Most history departments were delighted to see the back of the crude and spurious NC levels. Instead of making as use these blunt instruments which have been misapplied to individual pieces of work and sub-levelled assignments, we now have to come up with their our system. This is easier said than done!
There have probably been more letters on assessment to the history teaching problem page than on any other topic. It still generates more heat than light. Deputy headteachers, ever keen to find data they can feed into a spreadsheet, ratchet up the pressure to use National Curriculum levels during the key stage not at the end, as they were designed for. Not content with that distortion they are now insisting on sub-levels and decimalisation of levels. Sheer insanity. To reassure you that it is they who are mad, and not you, let’s just remind ourselves of the key principles of teacher assessment. We may have to collaborate with the enemy for the sake of school policy but we can at least go down fighting with our true colours nailed to the mast. So here goes for our top 10. Teacher assessment in history.
Flow from the main teaching
