ofsted subject research papers

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• Education, training and skills
• Inspections and performance of education providers
• Inspection and performance of schools

Principles behind Ofsted’s research reviews and subject reports

Published 30 March 2021

Applies to England

© Crown copyright 2021

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/principles-behind-ofsteds-research-reviews-and-subject-reports/principles-behind-ofsteds-research-reviews-and-subject-reports

Introduction

The curriculum – what pupils learn – is the very core of education. The curriculum in schools in England is built around subjects. Our inspection methodology is, as a consequence, based to a large extent on subject ‘deep dives’. These provide evidence of curriculum quality, which informs our ‘quality of education’ judgement.

The inspections we carried out between September 2019 and March 2020, before we suspended routine on-site inspections of schools, gave us interesting insights into the curriculum in schools. You can read about some of our findings in our Annual Report 2019/20 .

This is only the start of our work in this area, though. As a force for improvement, we will be publishing a series of documents from April 2021, including:

• research reviews: these will collate currently available research evidence. We will consider what published research evidence tells us about a high-quality education in each subject
• subject reports: we will inform leaders, teachers and tutors, parents and policymakers about what we have learned about the state of the nation when it comes to the quality of school curriculum in a range of subjects

To carry out this work and lead on our curriculum thinking in schools, we have set up a curriculum unit. We have been recruiting subject leads for a range of subjects, starting with national curriculum subjects and religious education. These subject experts will be leading this work, along with our research team.

Research reviews

Our aim is that the reviews will support and inform those leading the thinking on subject education in our schools. Professionals from the education sector will also be able to see the research that is informing our conception of a high-quality education in a variety of subjects.

Our research reviews were planned before the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, but their publication is timely. As schools face the challenge of catching up, they will need to think carefully about what content to prioritise, what to limit and what to omit. By setting out the most helpful ways of securing progression in each subject, the research reviews can provide a set of guiding principles for subject leaders.

Establishing an evidence-based ‘conception of subject quality’

We are committed to doing all we can to ensure the reliability and validity of our inspections and to being a force for improvement.

When our inspectors carry out subject ‘deep dives’, they draw on a shared understanding of a high-quality education. Inspectors base their understanding of quality of education on our inspection framework criteria. We developed these criteria from our review of relevant education research and our own 3 phases of curriculum research .

We can also continue to improve inspection practice by developing a well-evidenced view of what constitutes a high-quality education in each subject. We call this view the ‘conception of subject quality’. It outlines subject-specific principles that can be used in deep dives to support the quality of education judgement. The principles do not specify curriculum content or a preferred curriculum model.

This conception of subject quality will also inform our subject reports.

Selecting research

The research reviews will set out the research that has informed our thinking on subject quality. When selecting literature for the reviews, we are drawing on research that aligns with the established principles for quality of education, as outlined in the education inspection framework ( EIF ) and summarised in our ‘Education inspection framework: overview of research’ .

The primary focus of each review will be on curriculum research relevant to the subject. However, we will also look at any research on teaching, assessment, school systems and policies that is relevant.

As well as academic papers, the research review will also include information from:

• the Education Endowment Foundation
• the Department for Education
• large-scale international studies, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• our own research and guidance
• secondary evidence, such as teacher-authored blogs

Educational research is contestable and contested, and so are documents such as these research reviews. Therefore, we are sharing our thinking with subject communities so that we can get input from the broader subject community. We hope that publishing our evidence base for how we have developed our understanding of subject quality will provide insight, both on what evidence we have used and on how we have interpreted that evidence when creating research criteria for our subject reports.

We are not aiming to summarise the totality of research in education. We are using several criteria to act as filters so that we can select the most relevant research. We have explained these below.

Filters we use to select research

We aim to publish research reviews for most national curriculum subjects by the end of 2021.

Subject reports

After we have published the research reviews, we intend to publish our subject reports.

While this work is based on the latest curriculum thinking, it’s also not the first time we’ve done this. In the past, we published thematic reports on most national curriculum subjects and religious education. These were well received. Responses to our consultation on the EIF also showed a clear appetite from schools for us to resume publication of subject-specific reports.

Now that we are working within the EIF , those older subject reports may need updating. When it is appropriate to resume inspections under the EIF , we will use the ‘conception of subject quality’ outlined in each research review to create the research criteria for new subject reports.

The EIF allows us to gather rich evidence on the quality of subject education using our deep-dive methodology. We hope that sharing our inspection evidence on high-quality subject practice in this way will help the education sector more widely. Our subject reports will be written for a wide audience and should be particularly useful to subject, faculty and curriculum leaders in schools as well as teacher-training departments.

The subject reports will report on:

• schools’ understanding of progress in each subject and how that informs their approaches to the curriculum
• the extent to which teaching supports the goals of the subject curriculum
• the effectiveness of assessment used
• the extent to which there is a climate of high expectations in subjects, where a pupil’s interest in the subject can flourish
• the quality of systems around subject teaching and support for subject-specific staff development
• the extent to which whole-school policies affect the capacity for effective subject education
• access to the curriculum in the case of teaching pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities ( SEND )

The research methodology

Our evidence will come from subject deep dives and/or research visits to schools. We have described the deep-dive methodology in ‘Inspecting the curriculum’ . Our research team will analyse the evidence that our inspectors collect, using the criteria developed through the research review. The research team will work with our subject leads to write the reports.

The deep dives and the reports will cover all school phases from Reception to Year 13. We will be drawing evidence from across the country, making sure we include schools from a range of contexts (such as urban and rural) and with different pupil intakes, from the most to the least disadvantaged, for example. We will also make sure that we include those with different inspection judgements. Inclusion of pupils with SEND will be one of the things we will report on.

We hope this overview has given a flavour of the work on subject curriculum that we are intending to do in the coming year. More than anything, we hope that the work will help subject leaders in their curriculum planning in the short and longer term.

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Ofsted Design and Technology Reports and Resources

Ofsted is the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Ofsted reports directly to Parliament and is independent and impartial. They inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills for learners of all ages.

The aim of all this work is to promote improvement and value for money in the services that they inspect and regulate, so that children and young people, parents and carers, adult learners and employers benefit.

Each week Ofsted carries out hundreds of inspections and regulatory visits throughout England, and publishes the results on its website. As a consequence of its work Ofsted has published annual reports on design and technology in primary and secondary schools and colleges.

Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) have contributed findings to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector’s Annual Reports, which now publishes a major subject report for design and technology every three years. The reports on individual subject survey visits to schools are made available on the Ofsted website.

The collection in the elibrary contains design and technology-related reports and publications concerning primary and secondary schools.

• Design and technology
• Teacher guidance
• Include Physical Resources

Design and Technology Characteristics of Good Practice in Secondary Schools 1995

Produced in 1995, this publication, written by Ofsted at the request of the Department for Education, identifies some characteristics of good practice in Design and Technology at Key Stages Three and Four, and was aimed at those who are responsible for planning, organising and teaching Design and Technology in...

