Aly Boniface, Head of History at Park High School, discusses his experiences and why he chose OCR.

Tell us about yourself

I have been a teacher for 10 years and a Head of Department for 4 in a large mixed comprehensive in Harrow with a growing department. Our main challenge has been in making History more popular, and we have been successful in making history one of the most popular choices in a school where it has been a small subject for many years.

I currently teach a three-year GCSE and have selected the following topics from the reformed GCSE History A specification:

• International relations: the changing international order 1918 – 2001, plus the depth study Germany 1925 – 1955: The people and the state
• War and British society c. 790 – c. 2010
• Personal rule to restoration 1629 – 1660 with Castles: form and function c. 1000 – 1750.

"My main concern from the latest round of reforms lay in the ability to deliver what felt like a very large amount of material to students in essentially the same amount of time. To the casual observer it initially seemed as if we were being required to cover twice as much in international relations, a little more in the depth study, and then three large units replacing one piece of controlled assessment. After speaking with the team at OCR all of these concerns were laid to rest, and the realisation that this new GCSE has much greater focus on breadth than depth, really made a difference to planning and understanding."

"Some initial concerns also lay around the castles unit, but the work that has been done by OCR and by English heritage has made it very clear that we will be very well placed to complete a fascinating unit with the help of the people who run the castles! Given the shift in policy to 'essentially' compulsory History or Geography, I have taken the opportunity to co-opt the geography field trip to Swanage to include a visit to Corfe Castle!"

"We started with this topic as it seemed best to 'go with what we know'. I have a relatively young team and so being able to give the confidence of starting with very familiar topics - albeit cut down - has been a real bonus. One of the key things that heads of department consider when choosing a course is the familiarity, but there is also a pull to do the course that students will find most engaging. By starting with international relations, we tackle something that staff are familiar and confident with, and that there is a huge amount of material already available for."

"This availability of material also reflects the fact that the vast majority of GCSE study for the last 30 years has been focussed on the 20th century, and we will need time to gather our understanding of what is required to teach the long study to 14–16 year olds. This will also give us time to alter our key stage 3 somewhat to cover more in-depth issues which will be mentioned, but not fully explored in the war and society course (the Napoleonic Wars, for example)."

"It is our first year of teaching GCSE to year nine, and we started the course in February, after a term and a half of depth studies on the two world wars, and a lot of training on extended writing. They have really risen to the challenge of the course, and are very much enjoying the structure and challenge. They have particularly enjoyed engaging in the debates surrounding the interpretations of Appeasement."

"What has also been really enjoyable is that the nature of the questions feel more 'historical' than they have in the past, and certainly from the other exam boards. There is a sense of 'why do you think this happened like this', rather than 'what can you tell us about what happened'."

"Despite having planned to go more rapidly through the course than in the past, the wealth of information, plus the additional time we have, has meant that our progress has been slower than would be required if this was being taught in two years. Anyone seeking to teach this in two years should know that it is certainly possible to do so, but that really careful planning of the 'familiar' elements will be necessary!"