By Melanie Jones

The recent White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, announced the introduction of the English Baccalaureate [EBacc]. This is designed to encourage schools to offer a broad range of academic subjects. To gain an EBacc, students will need to achieve A*-C qualifications in English, Maths, Science, a Language (modern or ancient) and either History or Geography. The percentage of students in each school achieving this target will be reported in school ‘league tables' for 2010, to be published in January 2011. The History grade could be in GCSE History or Ancient History, or Cambridge iGCSE.

The EBacc will be a certificate issued to students who achieve the required grades. In the short term, existing reporting at Key Stage 4 will continue, with the EBacc appearing alongside this. But in the long term? What role will the EBacc play in encouraging schools to offer a ‘broad and balanced' academic curriculum? And what will be the impact of this new qualification on history teaching and learning? How should history departments respond? Is this a way we can encourage Senior Leadership Teams to allow more students to study history to GCSE? If so, what are the arguments we should use?

We would like to hear your thoughts on this, and what impact you think this might have in your school. To post your views on our forum, please visit the link below.
 d599790.u27.ukisp.com/resources/secondary_news_983.html