Subject Professional Development Materials: Design and Technology

This resource from Ofsted is aimed at subject leaders to help improve teaching and learning by reflecting on the main messages from the design and technology report, Meeting Technological Challenges? The resource draws upon evidence from design and technology subject survey visits by Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI...

Meeting Technological Challenges?

This report draws upon evidence from design and technology (design and technology) subject survey visits by Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) to primary and secondary schools between September 2007 and July 2010. The inspections evaluated how well the subject was meeting its National Curriculum aims and promoting high...

Education for a Technologically Advanced Nation: Design and Technology in Schools

This report evaluates design and technology provision based on a three-year evaluation of design and technology in primary and secondary schools. Evidence was drawn from school inspections during the period 2004–05 as well as from focused surveys by Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) from 2004 to 2007. The surveys...

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Home » Articles » Ofsted’s History Research Review: 10 key findings

Ofsted’s History Research Review: 10 key findings

In summer 2021, we published our research review into History education.

These reviews summarise some of the thinking of researchers and practitioners about what works in the History classroom.

They are useful for us when we design our training for inspectors.

They may be useful for you as a starting point when looking at a particular issue in History education in your school, such as assessment or chronological knowledge.

Below is a brief summary of some of the findings which we explored in our History research review.

In this article

1: Curriculum decisions in history are multi-faceted.

Schools have a lot of freedom to design their curriculum.

In the review we emphasise that schools need to consider lots of different rationales for including particular content – such as the breadth of the curriculum and what knowledge will best support pupils to learn more in the future.

2: Identifying particularly important content is useful.

A rich and broad History curriculum will cover a huge wealth of content.

However, to help teachers build all pupils’ historical knowledge, it is really useful to identify particularly important content. This can help to shape the curriculum and teaching.

This content can be emphasised in curriculum plans and teaching, it can be prioritised in assessment to ensure that pupils have learned the most important content.

It can also be revisited often to give pupils lots of opportunities to secure their knowledge.

Often, this will be knowledge which is important for pupils to have in order to access later learning.

For example, a pupil’s knowledge of the broad features of the medieval period will give them a good background for learning about particular events and phenomena in the period.

It could be useful for a school to identify specific features of a period which they want all pupils to know and build these into curriculum plans, teaching and assessment.

Substantive concepts such as monarchy, trade or culture are often important.

Secure and rich knowledge of these concepts can help pupils to make sense of complex information more easily.

3: But everything else is important too!

Although identifying particular important content is a useful process, our review also warns against focusing too heavily on this core content.

Other information isn’t just nice background – it is crucially important in building a sense of period, introducing ideas and concepts, giving meaningful examples of abstract ideas and broadening the curriculum.

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4: abstract ideas and concepts are best learned through repeated encounters with meaningful examples..

Imagine trying to teach pupils in a general or abstract way about the complex relationship between monarchs, archbishops, bishops and the Pope in medieval England – this would be nearly impossible!

But pupils can readily grasp these ideas through the rich example of the Henry-Becket conflict.

The Henry-Becket conflict gives what we called a meaningful example of an abstract idea. It makes it real and familiar to pupils.

And pupils need repeated encounters with these ideas and concepts throughout the curriculum.

By studying lots of meaningful examples of abstract ideas, such as the role of the Pope or debates about the powers of Church and monarchy, pupils will build increasingly sophisticated knowledge of these.

This same approach is also effective with disciplinary knowledge – knowledge of how historians study the past and construct accounts.

Pupils must learn some very abstract ideas, such as how historians give weight to particular accounts or how their different research interests can shape their methodologies and arguments.

Like with abstract concepts, this is best done by building up complexity over time through meaningful examples of how historians have studied particular periods, events or phenomena.

5: Teaching should represent the work of historians in authentic ways.

Learning disciplinary knowledge through real examples of how historians have studied the past is also important because it helps us to represent these disciplinary traditions accurately.

We should break down disciplinary concepts so that they can be learned over time, but we need to be very careful about oversimplifying what historians do – it is complex and we need to help pupils to see that complexity.

This means we need to be careful with activities and questions which look like they are building pupils’ disciplinary knowledge, but may actually be building misconceptions. For example, asking pupils to judge “which source is most useful?”.

It is important to recognise the limitations of GCSE assessments as a way of structuring teaching about disciplinary knowledge in KS3.

These assessments are not designed for this purpose, and so teaching pupils about sources by preparing them to answer GCSE source questions will not give them all of the complex knowledge they need about how historians use sources.

6: Schools should consider the overall content of the curriculum which pupils learn.

The breadth of the curriculum offer is crucially important in History. In our research review we identify four main areas that schools need to reflect on in their overall curriculum design.

• The range of historical periods and timescales. Do pupils learn about a range of periods in depth? Do they study aspects of the past in overview and in depth?
• The range of places and societies. Do pupils study a range of different places and societies? Do they learn about different regions of the British Isles? Do they study wider world history? Do they learn about the interconnectedness of places, societies and developments in the past?
• The range of historical fields of enquiry. Do pupils learn about political, social, economic and cultural history? In later KS3, do they learn about different methodological approaches which historians might use in different fields? Does the curriculum accurately represent the diversity of historians and academic history?
• The range of people, groups and experiences. Does the way that past events and societies are represented accurately reflect their diversity? Does the curriculum teach pupils about the roles, experiences and contributions of different people and groups? Have schools made sure that pupils do not develop harmful misconceptions about particular groups as a result of what they are taught?

7: Teaching should help pupils to remember what they have been taught.

As well as presenting new material clearly, emphasising important content and ensuring that pupils have the necessary prior knowledge to learn new material, revisiting important content and concepts regularly is one of the best ways to ensure that learning sticks in pupils’ memory.

Low-stakes quizzes are one effective way of doing this but there are many different approaches, and pupils are revisiting this information whenever they encounter it or draw upon their knowledge (not only when they are being quizzed directly on it).

8: Assessment should check pupils have learned and remembered important content.

Because what pupils know supports what they are able to learn in the future, it is crucial that any gaps or misconceptions in important knowledge are addressed quickly.

Therefore, it is important that assessment is used to identify gaps or misconceptions which pupils may have.

Not everything can be assessed so it is useful to prioritise particularly important content.

Because essays and extended writing (which are also very important, particularly for developing pupils’ knowledge of historical argument) do not clearly identify specific gaps and misconceptions, it is likely that other, more focused, forms of assessment will need to be used alongside these.

9: Narrative and story help pupils to learn new content

Narrative and story are powerful ways of presenting new material for pupils of all ages.

They make new content easier to comprehend and learn.

Stories help pupils to see links between events and also place important ideas and concepts within a meaningful context.

Older pupils will also need to learn that narratives are a form of historical interpretation and understand how historical narratives are constructed.

10: Teachers need time and opportunities to develop their subject knowledge and knowledge of how to teach history.

