New assessment criteria for public examinations (at A-level and GCSE) now require students to study history at different scales of resolution. Sometimes they are required to adopt a wide vantage point that allows them to survey a long sweep of time, making it possible to see the prevailing trends and turning points. On other occasions they are required to zoom in close, focusing on a much shorter time-span, with scope to examine the lives of individuals and particular groups of people. The materials in this section deal with the distinctive characteristics of schemes of work operating at these different levels and also prompt teachers to consider how overview and depth studies can best be combined and sequenced at Key Stage 3 – helping students to develop more coherent frameworks on which to build their own ‘big pictures’ of the past.

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You can find an introduction to key articles by history teachers about the relationship between overview and depth and effective ways of teaching overview here...

You can find a guide to the most useful articles about planning and teaching the thematic studies at GCSE here...