Junior History Exams

Junior History Exams

There is some discussion going on just now about what sort of exams should be set to junior pupils in the years before GCSE.

For what it is worth, this is what we did. Many teachers in other subjects regarded this with deep suspicion, but none of the history teachers did (except that it took a long time to mark).

By “Juniors” I mean the three years before the GCSE course started. In Scotland we call this P7, S1 and S2. Is this Y7, Y8 and Y9 in England?

Part 1: Facts test on the history we had studied during the year.

P7: Tested on a specific list of facts (a double side of A4) given out about 10 days in advance.

S1: A carefully selected set of pages (about 20) in the text book.

S2: Rather more pages in what was a more advanced text-book.

This enabled hard-working pupils to do well – good for self-esteem. Pupils who reckoned they were “less good at history” (whatever that means) could surprise themselves by doing well. Chancers had nowhere to hide. With luck most of them ended the year knowing some bits of history that were worth knowing.

Part 2: Essay

But (and this was the bit some members of other departments could not understand) the titles were given out in advance. In fact, as you will all realise, this meant that no one who could have written a good essay could be caught out by unexpected titles, and no chancer would benefit from an essay on the one topic he knew about a bit. Everyone could (and almost all did) apply the methods of essay writing we had worked on during the year, and work hard at preparing the best essay they could.

The fact that they still had to write it from memory, and against the clock, gave them useful practice in the exam situation.

Part 3. Sources

I can’t now remember exactly what questions we set. But the principle was to set material (on the period we had been studying) that required the minimum of background knowledge beyond the general, and which obliged them to read carefully and to think, before writing their answers.

Part 4: Optional

A pet hate of mine was characters who sat twiddling their thumbs (or being a nuisance) after the exam had finished, so there was some sort of open-ended task that was fun enough to get on with, for those who finished early.

Marking:  No marks, grades or orders

I suppose this was the radical bit. Over the years as Head of Department I had arguments with heads and deputy heads which I sometimes lost for a year or two, but always ended up winning in the end. (My last Headmaster was a history teacher and a lot younger than me, which made it easier).

But every pupil would have an A4 comment sheet, divided into sections (Effort – Writing – I cant remember now – which had to be filled in. You can see why we found the marking harder work than the tick-the-box merchants in other subjects.

Summary

I look back at this and think “Yes. It worked all right”. We may not have gone on to get outstanding GCSE results (we didn’t) but all our juniors, even the ones who took the subject no further, had a petty useful education every exam season.