Teachers need secure knowledge of topics they teach and of how to teach History to pupils.

There are many high-quality resources to support History teachers, but teachers need time to be able to make the most of these and time to work together as schools or departments to develop the curriculum and their subject knowledge.

Hopefully our research review can support schools and departments who are thinking about their curriculum by highlighting some of the brilliant thinking of others who have wrestled with similar problems.

Our full research review can be found here .

Tim Jenner is HMI and Ofsted’s Subject Lead for History. Tim has also led history departments in London, Cambridgeshire and West Yorkshire. He regularly writes and presents on history teaching.

• Tags: Curriculum planning , Historical scholarship , Ofsted

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Ofsted subject reports: maths and history.

Ofsted continues to publish its subject reports building on the 11 subject research reviews it published in-between 2021 and 2023 (see Ofsted 2021, 2023a). Last year, we looked at the findings and lessons to learn from the first of these subject reports, which focused on science .

In July, two more reports were released – mathematics and history (Ofsted, 2023b, 2023c). Both reports record improvements since Ofsted’s last in-depth reviews of these subjects with detailed findings from primary and secondary schools as well as recommendations.

The reports are recommended reading for subject leaders and their teams. They reflect what Ofsted considers to be quality education in these subjects and as such should not be ignored by schools, especially those anticipating an inspection. However, it should also be kept in mind that there have been disagreements about some of the points and recommendations.

For example, the Association of Mathematics Education Teachers put together its own table of concerns stemming from the maths research review. As the new report is based upon the review’s findings, we can only assume that they have similar reservations about some of those conclusions too.

Each report also comes with a disclaimer from Ofsted: “When we inspect schools, we evaluate them against the criteria in the school inspection handbooks. Inspectors will not use our findings in this report as a ‘checklist’ when they are inspecting schools. We know that there are many different ways that schools can put together and teach a high-quality … curriculum.”

When it comes to primary phase, there are common strands in both reports. Specifically, that subjects in the early and primary years should focus on establishing the foundation for later subject teaching. Mastery of basic concepts that can be built on throughout secondary education is the overwhelming principle promoted by inspectors.

The mathematics subject report

Overall, the main messages from Ofsted’s subject report into maths are positive. The picture has improved since they last reported 11 years ago. This thematic report is based upon 50 visits by inspectors to schools between September 2021 and November 2022.

Co-ordinating mathematical success (Ofsted, 2023b) is the second subject report to be published and follows the mathematics research review published in 2021 (Ofsted, 2023a). There is much for senior leaders to celebrate here in terms of the improvements made and the comments that the report writers make.

School leaders are praised for:

• Creating or adopting a high-quality mathematics curriculum.
• Giving careful and on-going consideration to the effective teaching of that curriculum.
• Making good use of support and resources from the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) and the network of Maths Hubs it coordinates, as well as commercial providers.

There is praise for the increased level of curriculum development that teachers now receive with much of this coming from the Maths Hubs. This additional training and knowledge must extend beyond the more experienced subject-specialists to include the other adults working in the classroom. 

The authors regard the use of published commercial schemes as a positive development while pointing out that multi-academy trusts may have their own “home-grown” schemes. The NCETM’s “ready-to-progress” criteria is looked on favourably and reference is made to the use of “knowledge organisers” for sharing information with parents. 

Different types of knowledge

Knowledge in mathematics is broken down into three separate types:

• Declarative knowledge: facts, concepts, formulae.
• Procedural knowledge: methods, procedures, algorithms.
• Conditional knowledge: strategies formed from the combination of facts and methods to reason and problem-solve.

Declarative knowledge: Inspectors are complementary about pupils’ knowledge of times-tables but less impressed by their knowledge of number bonds. The report states: “Many schools’ curriculums identified and sequenced mathematical vocabulary, sentence stems and speaking frames. Much of this was committed to memory.” The preferred approach is one of consistency and mastery. 

Procedural knowledge: These are the methods that pupils are taught, and inspectors are keen that pupils develop “automaticity” and are provided with the methods they will need for later stages in the curriculum. It also includes the ways in which written work is set out. Inspectors see the use of the “bar model” as a positive development (see further information). Procedural fluency enables older primary students to be able to choose the correct method to use. 

Conditional knowledge: This refers to problem-solving and the report is keen to emphasise the importance of pupils being taught models and learning not being incidental or the result of guess work.

Meeting the needs of pupils

The mathematics research review comments: “Many pupils with SEND benefit from explicit, systematic instruction and from practice in using declarative and procedural knowledge.”

The report writers emphasise a “keep up, not catch up” approach and refer to effective examples of additional help such as pre-teaching and same-day interventions.

It is acknowledged that there might be some pupils who would benefit from being in groups with pupils of a similar level of attainment to learn different content practised using different tasks.

The report writers emphasise the importance of consistency across the school and praise the use of the concrete-pictorial-abstract approach, the use of routines and effective questioning. They are critical of pupils with behavioural needs having gaps in their books – seeing this as part of a “vicious circle”. They are supportive of table arrangements where the pupils face the teacher.

There is an emphasis on the need for practice. This, however, should also be accompanied by checks to make sure pupils are developing “automaticity” before moving on. There is criticism of workbooks which include “distracting pictures”. There is also reference to NCETM’s Mastering Number programme for younger pupils and the importance of “choral response” as low-stakes practice.

The report writers refer positively to the use of “live marking”, whole-class feedback and same-day marking feeding into short interventions in the afternoon. They are positive about the use of technology for testing and are supportive of benchmarks for proficiency of 80% accuracy, preferring this to “meeting age-related expectations”.

Systems at school level 

The report writers are supportive of the use of Maths Hubs and note the progress that has been made by schools in providing the curriculum guidance needed for staff and CPD. They do however suggest that observation focuses too much on observable features of teaching rather than on pupils’ understanding. It is noted that schools still channel resources into year 2 and 6 – for example setting and smaller class sizes were relatively common in these year groups.

Recommendations

For the curriculum, recommendations for primary schools include:

• Identify and sequence small steps in the reception curriculum.
• All pupils learn to apply facts and methods to wider problem-solving.
• Geometry knowledge is sequenced throughout rather than at the end of each year’s curriculum.

For pedagogy and assessment, recommendations for all schools include:

• Check routinely whether pupils have secure knowledge and address gaps before moving on to the next stage of learning.
• Connect new learning to what’s been learnt before and learning in other subjects.
• Practise and consolidate new learning, including sequences of problem-solving.
• Check speed and accuracy of recall methods (procedural fluency) and address gaps in pupils’ procedural knowledge.

