The Schools History Project and Cambridge OCR: principles in action
06 October 2026
Dan Lyndon-Cohen, Director of Schools History Project
Dan Lyndon-Cohen, Director of the Schools History Project, talks about the SHP, its principles, and how the SHP and Cambridge OCR have put these principles into action.
This is the second blog in Cambridge OCR’s series on the future of history, following on from The future of GCSE History: the Curriculum and Assessment Review and beyond.
Talking about the Schools History Project
Over the last year, I’ve had the privilege of travelling around the UK delivering a presentation on the history of the SHP, originally established in 1972 as the Schools Council History 13-16 Project (SCHP).
From the Historical Association conference and the Cambridge OCR forum to undergraduates at Sheffield and York universities, the response has been brilliant. So I was delighted when Ewan Brady, Qualifications Product Manager at Cambridge OCR, asked me to share some of the ways in which SHP principles are so relevant and important today, and how they align with our partner, Cambridge OCR.
The principles of the SHP
The founding document of SHP is a booklet called A New Look at History, written by David Sylvester in 1976. The driving force behind the philosophical and pedagogical approaches laid out in the book was that schools history needs to be meaningful for the young people that are studying it, and that they should be equipped with the skills to be able to make meaning from the past.
In A New Look at History, Sylvester argued that history lessons should help learners:
- To understand the world in which they live.
- To find their personal identity by widening their experience through the study of people of a different time and place.
- To understand the process of change and continuity in human affairs.
- To begin to acquire leisure interests.
- To develop the ability to think critically, and to make judgments about human situations.
Meaningful change – the SHP approach
As a result, the Schools History Project was able to revolutionise history education, changing it into a child-focused, enquiry-based approach in which young people work with historical sources and interpretations. Courses were designed combining depth studies – typically focusing on a 20 to 50-year period – with a development study, such as the history of medicine, which stretches over 1,000 years. The development study has evolved into today’s thematic study at GCSE.
The foundation for this approach was the introduction of a ‘What is History?’ course, which helped students to explicitly understand how to use the disciplinary skills employed by historians to understand and evaluate the substantive knowledge of past. Another core aspect was getting students to engage with History Around Us – the local history of their school or community, in order to bring history out of the classroom and to create a lifelong interest in history and heritage. In the Cambridge OCR GCSE B course, this is reflected in the popular History Around Us unit.
Taking all these elements in conjunction, the aspiration was to raise the historical consciousness of young people and enable them to engage meaningfully with the past, rather than having it presented to them as a static, uncontested relic.
SHP and Cambridge OCR – principles in action
Fast forward to 2026 and the core principles of the SHP are as relevant to the history teaching community as they have ever been. The Cambridge OCR GCSE History B specification, written by former SHP Director Michael Riley and SHP Honorary Fellow Jamie Byrom, is the manifestation of SHP principles in practice.
It also features the pioneering Migrants to Britain unit, written by SHP Honorary Fellow Martin Spafford and myself, which led the way in bringing migration histories into the GCSE specifications.
Looking ahead to curriculum reform
Many of the themes of the Curriculum and Assessment Review for history and the government response to it could have been taken directly from SHP principles.
For example, the government response states:
“We will ensure that teachers can reflect the innate diversity of British history, including British Black and Asian history”
and
“We will be clearer about … how local history and contexts can be studied to teach history through where children and young people live”.
The Schools History Project and our partner Cambridge OCR can draw on decades of experience of delivering principle-driven, engaging, and meaningful history into classrooms. As schools prepare for future curriculum changes, those principles can continue to provide a valuable foundation for teaching and learning.
If you are already teaching Cambridge OCR GCSE History B, explore our professional development opportunities.
You can also find support from the SHP as you prepare for forthcoming curriculum reform.
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About the author
Dan Lyndon-Cohen is the Director of the Schools History Project and Lead Practitioner for Humanities at Park View School in Tottenham. Dan worked with Cambridge OCR on developing the specification and the assessments for the migration units on the Cambridge OCR A and B GCSE History courses. He has also published many books and articles, and has been a consultant for the BBC, IWM, NPG and the National Trust. Outside of the education world Dan enjoys hikes in the countryside, watching The Arsenal and listening to 1990’s liquid drum and bass!
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