Updating our gcse units today and resources and I just want to say how much I love @1972SHP @OCR_History gcse. Here’s some of the reasons why:

1. A simple spec that is just one page long that even students can understand but allows depth and breadth of content.

2. The specification is not overly prescriptive in what content students need to learn. Giving teachers freedom to adapt it for their context.

3. We’ve been able to easily diversify units by incorporating women different ethnicities and social history while staying within the spec.

4. Flexibility means that we’ve been able to weave local history throughout our gcse seemlessly and engage students with local archives and museums.

5. The history around us unit is a proper local history unit that allows teachers and students to really understand the historic environment.

6. Brilliant textbooks written by @richkbristol and @apf102 that provide breadth and depth.

7. The exam question stems are simple enough that lower ability can understand and engage but provide enough scope to allow higher ability to be challenged.

8. Minimal spec means teachers can bring in their specialist knowledge. For example Print culture and little ice age not explicitly on spec but I can bring it in to enrich some of the bullet points.

9. Likewise we had a teacher who had done a masters on the development of midwifes and we could bring in her research to our units.

10. A brilliant range of options that allow teachers to stay with popular topics but also consider unusual topics! I mean we don’t do it but we could do Aztecs and Spanish conquest!

11. As a course it promotes diversity in history and allow teachers and students the opportunities to explore meaningful history. This allows us to explore the relevant areas of interest to us and our students.

12. The questions stems are similar across topics meaning less time spent on exam technique and more on teaching great history.

13. The openness and flexibility of the spec means I never feel like I am constrained or just teaching to the exam but teaching history and the exam is just a way to see what they’ve learnt.

14. In short if you want a gcse history that puts great history at the front then @OCR_History is a great choice.