Wider recommendations for primary schools include:

• Consider using routines, keeping noise levels low and making sure pupils are facing the teacher when explaining new content and giving instructions.
• Help younger pupils learn their addition facts by heart and regularly check their recall of this.
• Consider whether additional afternoon practice is the result of deficiencies in the early curriculum.
• Aim for pupils to be proficient and ready for year 7 and not just meeting age-related expectations for end of key stage tests.
• Make sure questioning helps pupils recall and make connections rather than guessing.
• Provide pre-teaching, additional teaching, and extra practice for most pupils with SEND.
• Make sure that discussions with leaders about progress specifically address the needs of the lowest attaining younger pupils.
• Aim to prioritise resourcing for younger year groups.
• During observations focus on pupils’ thinking and the quality and quantity of practice.
• All schools are also advised to ensure that CPD is provided for teaching assistants and other adults.

The history subject report

Ofsted reports improvements in the position of history with “trends towards its erosion” being reversed. This history thematic report draws on inspections of 50 schools between July 2022 and April 2023.

The report, Rich encounters with the past (Ofsted, 2023c), praises schools for:

• Improving the subject knowledge of primary school teachers.
• Devoting sufficient time to the subject.
• Covering a wide range of historical periods.
• Using local history well.

However, concerns continue to be raised about:

• Consistency within and between schools.
• Schools focusing on superficial aspects of the past.
• The teaching of disciplinary knowledge (how historians study the past).
• Pupils being expected to make their own judgements without having developed secure historical knowledge.
• Assessment in history not being fully developed.

History is taught in timetabled lessons – usually one full afternoon a week in half-termly blocks, alternating with geography. Schools have moved away from planning a topic-based approach and history is being taught as a separate subject. The report writers criticise schools where the aims for history are too broad and there is a lack of detail, particularly when planning for reception children. 

Schools are praised for identifying important concepts and planning a learning journey so that these are developed into more complex concepts over time. 

There is criticism of schools that only focus on the superficial rather than teaching the “richer, more connected knowledge of past societies for pupils”.

The report recognises the complexity of developing disciplinary knowledge and accepts that there is likely to be a focus on sources and evidence. However, too simplistic an approach can lead to misunderstandings about what it is to be a historian.

The use of story in history teaching gets a thumbs up, including its use in reception but teachers are warned about expecting pupils to answer historical questions without having sufficient knowledge which often leaves them guessing. Teachers need to be clear about what they want pupils to know and revisit previous curriculum objectives. 

CPD is available for subject leaders, but the report warns that it is rare for teachers to have received training on how pupils make progress in history – this raised complications when it came to assessing pupils. History subject leaders were given very little additional time to carry out their roles. 

• Teachers and leaders understand how layers of historical knowledge interact.
• Schools identify the most important content and concepts to support pupils in future learning.
• Teachers build on what pupils already know and revisit concepts regularly.
• Teachers use assessment to identify key gaps and misconceptions.
• Support for pupils with SEND focuses on pupils’ ability to access the breadth and depth of the curriculum over time and not just the completion of the immediate task.
• The curriculum avoids reductive or misleading representations of the complexity of historical enquiry and argument.
• Leaders plan systematically to develop teachers’ knowledge and how to teach history.
• Leaders assess the quality of what pupils learn and remember over time. 

Suzanne O’Connell is a freelance education writer and a former primary school headteacher. Read her previous articles for Headteacher Update via www.headteacher-update.com/authors/suzanne-oconnell  

Headteacher Update Autumn Term Edition 2023

• This article first appeared in Headteacher Update's Autumn Term Edition 2023. This edition was sent free of charge to every primary school in the country in September. A digital edition is also available via www.headteacher-update.com/content/downloads  

Further information & resources

• NCETM: Maths Hubs: www.ncetm.org.uk/maths-hubs   
• NCETM: The Bar Model: http://tinyurl.com/bddrmh3h  
• NCETM: Mastering Number: https://tinyurl.com/3kh3f5xt   
• Ofsted: Principles behind Ofsted’s research reviews and subject reports, 2021: http://tinyurl.com/bdre9mxs  
• Ofsted: Curriculum research reviews, 2023a: http://tinyurl.com/2htdndfz  
• Ofsted: Research and analysis: Coordinating mathematical success: the mathematics subject report, 2023b: https://tinyurl.com/y389sswa  
• Ofsted: Research and analysis: Rich encounters with the past: history subject report, 2023c: https://tinyurl.com/4fe43x5r   

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A Summary of Ofsted’s History Subject Report: Rich Encounters with the Past

Ofsted have released the second and third of their latest subject reports which use the research reviews as a lens to evaluate the curricula of schools they have inspected. This report explores and evaluates the state of history education in England. The findings are based on a relatively small sample of schools (50) but nevertheless provide some useful insights and frameworks for considering your own school's history provision.

I've tried to summarise some of the key points from the report and wanted to share them with other as, in the past, people have said they've found them useful. As always, these notes are my interpretation of the report but the arguments themselves come from Ofsted's own work. If I have misinterpreted or misrepresented any of the findings, please let me know. You can read the full report by clicking here.

This summary has taken me the longest to produce out of everything Ofsted have released so far. I’ve summarised all sections of the report, but if you’re only looking at the headlines, the first part of this will probably be most useful to you. I have summarised both the primary and secondary sections of the report too, hence the summary’s overall length.

The shortest summary I can make of the report is as follows:

Teachers and leaders should ensure be clear about what content should be learned and in what detail. These decisions should be based on ensuring pupils develop sufficient knowledge to access material they will encounter in the future. The curriculum should be sufficiently broad and deep to ensure this content is learned securely and so that teaching does not cause misconceptions or gaps in knowledge. Pupils need to be taught how historians construct historical knowledge. Leaders can support teachers and enable pupil success by making sure that content is specified in sufficient detail in addition to narrating the connections pupils should make between topics so that they develop a rich and sophisticated mental model of the many substantive and disciplinary historical concepts.

If you would like to support the work I do at the same time as downloading a high-quality PDF version of the visual summary, please visit my Gumroad page by clicking here . (I’ve included an additional PDF of the written notes and editable Microsoft Word version as a thank you for your support 🙏).

If you'd like to refresh your memory of the research review, click here for my summary.

🥜 The Report in a Nutshell

Most schools are offering a curriculum which is at least as ambitious as the National Curriculum.

The position of history is much more secure than it was 12 years ago when the previous history report was commissioned.

There has been significant work done in primary and secondary schools to develop the quality of their history curricula.

It appears that the gap in quality between primary and secondary history curricula has closed. Primary teachers’ subject knowledge has improved.

There was more variation in quality between schools than sectors, with schools sharing similar strengths and weaknesses.

The report uses the Research Review from 2021 as a lens to evaluate school curricula.

🔑 Key Points from the Report (Shorter Summary)

Effective curricula focus on development of key concepts over time. They map out the detail of the knowledge - both the substantive and disciplinary - children should learn and the way in which this knowledge is connected.

When pupils knowledge becomes richer and more secure over time, they are more able to access a broad curriculum which increases in complexity. The quality of the earlier curriculum affects pupils’ access and success with their later learning.

Effective curriculum planning involves basing curricular decisions on what pupils already know and understanding so that new content can build on what they already know. In addition, content is selected, emphasised and revisited to enable success with later learning.

There is variation in the quality of practice between schools. A lower quality of history education is provided when leaders fail to fully grasp the complexities of how pupils make progress in history.

Many schools have invested a significant amount of time into developing their history curriculum.

A lack of specificity and detail in what pupils should learn leads to a multitude of issues with curriculum design, teaching and assessment. An emphasis or focus on superficial understanding or approaches to answering historical questions leads to learning which is insecure, patchy and limits pupils’ understanding.

It is important to focus on developing pupils’ mental models and schemata rather than too narrowly focusing on recall of disconnected facts and dictionary definitions of concepts.

Leaders need to understand the nature of progress in history and not mistake generic features of lessons as evidence of high-quality teaching and learning.

Disciplinary knowledge is an area in which both primary and secondary schools have opportunities for development and improvement in developing pupils’ understanding of how historians work.

💎 What makes a history curriculum high-quality?

Pupils get better at history as they develop their substantive and disciplinary knowledge.

The ease with which pupils learn new material depends on the range, depth and security of their prior learning. Progress does not follow a linear path.

Leaders and teachers need to make careful decisions on which knowledge to emphasise and revisit. This is core knowledge .

Some concepts appear frequently throughout the curriculum. Pupils’ progress is dependent on the growing of their mental models and schema of these recurring concepts to be able to make sense of new material. Meaningful examples of concepts, which add increasing nuance and detail to mental models, are an effective way of growing pupils’ schema.

Pupils should develop chronological frameworks and knowledge of broader features of historical periods and places.

Pupils are supported in their learning by knowing enough about the historical context of the content they are studying. They need to have sufficient security with many aspects of the content in order to think historically and construct accounts or arguments.

Pupils need to understand how historians generate knowledge – historical argument is a specific form of knowledge construction. Over time, this understanding should develop and avoid providing pupils with simplistic or erroneous ideas.

The curriculum should have sufficient depth and breadth to enable pupils to become secure with the content they are studying, to prepare pupils for success with later content, to prevent pupils from developing misconceptions or over-generalisations, and to ensure that pupils develop a rich understanding of the diversity of the past on a local, national and international scale.

Over time, pupils’ knowledge should become increasingly secure and sophisticated. Pupils should be enabled to make important connections between different topics to develop a broader understanding of the past and its complexities.

The scope of disciplinary knowledge may be more limited for younger pupils but teachers should be aware of how their teaching prevents pupils from developing misconceptions or unhelpful oversimplifications.

For older pupils, teachers should teach pupils increasingly complex knowledge about important disciplinary concepts. Teaching ‘tips and tricks’ designed to score on KS4 examinations can lead to misconceptions about the nature of historical enquiry. Drawing on the published work of historians can be useful.

Teachers should choose activities which emphasise and revisit important content and concepts. This helps pupils remember core knowledge as well as providing the context for pupils to learn new material.

Narratives and stories are a highly effective way of teaching new content in history.

Support for pupils with SEND and those with gaps should be focused on pupils being able to achieve the curriculum goals rather than to make immediate tasks more accessible.

Assessment should enable teachers and leaders to make valid and meaningful judgements about the range and security of pupils’ knowledge. It should focus on whether pupils are secure in their knowledge and allow teachers to identify and then close gaps.

Teachers need to design assessment tasks carefully because of the difficulty in assessing composite knowledge.

When KS3 assessment is purely preparatory for GCSEs, it is unlikely to support high-quality teaching or assessment.

Leaders must ensure teachers have enough time to teach a broad and ambitious history curriculum. Leaders should also ensure that school policies are appropriately and sufficiently flexible to be adapted to the distinctive nature of history education.

Teachers need to have secure subject knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge to teach the curriculum effectively. Schools should support teachers in developing this.

Teachers who have responsibility for constructing the curriculum need to have strong knowledge of historical content and of the work of published historians, history educators and researchers.

✨ Recommendations from the Report

Teachers and leaders should understand that knowledge in history has generative power: the content pupils learn and the interaction between the components of this knowledge make it easier to learn new topics.

The curriculum should identify the most important content and concepts that support pupils with their future learning. This enables teachers to emphasise this content during lessons – both in terms of advance planning and responsive teaching.

Teachers should be confident in selecting appropriate pedagogical activities which emphasise key content in a meaningful way. This content should be emphasised and revisited to ensure pupils develop secure knowledge.

Effective pedagogy includes building on prior knowledge, using well-considered stories and examples which make abstract ideas more meaningful, and using explanations that help pupils connect facts, ideas and concepts.

Teachers should use assessment as a means to identify important gaps and misconceptions so they can make sure these are addressed. Such issues include any missing or incorrect knowledge which might significantly impact the learning of new material.

Support for children with SEND should focus on their ability to access the breadth and depth of the curriculum rather than on completion of immediate tasks. Pupils with SEND should be secure in the content and knowledge they need to make sense of the later curriculum.

The curriculum should be contain a wealth of different encounters with the past through a diverse range of times, people, places, societies, groups and experiences. The curriculum should provide different lenses for this study: political, social, economic and cultural.

The curriculum should enable pupils to develop meaningful and increasingly intricate knowledge of how historians study the past and how historical accounts are constructed. Reductive and misleading representations should be avoided.

Leaders should be systematic in their plans to develop teachers’ knowledge of both the content they teach, and of effective history teaching and learning.

The quality of the curriculum should be assured by leaders’ meaningful assessment of what pupils have learned and remembered over time.

ITT providers should ensure training enables new and ECT teachers how to develop pupils’ substantive and disciplinary understanding.

⏳ CURRICULUM

Planning for knowledge.

Curricula are more successful when prior knowledge is built upon and existing understanding is developed by the new content. Increasingly complex understanding is developed over time.

History is mainly taught as a separate topic with some schools more recently moving away from a ‘topic’ approach.

The typical amount of time for teaching history is between 60-90 minutes per fortnight. Actual teaching per week varies according to individual school timetables.

Many schools have invested significant time in developing the history curriculum.

A main weakness is when leaders’ ambitions are not sufficiently specific and are therefore too broad. For example, goals such as “I can ask historical questions” lack the specificity and clarity required for curriculum design, teaching and assessment.

Another is a lack of specificity in the detail of substantive and disciplinary knowledge that pupils should learn. It is important to plan for how broader aims from the curriculum would be met.

Securing Knowledge of Recurring Themes and Concepts

In the best cases, leaders plan carefully so that the curriculum emphasises key concepts and themes. This means that leaders have moved beyond a thematic approach and have actually considered how understanding within each theme should deepen and progress. This often occurs through using considered and meaningful examples.

Sometimes themes are selected but without the sufficient intentionality to be helpful for pupils with their later learning.

There needs to be sufficient breadth of themes within a curriculum. In some schools, this is too narrow and it limits what pupils can learn in the future.

