Experience of working with highly effective subject leaders over eighteen years has enabled me to distil SEVEN key factors that collectively contribute most to raising attainment.
Factor 1: The school focuses its attention on the central concerns of each history-led topic in terms of skills and concepts, not simply content.
Instead of getting bogged down in trying to cover too much content, the subject leader has restricted coverage to a maximum of 6 well-chosen and carefully phrased key questions. These address not only the most important and significant areas of content, they also provide a context for developing a particular historical skill or concept. These are kept in balance so that children develop a good historical understanding in all aspect. In effective schools it is rare to find teachers putting the coverage of content as the main priority.
Factor 2: Tight medium-term planning
The key questions are followed by well-pitched
