“As part of our reforms to the national curriculum , the current system of ‘levels’ used to report children’s attainment and progress will be removed.  It will not be replaced.” (DfE, 2013)

This blog aims to be a follow-up to the Northern History Forum meeting from November 2013. You will find links on the blog to all aspects of planning for progress and progression in the new KS3. I hope we are able to spark some healthy professional dialogue about the concepts we want to use to assess History; how we make progression models meaningful; and how we can create a mastery model of History education. All comments are much appreciated and help us to begin the process of moving History forwards. I hope we can be in the vanguard of educational reform as a subject as we move into 2014.

As ever, I am indebted to the huge amount of work which has already been done on these themes over the last 20 years, by a range of incredibly talented people. I have provided a full bibliography for all the models in the introductory file below. I would however like to mention the amazing articles from Peter Lee and Denis Shemilt in Teaching History, as well as Peter Seixas' and Tom Morton's "The Big Six" which first got me excited about the prospect of rethinking history assessment.

For each of these concepts it would be good to have a discussion about how far you agree with the signposts set out and the aims of the concepts. Student friendly versions are available in the student resources section. 

Exposition

Surely I cannot be the only one whose heart leapt when I read this statement in the DfE’s recent statement on assessment without National Curriculum Levels. In two short paragraphs, the document went on to describe everything that was wrong with the current system of assessment in Key Stages 1 to 3.

“We believe this system is complicated and difficult to understand, especially for parents. It also encourages teachers to focus on a pupil’s current level, rather than consider more broadly what the pupil can actually do. Prescribing a single detailed approach to assessment does not fit with the curriculum freedoms we are giving schools.” (DfE, 2013)

I seldom sing the praises of the Secretary of State for Education, but this surely has to be one of the most sensible reforms we have seen for many years.

In the wake of the demise of the levels system, it seems the ideal time to begin to thinking about what should come next. How should we think about progress and progression in History in a post-Levels world?

It has long been accepted that the system of NC Levels is woefully inadequate when it comes to describing, assessing or planning for progression in History. Levels have become, in the worst cases, the end point of teaching itself. This has been accompanied by an increasing fetishisation of NC Levels as a means of establishing accountability in schools. Worryingly, the idea of NC Levels seems to have become so ingrained that many are unsure how we assess now these ‘ladders’ have been removed. I would suggest however that this is a moment where we need to seize the opportunity to build meaningful models of progression with both hands.

Please find here a range of student friendly and departmental support materials for the progression models outlined in other blog posts. I have also attached a bibliography for further reading. You can find more files by following the link on the top right in the sidebar.

Communication (essays): Model based on personal experience 

Finally there is the issue of knowledge & communication. Knowledge will be embedded throughout the units, however it cannot have gone without notice that History is now one of the few subjects requiring extended answers throughout the school system. Unfortunately, the propensity of other subjects to remove a focus from extended writing means that History is now one of the few places where essay writing is actually taught. This model is built from my own experiences of trying to encourage students to write coherently and borrows from many places and discussions with colleagues over the years.





1.      Historical knowledge and evidence is used to develop and prove an argument. Historical evidence should be ACCURATE and RELEVANT.

2.      All writing needs a clear structure. This means introducing your work, developing ideas in paragraphs and reaching an overall conclusion.

3.      All historical essays require some form of argument to develop. This means you need to clearly answer the question set and build a clear line of argument throughout your work.

Historical World Views: Model based on (Wineburg, 1999; 2007) and (Morton & Seixas, 2012) 

One of the most crucial aspects of understanding history is trying to see the past on its own terms. Too often students place modern values on top of the past and therefore fail to understand why people acted in the way they did. When speaking to students about the Holocaust, Primo Levi once noted that he increasingly faced the question: why did you not escape or rebel? These students are viewing History through their own modern lens of understanding rather than trying to engage with the strange world of the past. As Richard White notes: ‘Any good history begins in strangeness…the past should not be a familiar echo of the present…’ (White, 1998, p. 13). History exposes our inability to understand people in the past on their own terms. In order to do it well we need to try and understand the mentalities of those in the past. History helps us to practice understanding peoples we cannot hope to understand – this is a crucial lesson today (Wineburg, 1999).

1.      There are major differences between modern WORLD-VIEWS and those of people in the past, this means their beliefs, values and motivations. We must avoid PRESENTISM.

2.      The perspectives of HISTORICAL ACTORS are best understood by thinking about the CONTEXT in which people lived and the WORLD-VIEWS that influenced them.

3.      Looking at the perspective of an HISTORICAL ACTOR means drawing INFERENCES about how people thought and felt in the past. It does not mean using modern WORLD-VIEWS to imagine the past.

Historical Interpretations: Model based on (Lee & Shemilt, 2004)

Understanding historical interpretations means asking students to step back and appreciate the processes of the discipline of History itself. In many cases, this is a skill we do not expect of students until they are much older as the contextual knowledge required is so great. It is also important to note that historical interpretations here refer to conscious reflections on the past, deliberate attempts to make sense of past events, and should not be confused with sources or personal views.



