History

Simon Wright made this Freedom of Information request to Department for Children, Schools and Families

The request was successful.

From: Simon Wright

11 October 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like some information on the previous years Curriculum and
the current year.

First of all i would like to know how many pupils in England took a
GCSE History exam in the last school year. (Total number of pupils
taking the exam AND what % that is of the total pupils sitting
exams that year)

Secondly, if possible i would like to see data showing the overall
numbers of pupils taking history at key-stage 4 over the past 10
years.

Third, if possible i would like to see a list of the questions in
the History Exam paper from last year. If this is not possible, i
would like a breakdown of the issues / time periods included in the
exam (for example, 4 questions were on British monarchs, 4 on
Vietnam, 4 on WW2 etc)

Fourth, at what age or key-stage do pupils start to learn about
certain things relating to the British Empire (not just including
roles in WW1/WW2). Is it compulsory for all schools to teach
certain things at certain ages about the former British Empire and
the commonwealth of nations? If so what and when.

Fifth, since 1997 has there been any GCSE History exam questions on
Hong Kong?

Thank you in advance for helping to answer these questions.

Yours faithfully,

Simon Wright

Link to this

Department for Children, Schools and Families

13 October 2008

Dear Mr Wright,

Thank you for your recent email. A reply will be sent to you as soon as
possible (where a response is required). For information, the
departmental standard for correspondence received is that responses
should be sent within 15 working days or 20 working days if you are
requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Your correspondence has been allocated the reference number 2008/0084775

Thank you.

Central Allocation Team

Public Communications Team

Tel: 0870 0002288
www.dcsf.gov.uk

show quoted sections

Link to this

From: Simon Wright

14 November 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

On the 11th of October i sent a Freedom of Information request to
this department. On the 13th of October i got a response saying my
request had been received and that it would be dealt with within
the legally required time limit of 20 days. That time has now
passed so i would like to know if there was a problem with my
request or when it will be dealt with.

2008/0084775 was the reference number given to my request.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Wright

Link to this

From: Simon Wright

28 November 2008

Dear Sir or Madam,

On the 11th of October i sent a Freedom of Information request to
this department. On the 13th of October i got a response saying my
request had been received and that it would be dealt with within
the legally required time limit of 20 days.

I also sent an email on the 14th of November asking for an update
to find out why i had not yet been sent the information i requested
but got no response. Please can you inform me if there is a problem
with my request or why there has been such a delay.

2008/0084775 was the reference number given to my request.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Wright

Link to this

Department for Children, Schools and Families

10 December 2008

Attachment FoIRequest History.doc
41K Download View as HTML

Attachment Subjects timeseries History.xls
35K Download View as HTML

Dear Simon,

My sincere apologies for the delay in sending the information you
requested.

Attached, is an excel spreadsheet of entries and achievement of GCSE
pupils in History over the past 14 years. This answers your questions 1
and 2.

For questions 3 - we do not have copies of exam papers set by awarding
bodies. However, exam papers are normally available on the websites of the
individual awarding bodies. It may interest you to know that there are 12
different GCSE history specifications, each with at least two exam papers
and several options. These can be found on the awarding bodies websites
which give a list of topics covered.

The awarding bodies are, AQA, Edexcel, OCR(all English), WJEC (Welsh) and
CCEA (Northern Ireland).
[1]www.aqa.org.uk
[2]www.edexcel.org.uk
[3]www.ocr.org.uk
[4]www.wjec.co.uk
[5]www.rewardinglearning.org.uk

For question 4 - The attached word document may be able to help
answer this. .

For question 5 - we are unable to tell if there has been any GCSE
questions on Hong Kong since 1997, I would advise that you contact the
awarding bodies.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.

Regards
Lilian

current case - 2008/0100703

show quoted sections

Link to this

Things to do with this request

Anyone:
Department for Children, Schools and Families only: