Neuro-Affirming History
This curriculum framework delivers AQA GCSE History (8145) and AQA A-level History (7042) as the study of how accounts are made and why they differ. History is the most text-heavy qualification we offer, and we say so plainly. Rather than assuming reading stamina and organised extended writing, the curriculum builds them: chronology is offloaded onto timelines that stay on the wall, sources are read in chunks with a fixed method, every essay type has an architecture learnt once and reused, and the voices learners meet include the Black, female and marginalised historians and witnesses that older syllabuses left out.
Curriculum Outline: The DDP Framework
Explore our neuro-affirming History curriculum structured across three developmental stages, from GCSE Paper 1 to the A-level historical investigation.
The first phase builds the whole-period timeline, the four-step source method and the interpretation grid on twentieth-century Germany and the road to the Second World War. Every source and event is placed on the wall timeline before it is discussed, so sequencing is offloaded and analysis can happen.
Germany 1890 to 1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
AQA 8145 Alignment: Paper 1 Section A (1B)
The Kaiser, the First World War, Weimar's crises and recovery, the rise of the Nazis and life under dictatorship. Alongside the standard narrative, learners meet the historians who widened it: Marion Kaplan on Jewish women's daily lives under Nazism, Claudia Koonz on women's roles in the Nazi state, and the testimony of Black Germans such as Hans Massaquoi, whose memoir gives a first-person view of growing up in Hamburg under the Third Reich.
- Whole-period timeline built on the wall in week one; a desk copy lives in every folder.
- Interpretations method taught on two short extracts before any long ones; the 12-mark essay assembled from a plan grid across three lessons.
- Emotional-Safety Touchpoint: the persecution content is taught with a pre-agreed regulation plan and content notice, and learners choose how they engage with testimony.
Conflict and Tension 1918 to 1939
AQA 8145 Alignment: Paper 1 Section B
Versailles and the other treaties, the League of Nations, Manchuria and Abyssinia, appeasement and the road to war. Margaret MacMillan's account of the Paris peacemakers anchors the interpretations work, and the Abyssinian crisis is read from the Ethiopian side as well as the European one, using Haile Selassie's 1936 appeal to the League as a source.
- The four-step source method (what it says, who made it and why, what it leaves out, how useful for this question) taught on the treaty debates.
- Foreign policy as a stepped timeline with a because-chain at each step, so the write an account question is written as a sequence.
- The 16-mark how far question built from a plan grid; SPaG checklist kept on the essay card.
2. History Assessment Matrix: Exam Board to DDP Methods
Realigning AQA's assessment objectives to reduce chronology overload, reading fatigue, source-analysis freeze and blank-page anxiety on extended writing.
Know and Understand the Period
Traditional Barrier: Learners are expected to hold sequence, dates and named individuals in memory, and writing collapses when the order is uncertain.
A unit timeline stays on the wall and a desk copy in the folder. Every event, source and interpretation is placed on it before discussion, so sequencing is offloaded and analysis has somewhere to stand.
Explain with Second-Order Concepts
Traditional Barrier: Causation, change, significance and similarity are named in mark schemes but taught as instinct rather than structure.
Causation is a because-chain; change and continuity a before-and-after grid; significance a three-test checklist; similarity a two-column grid. Each has a colour that travels from the card to the plan to the page.
Analyse and Evaluate Sources
Traditional Barrier: A dense source is faced whole and alone under time; learners who read slowly or process visually never reach the analysis.
Sources are cut into numbered chunks, read aloud or via text-to-speech, and annotated one chunk at a time: what it says, who made it and why, what it leaves out, how useful for this question.
Evaluate Interpretations
Traditional Barrier: Two historians' extracts are compared without a structure, and the convincing judgement is expected but never taught as a sentence.
What each argues, what each emphasises, what each is based on, tested against two pieces of own knowledge. The judgement is one taught sentence, and the historians compared always include voices from outside the traditional canon.
3. Dynamic History Playgrounds
Explore interactive models designed to translate the source method, reading load and essay architecture into clear systems a learner can see.
The Four-Step Source Method
The same four moves for every source at GCSE and A-level. Learners complete one step per chunk before moving on.
Reading the Content Without Judging It Yet
The learner reads one chunk at a time and records only what the source states or shows. No evaluation yet. This step is deliberately low-stakes so that every learner gets a first move onto the page.
Frame: "Source A says / shows that..."
4. The Historical Source Sifter
Select a piece of learner writing below, and click the sifter buttons to isolate the historical claim, the source or knowledge evidence and the DDP rewrite.
5. AQA Specification Map
Where the marks come from at each level, and the option routes this framework teaches. Check timings and mark totals against the current AQA specification each year.
| Paper | Content and our options | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Modern world | Section A period study: Germany 1890 to 1945. Section B wider world depth: Conflict and tension 1918 to 1939. 2 hours. | 50% |
| 2 Shaping the nation | Section A thematic: Health and the people c1000 to present. Section B British depth with historic environment: Elizabethan England c1568 to 1603. 2 hours. | 50% |
| Component | Content and our options | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Breadth | 1C The Tudors: England 1485 to 1603. Section A extracts (30), Section B two essays from three (25 each). 2h 30m. | 40% |
| 2 Depth | 2O Democracy and Nazism: Germany 1918 to 1945. Section A sources (30), Section B two essays from three (25 each). 2h 30m. | 40% |
| 3 NEA | Historical investigation, 3,500 to 4,500 words, spanning around 100 years, not duplicating Components 1 or 2. | 20% |
6. Personalised History Access Plan (IEAP) Builder
Toggle timeline support, chunked reading, essay frames, access arrangements and NEA stage gates below to construct a standardised British English student access plan ready to copy.