Playing fantasy football: What could a new GCSE History specification look like?

There’s been a lot of discussion recently around the History curriculum in light of the Black Lives Matters demonstrations, the toppling of the Colston Statue and the sense that there is huge ignorance about History outside of the traditional narrative of the subject that this country likes to tell about itself. The question of the History GCSE content has come up time and again as not doing enough to promote a wider knowledge of the unvarnished history of Britain and that it is stuck in the same old tired topics.

Indeed, and I was reminded of this point by a short discussion with Thabo Stuck on twitter, the current specifications go out of their way to eschew controversial topics. Note the decision to choose the topic of ‘the fight against Lung Cancer’ in the Edexcel Medicine course as the ‘big disease’ case study for modern Medicine instead of perhaps studying the topic of the fight against HIV/AIDS. The picture painted of law enforcement and the penal system in the modern section of the Crime and Punishment course might also be considered rather bland if you merely to stick to the specification with controversial issues like the policing at Hillsborough and Orgreave or the use of SUS laws not discussed at the expense of tamer (though nonetheless interesting and in many ways important) topics of conscientious objectors and the Derek Bentley case.

There was a fantastic blog by Michael Fordham that started to set out some thoughts on what the next History GCSE could look like. Following on from that, I thought I’d play a bit of ‘fantasy football’ and see what kind of course could be constructed under parameters similar to what we have at the moment that might address concerns about the narrowness of the current specifications. In addition, surely one of the best bits of being a head of History as opposed to a lot of other subjects is having the leeway, in conjunction with your team, to choose from a wide range of content options for GCSE and A-level.

I’ve been hugely influenced by some of the A-level content options as well here — particularly the options on Paper 2 OCR A-level which look really fascinating, as well as the approach to the Breadth Study aspect on the Edexcel A-level Paper 1.

I’ll also make the following caveats — I’m not an expert on everything! Some of the dates below you might think are not good for that period and I haven’t thought about that too scientifically. There are many many better people than me who could suggest good dates for studying the Mongol Empire or Enlightenment Russia. The point is to model how a course might be devised that could ensure British history remains a core element of the GCSE (as per any likely government requirements) but offers a much broader range of options that avoids us retreating into the same old topics.

A few notes before we begin:

· I’ve grouped topics for Papers 1 and 2 into Groups A, B and C, which roughly correlate to different time periods. The idea would be that centres should choose one option from each group to ensure chronological breadth, which was one of the key goals of the reformed specifications from 2016. I don’t think it would be desirable to retreat back into only teaching 20th Century History, for example (as much as I really enjoyed, and had great success teaching, the Modern World GCSE course).

· As noted above, British History would comprise at least 50% of the course content (all of Paper 1 and the first bit of Paper 2 with an option for more in Paper 3).

· The Thematic Study (Medicine etc) has gone. I actually think this type of thing, but with more ambitious concepts perhaps, might be better suited as part of a reformed A-level. In addition, the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum requires students to undertake a thematic study so I don’t think there’s necessarily a need to burn all the Medicine resources you might have!

· The American West also loses out here — I personally feel this topic has had its’ day a little bit in British specifications and has lost its cultural resonance amongst students who don’t really watch Western movies anymore. I’m also aware that, at the very least, there is probably a need to revisit aspects of how this course is structured in the future in light of some ‘lively’ discussions on twitter around the issue a while ago. I will duck from those who are fierce advocates of US 19th Century history on here!

· I’ve left the stuff on the local study/historic environment vague — this aspect of History courses has never really floated my boat to be honest but I do accept that many people think it remains an important part of a GCSE course. Unlike Michael Fordham I would not advocate a return to coursework at GCSE however — perhaps some externally assessed set questions that are known in advance might be a compromise here.

Paper 1 — British History Breadth Studies w/ Historic Environment

Section 1 — British History Breadth Studies (20%)

Choose ONE of the following:

Group A

· Tudor England 1485–1603: An English golden age?

· Stuart England 1603–1715: A century of strife?

Group B

· The ‘ascendancy’ of Britain: 1715–1820

· ‘Powerhouse’ Britain: 1820–1918

Group C

· Modern Britain: A nation in decline? 1918–2016

Section 2 — Historic Environment

• Site study that relates to the chosen British History Breadth Study.