1.      Historical interpretations are everywhere. Every piece of historical writing is an interpretation of some sort. The past is not fixed but CONSTRUCTED through interpretations.

2.      It is possible to draw INFERENCES from interpretations of the past, just like with historical sources. INFERENCES will reveal the MESSAGE of a particular interpretation.

3.      The APPROACH of an author must always be considered. This means considering their VIEWPOINT, PURPOSE, AUDIENCE and EVIDENCE chosen to build their interpretation.

4.      Historical interpretations must be understood on their own terms. This means thinking about the CONTEXT in which they were created and what conditions and views existed at the time.

Historical Evidence: Model based on: (Lee & Shemilt, 2003), (Wineburg, 1999) and (Morton & Seixas, 2012) 

Without evidence, there is of course no history to speak of, only speculation. This was one of the most tricky aspects to create a model for as working with evidence is such a complex process. I have tried to take some of the complexity of Wineburg’s thinking on the issue whiulst also looking at the practicalities of the classroom. When working with sources the danger is that we simply read them uncritically or through a modern lens. As Wineburg notes, the “spread of activation” effect leads us to think down similar lines of thought once we have been pushed in a certain direction. For example,  when looking at a document which discusses slavery, then the modern mindset overrides other aspects of the document and leads us to condemn the practice without engaging with the meaning of the source itself. Wineburg gives the example of a group of people given an 1892 document about Columbus Day. Non-historians used the document to comment on the shame of Columbus’ conquest in 1492, these readers used these source to “…confirm their prior beliefs. They encountered the past here and labelled it.” (Wineburg, 1999, p. 498). Yet on the other hand, “…historians used the document to puzzle about 1892, not 1492. They paused long enough to allow their eyes to readjust from the flashing neon of Columbus’s name to go down to the bottom of the document to ponder the context of the document’s production’ Historians contextualised the document about Columbus instead of using it as a window on the past.” (Wineburg, 2007, p. 11)

Meanwhile the “availability heuristic” leads us to privilege information which is more readily available in our memory regardless of the trustworthiness or the reliability of less readily available sources. This means we often deal with sources uncritically as they are available to us rather than test them against harder to obtain information. This is especially true of the use of textbooks by students. The “availability heuristic” leads us for example to believe that we will not contract lung cancer from smoking, despite all the evidence to the contrary, if we know of a close relative who smoked and lived to the age of 95 (Wineburg, 2007). With this in mind, the strands for the evidence concept are quite complex:

1.      When we write history we need to create interpretations of the past based on evidence. INFERENCES are drawn from a variety of primary sources to create interpretations of the past.

2.      Historical evidence must be CROSS-REFERENCED so that claims are not made based on single pieces of evidence. CROSS-REFERENCING means checking against other primary or secondary sources.

3.      Historical evidence has multiple uses. The UTILITY of a piece of historical evidence varies according to the specific enquiry or the questions being asked.

4.      Working with evidence begins before the source is read by thinking about how the AUTHOR, intended AUDIENCE and PURPOSE of an historical source might affect its WEIGHT for a purpose.

5.      Historical evidence must be understood on its own terms. This means thinking about the CONTEXT in which the source was created and what conditions and views existed at the time.

Change & Continuity: Model Based on (Blow, 2011), (Morton & Seixas, 2012) and (Foster, 2013) 

Understanding the processes of continuity and change enables students to appreciate the past, not as a homogenous whole, nor indeed as a series of events, but as a complex flow of currents and counter-currents. It helps students to appreciate the complexity of the past and creates uncertainty around loaded terms such as “primitive” and “progress”. Again, there are four key strands to this concept:

1.      Past societies are not fixed, there are changes which have occurred spanning centuries. Changes in the past can be identified by looking at DEVELOPMENTS between two periods.

2.      Change and continuity are INTERWOVEN and both can be present together in history. CHRONOLOGIES can be used to show change and continuity working together over time.

3.      Change is a process which varies over time. Change can be described as a FLOW in terms of its PACE and EXTENT and can be said to TRENDS and have specific TURNING POINTS.

4.      Change and continuity are not a single process. There are many FLOWS of change and continuity operating at the same time. Not all FLOWS go in the same direction.

Comments and thoughts very welcome on this concept

This model is based on Morton, T. & Seixas’ The Big Six Historical Thinking Concepts (2012); Scott’s Understanding Cause and Effect (1990); and my own modifications and interpretation.

Understanding ‘causation’ in history is crucial for students to make sense of the past. At a basic level, causation appears to be the bread and butter of history. The causation model outlined here attempts to get student to understand a number of key strands:



1.      Change happens because of MULTIPLE CAUSES and leads to many different results or consequences. These create a WEB of related causes and consequences.

2.      Different causes have different LEVELS OF INFLUENCE. Some causes are more important than other causes.

3.      Historical changes happen because of two main factors: The actions of HISTORICAL ACTORS and the CONDITIONS (social, economic etc.) which have influenced those actors.

4.      HISTORICAL ACTORS cannot always predict the effects of their own actions leading to UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.  These unintended consequences can also lead to changes.