There is a difference between schools where themes are taught with a dictionary definition compared to those where pupils develop rich and detailed mental models.

Chronology is usually well-developed in schools. Sometimes, it can be overemphasised at the expense of other important aspects.

Reception and KS1 teachers are usually very effective at scaffolding the mathematical understanding required for pupils to understand concepts of chronology. This is usually achieved through simplifying representations to help children make progress with their concept of time.

In the most effective cases, leaders go beyond ‘timeline knowledge’ to build a sense of ‘period’. The big stories of certain time periods are also shared.

Knowledge of Immediate Topic

In most schools, leaders plan for pupils to have meaningful encounters with past times and places. This is effective when knowledge is identified which helps them make sense of more complex ideas and developments.

Schools are typically particularly successful in developing topic knowledge in local history.

Sometimes, an assumption that pupils know more than they actually do can lead to misconceptions and gaps not being addressed.

The weakest practice occurs when pupils are asked to complete tasks for which they lack sufficient knowledge.

Going Beyond the Superficial

In some schools, teachers do not delve deeper beneath the most common facts about the topic: this can lead to pupils learning disconnected facts.

It is important for teachers to go beyond the superficial and lead pupils to understand and make connections between these facts.

Disciplinary Knowledge

This is a common area for development in most schools.

Framing topics with historically valid questions can help pupils understand how historians construct accounts of the past. It can provide the context to teach how historians use a range of techniques to answer different historical questions.

Sometimes enquiry questions just act as ‘titles’ for lessons and are not rooted in disciplinary thinking. This can have implications for what pupils retain – the question does not actually provide a structure or framework for the content that is studied.

Some questions use present-day thinking to view the past. For example, asking ‘Were Viking punishments fair?” This leads to misconceptions about the study of history.

Specific examples of how historians work can be very effective.

It is important that pupils understand the amount of knowledge that historians build in order to form interpretations of the past. Asking pupils to form their own, without providing sufficient knowledge, distorts their conception of how historians work. It also can teach and embed misconceptions about the topics being studied.

Significant misconceptions that are often identified include pupils perceiving primary sources as more ‘reliable’ than secondary sources as well as negatively commenting on ‘bias’.

In some schools, ‘historical significance’ is conflated with ‘impact’. It is important for pupils to learn what historical significance is, and how the nature of significance can change.

It is a mainly positive approach to focus on sources and evidence. Knowledge of how historians use sources can help pupils learn how different historians can construct different accounts and interpretations of the past.

Most of what pupils learn about sources focus on archaeological evidence or artefacts. This can sometimes lead to pupils forming misconceptions such as conflating historians with archaeologists.

Ensuring Breadth and Depth

In most schools, leaders have not considered how what is taught in Reception and KS1 can help pupils learn the content of KS2.

A significant number of schools consider coverage of topics as meeting the aims of the National Curriculum. Stronger schools aim for pupils to study topics in depth.

A Range of Places and Societies

The best provision ensures that pupils develop an interconnected understanding of different places, peoples and times. They can put developments into a wider framework.

In some cases, opportunities are missed due to the lack of range and examples. For example, some schools do not teach the NC requirement about the earliest civilisations, reducing this to only teaching about Ancient Egypt. This prevents children from understanding key similarities and themes.

Local History

Most teaching of local history is high-quality and enhance pupils’ enjoyment of history. Often, schools link local history to the wider context.

Range of Periods and Timescales

Most schools’ curricula match the periods outlined in the National Curriculum.

In the best examples, pupils learn about historical developments both broadly and in depth. When teachers aim to develop pupils’ knowledge of coherent narratives over time, it enables them to contextualise more in-depth studies.

In some schools, a significant amount of time is dedicated to modern history, which pupils also study in KS3. In a third of schools, this amounted to a year or more of curriculum time. This can limit the amount of content and reduce the breadth and depth of what pupils can study in the rest of the curriculum.

A Range of People, Groups and Experiences

Many schools have recently adapted their curricula to include new studies of individuals.

When teaching about the stories of individuals, it is important to provide sufficient contextual knowledge so that pupils do not develop misconceptions from over-generalising. For example, when teaching about Rosa Parks, pupils can develop misconceptions that segregation occurred everywhere in the USA, only occurred on public transport, or that Rosa Parks was the first person to challenge the policies from the time.

Fields of Enquiry

It is important for schools to consider the range of lenses for studying history. Political history is most commonly taught in schools and coherence is mainly achieved. However, social, cultural and economic history is rarely taught with the same coherence. This can limit the conceptualisations pupils make about the past. Leaders should pay attention to how different aspects of history can be blended together to give a more holistic understanding of the past.

Most pupils remember what they have been taught. There is, however, sometimes inconsistencies between what has been remembered, especially in schools where leaders do not provide guidance around the important knowledge that benefits pupils as they progress through the curriculum.

It is often the case that a significant amount of pupils remember superficial details about topics, knowing less about how people lived, how societies functioned and how developments occurred.

Where teachers regularly connect prior learning with new content during explanations, pupils are more able to develop rich and connected knowledge.

Around half of pupils fail to remember broader narratives beyond the details of what they have been taught. This typically happens when leaders have not identified how pupils’ knowledge should be connected across topics and year groups.

Teachers should emphasise and revisit the content which is important for pupils to be secure with in order to learn future knowledge.

Most pupils have a limited ability to communicate their ideas through writing. Sometimes this is because opportunities are limited; other times it is because of teachers’ intentional avoidance. Consequently, some older pupils are restricted when writing.

Across the sample of schools, there was very limited knowledge in how historians study and construct accounts of the past, leading to most pupils having significant misconceptions. Sometimes, pupils can develop a mistrust of historians due to these misconceptions.

In the more effective schools, teachers plan activities and explanations based on what pupils already know.

Pedagogical activities should focus on the content teachers want pupils to learn – in a few schools, task design is misaligned. For example, pupils build a roundhouse without learning the historical knowledge such as its features or when such a house was common.

Revisiting important content helps pupils to understand underlying concepts and the bigger ideas which transcend individual lessons and topics. This can be achieved through specific activities or through carefully-crafted explanations.

Stories are particularly effective in history – both individual stories and those with broader themes. Often, the combination of both supports conceptual development.

In Reception, stories are used particularly effective in teaching vocabulary and concepts.

In less effective lessons, teachers do not always consider what pupils need to know to make sense of the material or engage meaningfully. This can result in time-intensive activities and guesswork, which can itself lead to misconceptions and gaps in knowledge.

Time-intensive tasks reduce curriculum time available to teaching more content. This limits the overall potential for breadth and depth in the curriculum. This can affect what is possible in other subjects, like geography, if history is timetabled so that curriculum time is shared across the year.

In less effective practice, teachers rarely revisit what pupils have previously been taught. Sometimes, material is revisited but it has not been selected for its purpose, limiting the usefulness of such an exercise.

