Really, your SoW should be produced with your end-of-unit assessment in mind.

So, when you are planning out the unit, you START by devising the end-of-unit assessment. Hopefully, you will make it an exciting but differentiatable exercise! Tell the pupils what the assessment piece is before you do ANY work on the unit at all. - so they know what they are heading for, and can make mental notes along the way.

Also, make sure you link the assessment piece to clear assessment criteria, which you will share with the pupils at the beginning of the unit ALSO (and then again before you send them away to do the assessment).

You can find a copy of the generic markscheme I use at Greenfield HERE

Then, when you have devised your end-of-unit assessment, you go back to plan your lessons. Working from how many lessons you have, you set out your lessons in a clear sequence, making sure that at some point your SoW addresses ALL the stuff the pupils need to know to make a decent stab at the assessment piece. This will particularly greatly affect the written work you set in each lesson, because that will be determined by the written notes they will need to have to do the assessment.

Finally, when you have taught through to the end of the topic, spend a lesson explaining the assessment piece to the pupils. Show them how what they have spent the last n weeks learning all fits in to the assignment, but also give them a sheet with ideas of how the caring and the able can GO FURTHER - e.g. direct their attention to relevant websites or reference books in the school library.

Make sure that your 'Help Notes' sheet includes a clear description of how to do the assignment, so that caring parents can read it and understand how they can help their child do well.

I also assign time in class for the pupils to work on their assignment.

Two ways you can do this well:

1. Set it as a homework - ends up with some HUGE essays and lots of lazy ones. However, if you insist they are all typed, they are easier to read/mark!

2. Set the pupils' PREPARATION for the assignment as the homework, but make them do it as a timed essay in class. This gets more work out of the less able.

Finally, when youn have marked the assignments, post the list of results on the classroom radiator. Pupils come to see the assignments as a major matter of educational importance, and this gives direction and urgency to their studies during the unit leading up to the assignment.

However, you MUST make sure that your approach to the marking of the assignments is formative as well as summative. All you do is post the results - let the children draw their own conclusions about whether they are meeting their potential/ top-bottom etc. All YOU do is to give clear advice on how they can do a better assignment piece next time.

(This post was in answer to a member who had been asked to design a new SoW for a two-year KS3)

The first question you need to ask at school, Lindsay, is what the pupils are going to do in Year 9.
What do they do in Year 9?

Teaching a contracted KS3 will be really easy in History, because there is almost no prescribed content.
All you are REQUIRED to teach is:

QUOTE

8) A study of major features of Britain's medieval past: the development of the monarchy, and significant events and characteristic features of the lives of people living throughout the British Isles.

9) A study of crowns, parliaments and people Britain 1500-1750 : the major political, religious and social changes affecting people throughout the British Isles, including the local area if appropriate.

10) A study of how expansion of trade and colonisation, industrialisation and political changes affected the United Kingdom 1750-1900, including the local area. Examples for 9: Britain 1500-1750

11) A study of a significant period or event in the prehistory or history of Europe before 1914

12) A study of the cultures, beliefs and achievements of an African, American, Asian or Australasian society in the past before 1900( other than those included in the programme of study for key stage 2).

13) A study of some of the significant individuals, events and developments from across the twentieth century, including the two World Wars, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and their impact on Britain, Europe and the wider world.

Now the National Curriculum does give exemplars (ie suggestions) of what you might teach, but they are NOT mandatory. There is nothing to stop you dealing with any of the six topics above in one lesson, as long as you can demonstrate that you have 'done' what it says.

So, as long as you teach the skills and make sure you refer at so,e point in the course to the minimum content from all six - and I would get that over in a few 'overview' lessons - it should even still be possible to have some fun.

All you need to do is to make sure that you have set, byt the end of Year 8, enough assessments to be able to justify/prove your end-of-KS assessment.

So your long-term preparations will go like this:

1. For the six topics above - identify the topics that interest you most, making sure there is no overlap with the content you will be addressing in Year 9. Allocate the weeks between the topics: you will have about 70 weeks teaching in the two years; about a term a topic, although weight them as you wish.

4. Choose all your most fun and exciting topics to do in the remaining lessons (making sure that you address the skills in them).

I know you may have done that, and that you are probably asking the deeper question: 'how do I move pupils on sufficiently fast that they appropriate the skills to the required level in the reduced time'.
Answer: you can't - just go as fast as you can, as you would have been doing anyway.

Which is why teaching a 2-year KS3 is no different to a 3-year KS3. The content is variable at will, and the skills can only be appropriated at the age and stage of development they can be appropriated.

Which is why the idea of a 2-year KS3 is so utterly silly.
Which half-wit thought that, because we were giving them less time, the pupils would suddenly magically start to learn faster?
And which brain-dead boffin thought we aren't already taking the pupils forward as professionally, expertly and fast as we can?

Some Ideas about Teaching

Designing a Scheme of Work