Securing the future of SHP history and smoothing the transition to new history GCSEs in 2016

• New official SHP GCSE history specification, based on SHP principles, to be provided by OCR in 2016.
• In addition, OCR will continue to offer an alternative GCSE History, based around explaining the modern world, in 2016.

With significant changes to GCSE history on the horizon, OCR and SHP are delighted to announce a major new partnership. We’ll be working together to produce the best possible, and only official, Schools History Project (SHP) specification, which will be provided exclusively by OCR.

The development is being led by SHP fellows and their Director, Michael Riley, so you can be confident that SHP’s core principles will be fully realised in the new specification. Existing good SHP practice from current GCSE qualifications will be preserved, and improvements made so that the specification genuinely aligns with SHP values.

Both OCR and SHP recognise that, although some aspects of GCSE history are in need of an overhaul, these changes will mean considerable upheaval and much hard work for teachers. So our specification will be fully supported with new books and resources, produced by SHP authors. OCR’s own experienced team of specialists will be on hand to support the specification as well.

You can read Michael Riley’s initial thoughts on the new subject criteria here in order to get an idea of the areas we’ll be addressing, and OCR will keep you updated with developments during the autumn and spring via its website and e-bulletins. Both SHP and OCR look forward to producing and supporting a new and genuine Schools History Project specification, and to ensuring that SHP’s 40 year tradition of supporting teachers and working to improve history teaching will continue to flourish under the new GCSE criteria.

We’re confident that we’ll end up with a rigorous and exciting qualification that will appeal to all SHP teachers, and will hopefully attract more.

OCR is delighted that SHP themselves are playing a key role in producing an SHP specification, and that they have agreed to work exclusively with us to develop, support and endorse the qualification. This underlines our commitment to working with the history teaching community, and we think it is highly appropriate that a specification labelled as ‘SHP’ should have that level of input from the Project.

We recognise and value SHP’s contribution to history in schools over the past four decades – just as we recognise that alternative approaches to history can also be valid. That is why, in addition to producing the only official SHP specification from 2016, we will also continue to offer an alternative, based around explaining the modern world. As with our exclusive SHP specification, this specification is being developed in partnership with experts, and will be fully resourced and supported.