How to develop pupils’ understanding of chronology at key stage 3
3. How should teachers assess pupils’ progress in chronological understanding?
Chronological understanding and the history attainment target
The learning objectives set out in section 2 of this guidance set out what most pupils should be able to achieve by the age of 14. These are closely linked to the level descriptions in the history attainment target, which should be used as the means of assessing pupils’ progress in chronological understanding. It is expected that most pupils will reach levels 5/6 by the end of key stage 3 but you will need to provide opportunities for more able pupils to progress beyond these levels.
The first three level descriptions of the attainment target contain an explicit reference to chronology, focusing mainly on an understanding of the vocabulary of chronological understanding and the development of a sense of period.
Level 1 |
Pupils show their emerging sense of chronology by placing a few events and objects in order. |
Level 2 |
Pupils show their developing sense of chronology by using terms concerned with the passing of time by placing events and objects in order and by recognising that their own lives are different from the lives of people in the past. |
Level 3 |
Pupils show their developing sense of chronology by their realisation that the past can be divided into different periods of time, their recognition of some of the similarities and differences between these periods, and their use of dates and terms. |
Thereafter pupils will need to continue to practice and develop their knowledge of the vocabulary of chronology along with all other aspects of chronological understanding put forward in this guidance in order to make progress in history and to meet the requirements set out in the higher level descriptions.
For example at level 5 pupils are required to ‘describe features of past societies and periods and begin to make links between them’, and at level 6 ‘to make links between features within and across different periods’. At level 8 pupils’ ‘explanations of reasons for and results of events and changes are set in a wider historical context.’
Assessing pupil progress in chronological understanding
Assessment should take a variety of forms. A number of the activities provided in section 6 of this guidance could be adapted to assess progress in the various aspects of chronological understanding during and at the end of key stage 3.
For example the following activity has been adapted as a summative assessment task for use at the end of key stage 3. A possible mark scheme has been included for use with the task.
The taskA card-sort activity to enable pupils to gain an overview of developments in working lives from 1066 to the present day and an example of how chronological knowledge is essential for an understanding of important concepts such as cause, change and significance. Pupils are asked to use the set of cards A–K as prompts so that they can draw on their knowledge and understanding of key stage 3 history to complete some of the activities that become progressively more challenging. Pupils:
Initially the pupils could be asked to use the cards in group discussions so that they can explore and share their ideas before completing a written task on developments in working lives from 1066 to the present day. This task could easily be adapted to focus on other themes that feature in the key stage 3 programme of study such as political, religious, cultural or scientific developments. |
The cards A-K
G. Ninety per cent of people worked as farm labourers. Many were villeins who had to work on their lords’ land every week. |
C. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many people combined farming with working in small-scale industries, such as coal mining and the cloth trade. |
K. The monasteries employed many workers but after the Dissolution of the Monasteries these workers had to find work elsewhere. |
H. People began to move to the rapidly growing towns to find work in textile factories and metalworking industries. |
I. Ten per cent of people worked in towns as traders or worked in shops and inns. |
A. Men, women and children worked long hours in dangerous conditions in many factories and mines. |
B. The Black Death and Peasants’ Revolt changed working lives. Villeins were given their freedom and many workers received higher wages. |
J. The government began to pass laws to reduce working hours and to improve working conditions. |
F. After the Black Death women had more opportunities to find work in towns or to run their own businesses. |
D. Less than half the population now worked in the countryside as farmers. |
E. The Norman conquest did not affect people’s working lives. |
Possible mark scheme for a task on developments in working lives from 1066 to the present day
Lowest attainment: Drawing on the cards and a little contextual knowledge and understanding, some events in sequence, but some not. Some gaps in dating. Understanding of centuries insecure. Some basic change identified. Pupil’s responses could include: ‘The Black Death caused a big change in people’s lives …’ |
Low attainment: Drawing on the cards and some contextual knowledge and understanding, sequence of events mostly correct (some overlaps are possible anyway). Dates roughly correct and some correct use of terminology such as ‘century’. Significant changes identified. Pupils’ responses could include: ‘People’s working lives changed most because of the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution. These were important events in British history …’ |
Below average attainment: Drawing on the cards and their contextual knowledge and understanding, sequence of events correct and dated with reasonable accuracy. Clear awareness of turning points and describing how people’s lives changed as a result,using the terms ‘before’ and ‘after’. Pupils’ responses could include: ‘The Black Death brought freedom to medieval peasants, who became free, working for wages. The Industrial Revolution was a major turning point because by the end of the nineteenth century it had changed where most people in Britain lived …’ |
Average attainment: Drawing on the cards and quite detailed contextual knowledge and understanding, sequence of events accurate, with some pairing of cards; dating completely accurate. Clear understanding of changes and use of chronology to point out continuities. Turning points identified and some links made between them. Pupils’ responses could include: ‘The fourteenth-century Black Death was the biggest change in people’s lives in the medieval period. It changed people’s working lives by freeing many peasants from labour services, but most British people still lived in the countryside and worked on the land until the mid-nineteenth century …’ |
Higher attainment: Drawing on the cards and detailed contextual knowledge and understanding, sequence of events and dates entirely accurate, with some explanation of why some cards are pairs of contemporaneous events. Impact of changes identified and evaluated, confident use of chronology. Links and comparisons made across the whole time-span. Pupils’ responses could include: ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–40) changed many people’s lives, but this event was not as important as the Black Death nearly two centuries earlier because the population collapse completely changed how people earned their living. Cards D and J can be put together because laws regulating working conditions were passed over several years, including the decade of the 1840s when Britain, for the first time, had more people living in urban than in rural areas …’ |
For further information and guidance on assessment at key stage 3, go to the ‘Developing assessment’ section of this website.
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