Faced with the introduction of a two-year key stage and a new whole-school assessment policy, Rachel Arscott and Tom Hinks decided to make a virtue out of necessity and reconsider their whole approach to planning, teaching and assessment at Key Stage 3. In this article they give an account of the process of reflection and revision they undertook as a department, offering insights into how they sought to balance the wider needs of a whole school agenda against their own professional judgement about what it means to get better at doing history. They also show how, having theorised what rigorous history at Key Stage 3 looks like, they were able to secure this rigour through their medium- and long-term planning and in the feedback given to students.