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Original poster

Any History teachers about?

28 replies

MoBiroBo · 15/03/2019 17:38

Ds1 is in year 11, he is predicted a grade 7 which is obviously amazing but his teacher said if he wants a higher grade he needs to change his writing style.

He actually said to us at parents' evening that Ds is writing at A level standard and he needs to signpost the answer, literally point to the answer.

We believe this means if the question is "Why was public health in medieval monasteries so good" he has to start each paragraph with some version of "The public health of monasteries was so good because...."

His AO1 is good so it isn't a lack of knowledge or AO2, just the way he writes.

I don't have a WAGOLL for any GCSE history questions, only one on sources provided by school which says things like "I know this...." and then demonstrates some AO1 not in the source, and "this would be a good source for a historian because..."

His exam board is OCR.

OP posts:
SJane48S · 16/03/2019 10:56

and that was meant to read stats not stars!

SJane48S · 16/03/2019 10:55

Hope this isn't majorly unhelpful but doesn't he need to challenge and break down the question? I have a History degree and admittedly it has been decades since I did GCSE or A Levels but in my day, writing an essay starting each paragraph with 'The public health of monasteries was so good because..'wouldn't get you top marks as it's incredibly clunky & a boring read! How about something along these lines:

  • Intro para - what he is going to say
  • What is meant by good? Differences in our understanding of what good health actually means in 2019 compared to the period of time they are focusing on
  • General health of the population (making a point these varied by class/wealth/location (rural v urban) using any stars he has
  • Health of the population in monasteries - what do we know? How do we know (pointing out literacy rates, record keeping etc. Throw in example)
  • On to the 'Why' - separate paragraphs on monastery funding & wealth, localised heath care (monks trained in health practioning, access to books on medicine, books written by monks on health - refer back to literacy rates), sanitation practises & access to clean water, access to better nutrition (referring to fish ponds, vegetable gardens & food given to monasteries by the local population), closing off of monasteries in disease outbreaks, finishing off with few monks engaged in life threatening or hard physical labour
  • Final paragraph - sum up. Health in monasteries not good by our current understanding of the word however thanks to meticulous record keeping, it was comparatively better than much (but not all - the well off would have enjoyed similar health). In conclusion, monks had a relatively privileged existence & more limited exposure to disease & therefore better overall health expectancy etc etc.

Again, hope this isn't incredibly unhelpful & appreciate things could have changed hugely since I went to school. I just find it hard to believe they are looking for him to start every sentence with 'the public health of monasteries was good because...', that's just terrible!!

Pythonesque · 16/03/2019 08:29

Ooh I'm going to watch this thread too ... We've been told that grade boundaries between 7/8/9 can be very close in History, at least on the board my daughter's doing. Sadly it does seem like an awful lot of GCSE preparation is about exam technique, really specifically earning each mark.