Pupils with SEND are generally not very well supported in terms of how gaps in their knowledge are planned for. Support is often more addressed at task completion rather than how content will be learned, and the impact of gaps on this.

📝 ASSESSMENT

In around half of the sample schools, pupils’ knowledge is assessed so that teachers can identify what has been learned and what gaps exist in their knowledge.

In the most effective schools, teachers had a shared understanding of the key content in which pupils need to be secure. Teachers in these schools regularly check for understanding of new content to identify and address gaps quickly. Sometimes, key content is returned to regularly to ensure it is retained and secure.

In around one third of schools, the way assessment practices have been implemented means that teachers are not supported well to identify and close gaps.

Assessment practices vary across schools. Commonly, assessment practices do not provide sufficiently detailed or useful information about what pupils know.

Oftentimes, broad labels for assessment are used without moderation or discussion between teachers about what these labels mean. Such labelling fails to take into account the explicit knowledge required by pupils to make progress.

Poor proxies for learning, such as presentation or engagement, can sometimes be used by teachers when making assessments.

Where teachers make assessments against broad and vague descriptors such as ‘being able to ask historical questions’, pupils’ knowledge is not being adequately assessed. Moreover, the impact of feedback given by teachers to pupils is often imprecise.

🏫 SCHOOL SYSTEMS AND POLICIES

Policies should reflect and be adapted to the distinctive nature of history.

It is typical to teach history for one whole afternoon per week; this is sometimes due to teachers using time-intensive pedagogies.

Whole-school decisions have typically improved the quality of history education – especially in creating time for building subject knowledge by reducing workload commitments elsewhere.

However, some decisions are less effective; where assessment procedures do not take into account the nature of history, teachers often lack the necessary flexibility to make effective assessments. For example, using broad assessment descriptors does not reflect what pupils know.

Superficial application of general pedagogy or curriculum design principles does not ensure that all pupils will be successful: all policies need to take the distinctive nature of history into account.

The effectiveness of quality assurance varies between schools. It is more effective when it focuses on the features of high-quality history education.

👩🏼 ‍TEACHER KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERTISE

In most schools, teachers have sufficient knowledge of what they are teaching. This is impressive due to the demands of subject knowledge from across a wide curriculum.

It is helpful for schools to provide guidance and resources to support teachers to develop subject knowledge. In more than half of schools, there is no additional time provided for this. Some teachers need to conduct extensive research to prepare themselves to teach topics.

Content choices in the curriculum are sometimes informed by staff subject knowledge. This can limit curriculum development.

Subject leads typically receive history-specific CPD; teachers rarely receive training on what it means to make progress in history.

Teachers typically lack sufficient expertise in how to assess pupils in history. School guidance does not always help.

In most schools, teachers lacked expertise in teaching disciplinary knowledge.

Subject leaders typically have very little additional time and support to help carry out their roles.

🤔 Secondary

History is mainly taught as a separate topic. Where this is not the case, such as teaching combined humanities, it limits the history content pupils are taught.

The typical amount of time for teaching history is between 100-150 minutes per fortnight.

In most schools, leaders have considered the detail of both the substantive and disciplinary content they want pupils to learn. There is usually a sound rationale for this content as well as which content to emphasise. In weaker practice, this rationale is limited.

Some curriculum plans lack the connections which enable mental models to be developed; pupils can learn facts which appear disconnected.

In more effective practice, leaders consider the detailed knowledge which pupils will need to understand the content they are studying and future content. This sophisticated thinking also identified content which needs emphasising and should be at pupils’ fingertips.

When schools organise their learning around themes, it is less effective when leaders do not consider what pupils will know about each theme at particular points in their curriculum journey. Teachers with stronger subject knowledge are able to mitigate this, but those with weaker subject knowledge are less able to do so.

Variation in teacher subject knowledge can lead to variation in what pupils learn as they progress through the curriculum.

In weaker practice, concepts to be learned were treated as vocabulary items to be memorised rather than mental models to be developed.

Chronology is usually well-developed in schools. Sometimes, it can be limited to ordering chronological events.

Leaders generally consider the big stories and developments of the curriculum. In a few cases, leaders have detailed the knowledge from different topics which can be connected to form coherent narratives about different aspects of the past.

In the most effective cases, leaders emphasise broader features of periods to help pupils appreciate the factors affecting people and institutions. Not doing so can leave pupils with patchy knowledge.

In most schools, leaders recognise the importance of pupils having secure knowledge of the narrative of key events they are studying. When done well, this enables pupils to secure knowledge of the topic and make sense of more challenging information.

In a few schools, teachers ensure that pupils have a strong grasp of the contextual factors which are related to the content they are studying.

The range and depth of teachers’ knowledge, and the specification on curriculum plans of what pupils need to know, are both associated with how successfully teachers secure pupils’ knowledge of contexts and narratives.

It is powerful for teachers to discuss the ‘fingertip’ knowledge pupils need to get the most from their teaching sequences.

When teachers are less secure about the connectedness of the events they are teaching and how they relate to the curriculum aims, pupils can struggle to learn new material.

In most schools, leaders recognise the importance of and have planned for progression in disciplinary knowledge.

In most schools, the scope of the intended knowledge is limited: this is due to focusing on pupils making judgements rather than the disciplinary and substantive knowledge they need to do this better over time.

Pupils tend to learn simplistic ‘tips and tricks’ which misrepresent the nature of historical enquiry. Pupils are taught to answer questions using heuristics such as PEEL rather than being taught meaningful knowledge to help them understand how historians use sources or communicate about the past. There is a lack of planning about what pupils will know about how historians study the past and construct accounts. This generally improves at KS5, but pupils are often poorly prepared for this.

Using examples of the practices of real historians does not always adequately secure pupils’ disciplinary knowledge. Such practice is useful but not sufficient.

Topics are typically structured around enquiry questions; the best examples weave together the substantive and disciplinary knowledge leaders intend pupils to learn.

In around half of schools, leaders have not considered the relationship between substantive and disciplinary knowledge. This can lead to pupils being asked to answer questions for which they lack sufficient knowledge.

Historical questions can sometimes be too narrow or ill-conceived. Narrow questions mean that some important aspects of the past are not taught, and some questions use present-day lenses to interrogate the past.

Sometimes, historical content is framed to strongly suggest a ‘right’ answer to enquiry questions. Teachers sometimes encourage pupils to take a particular moral or political position on contested issues.

Approaches which lead to a more secure disciplinary knowledge include:

Plans for teaching disciplinary knowledge are influenced by an understanding of how specific historians have approached particular questions.

Leaders carefully plan overarching enquiry questions for topics – these foreground an aspect of disciplinary knowledge, such as how historians use sources.

Leaders explicitly plan how pupils learn more, and more complex, disciplinary knowledge over time.

Leaders and teachers ensure pupils have sufficiently secure substantive knowledge of topics so that they could make sense of how historians have studied periods.

