff Hatch, Gary Martin and Tony Thorpe seek to theorise - and to support teachers in their own theorising - concerning the purpose of citizenship education and criteria for good citizenship education. They aim for a professional precision that will be helpful to teachers, getting us beyond the...

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  • Do Mention the War' : the impact of a National Curriculum study unit upon pupils' perceptions of contemporary German people

    Article

    What preconceptions do your pupils hold about the Second World War and about German people? How far have these been influenced by home background, by personal experience, by film, by sport, by the Key Stage 2 history curriculum? Paul Coman argues that the last of these deserves greater attention, at...

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  • What's happening in History? Trends in GCSE and 'A'-level examinations

    Article

    Teaching History frequently celebrates and analyses the practice of those history departments that appear to buck trends. In keeping with the Historical Association’s Campaign for History and its popular ‘Choosing History at 14’ Pack, a number of articles and Triumphs Shows in recent editions of Teaching History have celebrated the...

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  • Nutshell

    Article

    This edition of 'In a Nutshell' discusses 'Transforming Teaching and Learning in the Foundation Subjects'.

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  • Nutshell - NOF

    Article

    This piece provides information on the NOF training scheme.

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  • The QCA history scheme of work for Key Stage 3

    Article

    Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated. QCA's scheme of work for history at Key Stage 3, together with similar schemes for other subjects, has been published in response to widespread requests for more guidance on curriculum planning. Heather Richardson, Subject Officer (history)...

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  • Achieving progression from the GCSE to AS

    Article

    As the new specifications [as we must all learn to call them] arrive in schools and colleges, we must all grapple with the concept of a new qualification - a new AS representing an intermediate standard. What does AS involve? In what ways does it represent progression from GCSE? Angela...

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  • 16-19 Curriculum 2000 in a nutshell

    Article

    I'VE HEARD OF THIS. BROADER COVERAGE, GAPS BRIDGED BETWEEN GCSE AND A LEVEL AND BETWEEN VOCATIONAL AND ACADEMIC EDUCATION, A HIGHLY LITERATE, NUMERATE AND COMPUTER-LITERATE WORKFORCE FOR THE 21st CENTURY. WHOM SHOULD WE THANK? Sir Ron Dearing, who else? His review of post-16 education was accepted by the last government...

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  • Build it in, don't bolt it on: history's opportunity to support critical citizenship

    Article

    Andrew Wrenn offers a wide range of practical examples of the way in which National Curriculum History (and the continuation of its principles at GCSE) supports citizenship education. He focuses chiefly upon Key Element 3, ‘Interpretations', but also Key Element 4 ‘Enquiry'. He illustrates history teachers' long-established concern for the...

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  • "...someone might become involved in a fascist group or something...": pupils' perceptions of history at the end of Key Stages 2, 3 and 4

    Article

    In contrast with earlier studies which presented a bleak picture of the impact of history teaching, Paul Goalen presents a small-scale study that is optimistic. For pupils in three schools at least, the history teaching of the late 1990s seems to be winning through. Goalen argues that the National Curriculum...

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  • Exceptional performance at GCSE

    Article

    In the last edition of Teaching History (February 1999, Issue 94) Kate Hammond used her own planning and classroom practice to extract some principles for stretching the very able pupil at Key Stage 3. How should history teachers build on this at GCSE? One way of defining goals for such...

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  • Who wants to fight? Who wants to flee? Teaching history from a 'thinking skills' perspective

    Article

    Whatever shape the National Curriculum of the 21st century takes, history will have to show its relevance to major curricular areas and themes such as literacy, citizenship education and thinking skills. This ought to be easy: the critical, informed decision-making required by the modern citizen is practised in virtually every...

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  • Why Gerry likes history now: the power of the word processor

    Article

    Ben Walsh argues that many teachers of history completely miss the point of the word processor. Criticising those who use it merely for 'typing up' he reminds us that the purpose of the word processor, as with any other resource, is to teach good history. He analyses the types of...

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  • Super history teaching on the Superhighway: the Internet for beginners

    Article

    Isobel Jenkins and Mike Turpin answer some of those basic questions which many history teachers are afraid to ask, like ‘What exactly is it anyway?' and ‘Is this really worth my valuable time?' They outline the internet's value as a means of improving information access and as a way of...

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  • Subject exemplification of the Initial Teacher Training National Curriculum for ICT: how the history examples were developed

    Article

    David Linsell describes how the Teacher Training Agency's history working group provided history-specific examples for the new ICT initial teacher training National Curriculum. He stresses the group's ‘history first' thinking. The aim was to provide realistic examples of ICT use, through which trainee teachers might develop and ultimately demonstrate their...

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  • Reflections on the Empathy Debate

    Article

    Not only do the various discussions on empathy show no signs of abating, they remain as confusing and emotionally charged as ever. On the one hand, much of the empathy argument is concerned with...

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  • Some Reflections on Empathy in History

    Article

    Undoubtedly, the introduction of empathy into the GCSE National Criteria for History has caused considerable problems for teachers and pupils, as debates in the national educational press have shown. It cannot be presupposed that...

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