My vision here is that this unit might look a little bit like a slimmed down version of the Edexcel Paper 1 A-level that goes through traditional narratives of the period but also ensures it does not become ‘one king/Prime Minister after another’ by ensuring socio-economic aspects of the past in these periods are covered — so each topic might be split into three or four themes that cover the period e.g. politics, economic development, social change and cultural developments. In terms of assessment I see this as a straight essays unit much like the current Edexcel GCSE Paper 2.

Paper 2 — World Civilisations

Section 1 — British Empire Period Studies (20%)

Section 2 — International History Studies (20%)

SECTION 1 — British Empire Period Studies

Group A

• The Birth of Empire and the origins of the Transatlantic Slave Trade c1580-c1660
• The colonisation of Ireland c1600-c1660

Group B

• The British in North America 1760–1801
• The East India Company and India 1793–1858
• Britain and Ireland: c1870–1922

Group C

• The Decolonisation of the British Empire in Asia and Africa: 1945–1997
• The ‘Troubles’: Northern Ireland 1966–2007

SECTION 2 — International History studies

Group A

• The Umayyad Caliphate c661-c750
• Charlemagne and the Frankish Empire 768–814
• The Mongol Empire c1200-c1250
• The Kingdom of Benin c1500-c1750

Group B

• The Decline of the Mughal Empire 1658–1739
• The Russian Empire in the Age of the Enlightenment 1682–1725
• Revolutionary France c1770–1815

Group C

• Imperial Japan 1912–1946
• Communist China 1949–1989
• South Africa in the Age of Apartheid 1948–1999

So this paper would ensure that 40% of the GCSE was being used to cover Empire as well as suitably diverse studies of the non-British past as outlined in the list on the right. The point there is to force centres to make sure the Empire can’t be dodged, and to essentially compel centres to develop expertise on a broader range of topics beyond the standard Germany/Medicine/American West/Tudors assortment.

I also think this paper and these topics present a great opportunity to be where we explore sources. I think students would really gain significant insight into the use of sources by looking perhaps at the contrast in sources available in a British history context versus an international history context where you are looking at very different types of societies.

Paper 3 — Debates in Twentieth Century History (30%)

Choose ONE of the following

• International Relations 1900–1918 AND What caused the First World War to start in 1914?
• Nazi Germany 1933–1945 AND How popular was the Nazi Dictatorship?
• International Relations 1943–1955 AND What explains the origins of the Cold War?
• The African-American Freedom Struggle 1954–1968 AND How important was the role of Martin Luther King in the struggle for Civil Rights?
• The Vietnam War 1955–1975 AND Why did the USA lose the Vietnam War?

This paper is where some of the more traditional GCSE topics would be available, but suitably refreshed by making the focus about key debates in Modern History. The vision here is students would be taught a short overview of the broader topic, assessed via a knowledge quiz/short answer assessment, and then would study the development of a historic debate, perhaps via some set texts or extracts, as a much better grounding in interpretations than is currently seen in the Edexcel and AQA GCSEs at the very least.

What are the pitfalls?

• There might be too many options which might make it hard for the generation of grade boundaries for combinations of topics that are less popular.
• It’d be a big change for teachers all at once in terms of cribbing up of subject knowledge.
• Some of the ideas reflect my own biases — I prefer modern history to other periods for example. I’m influenced a lot by the Edexcel models, for better or worse, because that’s been the board I’ve mainly taught (and I’ve never taught, apart from one bad year on the old GCSE, OCR specs).
• It doesn’t really address concerns about the amount of content required to cover in the current GCSE and indeed many might argue it’s too much (I’ve used the Edexcel GCSE that I teach as a bit of a guide here).
• To ensure geographic spread you might also wish to mandate that students must study one non-British/European option in Papers 1 and 2 — otherwise you could have a centre doing something like Tudor England, the Northern Irish Troubles, the French Revolution and Nazi Germany which defeats the spirit of my idea.

The point of this piece at least is to generate some conversation and put something more concrete out in the public domain — the specific details here are not too important. One of the things Michael said in his blog earlier was “we need to be ready with a set of developed ideas and arguments for what this GCSE might look like” — well, here’s hopefully something that might add to that discussion a little bit.