Most schools have a broad curriculum which represents the complexity of the past.

There is considerable variation between schools in terms of the depth of their curricula. Sometimes, leaders have not considered the depth they wanted pupils to achieve, which leads to teachers not always connecting knowledge within and between topics. This can lead to an under-developed understanding of topics with pupils recalling mainly disconnected facts.

Most schools dedicate much more time to 19th and 20th century history than to earlier periods. This can lead to patchy understanding of pre-19th century history. Typically, pupils learn little about the 12th, 15th and 18th centuries.

In a few schools, teaching leads to pupils developing overly-simplistic ideas and misconceptions about people who lived in earlier periods.

High-quality explanations enable teachers to help pupils appreciate how topics are connected and make sense of broader developments and contexts.

Detailed knowledge of developments in other parts of the world complements pupils’ knowledge of British history in most schools. The best examples make connections between these different aspects.

In around a third of schools, pupils’ learning about topics beyond the British Isles was limited in terms of content and, consequently, making connections.

In most schools, pupils have regular encounters with local history, covering different periods. These are often linked with broader developments.

There has often been careful thought about the content of the curriculum.

In a significant minority of schools, misconceptions develop about the experience of particular groups. Often, pupils see groups as being homogenous and assume large numbers of people share similar experiences. Sometimes, teaching can be unbalanced in terms of emphasising only the negative experiences of a particular group. This typically happens when the complexity and diversity of experiences in the past have not been accurately represented; often, this is caused by teachers’ lack of sufficient content knowledge.

Sometimes, enquiry questions can reflect modern values rather than exploring historical issues.

In most schools, political and social aspects of the past are taught.

Sometimes, connections between aspects are not made. This means opportunities are missed for pupils to consider previously learned content with a different viewpoint and hence develop their schema.

There tends to be significantly less taught about the cultural and economic aspects of what pupils study. When they are included, they are often isolated and not connected to broader narratives. This content is often planned for less deliberately than political and social history.

Pupils tend to find economic and cultural history more difficult to access due to lack the relevant conceptual knowledge. This limits what they can learn.

Most pupils gain a secure knowledge of aspects of the topics they have been taught. In around a third of schools, pupils’ knowledge is very secure: they know about historical topics in depth.

In under a third of schools, there are significant gaps between pupils in the depth and security of their knowledge. This can sometimes be caused by lower expectations for specific groups of pupils. Other times, it can be attributed to a lack of clear identification in curriculum planning or poor checking for understanding.

In stronger practice, pupils gain secure knowledge of recurring concepts. This is because they have learned about these concepts and phenomena in a range of contexts.

Sometimes, pupil knowledge is limited to superficial knowledge. Pupils remember details about some aspects but can fail to recall their relationship to the concepts that have been taught.

Security with content enables pupils to make sense of later learning. Pupils often struggle when knowledge from previously taught content is not secure.

When pupils lack broader contextual knowledge, it can make it more difficult for them to learn new material. Pupils often lack understanding of political and social issues as well as people’s values and attitudes.

It is common for pupils to have misconceptions about disciplinary knowledge. These are typically caused by:

Limited or poor curriculum planning

Insufficient ambition in plans for disciplinary knowledge

Teachers’ misrepresentations of the complexity of historical traditions and approaches, or

Teachers’ lack of pedagogical content knowledge about how to teach disciplinary traditions in history.

Many pupils have misconceptions about the work of historians, such as the archaeologist/historian conflation which persists from primary schools, and the belief that it is a historian’s job to spot ‘bias’.

Only in very few schools do pupils achieve a sophisticated and representative understanding of the way historians work.

Most teachers choose appropriate activities to teach the content they want their pupils to learn. It is most effective when these activities allow pupils to maintain an analytical focus.

The most effective explanations skilfully emphasise important content and draw pupils’ attention to important information so that links are made between pupils’ prior understanding and the new material.

Using extended texts in lessons can be very effective if pupils’ prior knowledge is taken into account. Otherwise, pupils can struggle to make sense of such texts.

Individual stories can be used very effectively to illuminate broader developments as well as demonstrate the diversity of experiences.

In many schools, teachers do not consistently make the most of opportunities to help pupils make connections. This can often be attributed to leaders and teachers prioritising pupils thinking for themselves. Often, pupils develop misconceptions and gaps when such approaches are taken.

In around a half of the schools, significant lesson time is used to teach pupils approaches to answering questions based on GCSE examinations. The focus is on how to answer questions rather than on building sufficient knowledge.

It is uncommon for teachers to regularly check for understanding before moving on. Sometimes, challenging content is moved through too quickly.

There is considerable variation in how schools revisit content. The most effective approach is for leaders to have a considered and sophisticated rationale for which content to revisit so that pupils are secure with such content at set points in their curriculum journey.

There is mixed quality of support for pupils with SEND. In the best cases, pupils are supported to understand and remember the most important content from each content. In the weakest cases, teachers do not know how to support pupils with SEND.

There are significant differences between schools in how they assess history and how teachers use information from assessments.

The best examples of assessment are when teachers identify the most important content and concepts in the curriculum and focus assessment on these. In lessons, teachers systematically check whether this content is learned during lessons and return to it often to ensure it is being retained.

In more than half of the schools, assessment is insufficiently focused on whether pupils have secured the most important content. This can be for several reasons:

A lack of clarity over the most important content and concepts;

A focus on broad skills rather than checking for security of underlying knowledge;

Formative assessment is too infrequent;

Teachers accept misleading sources of information about what pupils know – such as responses from a single pupil.

Only checking knowledge of isolated facts rather than their connection to broader knowledge of topics.

Assessment in around half of schools is based on GCSE-style questions.

In most schools, assessment of disciplinary knowledge is weak.

In most schools, whole-school policies and decisions help teachers provide high-quality history education. Teachers typically find this helpful, especially when adaptations can be made to reflect the distinctive nature of history.

Leaders often support departments by providing significant time for developing and renewing the curriculum.

When teachers are required to devote significant time to marking work, this reduces the time they have available to focus on curriculum design and its impact on pupils learning. Generally, such requirements are being appropriately reduced.

It is less effective when leaders require teachers to use pedagogical approaches regardless of whether they are appropriate for history teaching and learning. Often, approaches to teaching and assessment are distorted due to leaders’ focus on preparation for KS4 exams.

Most quality assurance focuses on surface level features rather than reflecting more rigorous scrutiny and evaluation of the curriculum design, teaching and assessment.

In the majority of schools, teachers have good subject knowledge. Although rare, there are examples in some schools of teachers working regularly with historians.

In a few schools, leaders take a systematic approach to developing teachers’ subject and pedagogical content knowledge over time through regular discussions and training.

The disparity between teachers’ knowledge of how historians work and their teaching of disciplinary knowledge suggests a dissonance between meeting the National Curriculum aims and other school priorities such as examination performance.

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