Debates in History Teaching

Ian Davies, Ian Davies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317284284
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Now in its second edition, Debates in History Teaching remains at the cutting edge of history education. It has been fully updated to take into account the latest developments in policy, research and professional practice. With further exploration into the major issues that history teachers encounter in their daily professional lives, it provides fresh guidance for thinking and practice for teachers within the UK and beyond.

Written by a range of experts in history education, chapters cover all the key issues needed for clear thinking and excellent professional action. This book will enable you to reach informed judgements and argue your point of view with deeper theoretical knowledge and understanding. Debates include:

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• What is happening today in history education?

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• What is the purpose of history teaching?

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• What do history teachers need to know?

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• What are the key trends and issues in international contexts?

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• What is the role of evidence in history teaching and learning?

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• How should you make use of ICT in your lessons?

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• Should moral learning be an aim of history education?

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• How should history learning be assessed?

Debates in History Teaching remains essential reading for any student or practising teacher engaged in initial training, continuing professional development or Master's-level study.

Part I
Debates in history teaching

Key contexts

Chapter 1
Primary history

Current themes

Michael Maddison

Introduction

This chapter offers a brief introduction to some of the principal issues and problems relating to the teaching of history in primary schools in England. It draws heavily on the findings of inspection, as well as the work of scholars involved in history education and the views of politicians, policymakers, historians and commentators. The chapter focuses on the importance of the curriculum and the issues that emanate from how it is interpreted and implemented in schools. The discussion of these issues is brief; the intention is to identify them and for the reader to take the discussion further. It is important to note that the views expressed in this chapter are those of the author.

Society rightly has high expectations of teachers in primary school in both Key Stages 1 (age 5–7) and 2 (age 8–11). Quite naturally they are seen as the key people in the education and development of all pupils in successive generations. Nevertheless, since the introduction of the National Curriculum the expectations of government have increased considerably and in the last five years this has been particularly the case. One of the most significant developments has been in relation to the curriculum and most, if not all, of the issues that primary teachers currently face in relation to history can be traced back to the history curriculum itself and, in particular, how it is interpreted and implemented in each school.

Curriculum reform: the role of government

In the years following the publication of the first edition of this volume on debates in history teaching, much has happened in primary schools in relation to history and its place within the curriculum. In the latter stages of the Labour Government, which lost power in 2010, history was destined to lose its long-standing and well-established separate status within the primary curriculum. Instead, under plans unveiled by the Labour secretary of state Ed Balls, it was to become part of a broader subject grouping, to be called ‘Historical and Geographical Understanding’. The election of the Coalition Government in 2010 and the arrival of Michael Gove as the new secretary of state for education, however, brought these proposals to an abrupt end. Over the years since that election, successive Conservative secretaries and ministers of state for education have confirmed history as a separate subject worthy in its own right to be part of the curriculum for all pupils in primary schools in England. Nevertheless, the precise content to be taught and the manner in which it should be taught remain the focus of much interest amongst teachers and in the history community, as well as within government itself.

As secretary of state for education, Michael Gove took a particular interest in history. He was unequivocal about its importance in young people’s education and had clear views on what should be taught and how it should be taught. In October 2010, during the Conservative Party Annual Conference, he announced that Simon Schama, the historian, would advise the government on moves to ensure that all pupils learned Britain’s ‘island story’. He insisted that one of the ‘under-appreciated tragedies of our time’ had been ‘the sundering of our society from its past’ and that history lessons for many children consisted of nothing more than a ‘cursory run through’ of Henry VIII and Hitler before most pupils abandoned the subject at 14 (Paton, 2010).

As a result, once the National Curriculum review began in January 2011 it was clear that the curriculum content for history would be an aspect that would receive much attention. When the draft content was published in February 2013, there was considerable disquiet amongst teachers in primary schools because of what was expected (Historical Association, 2013). In effect, primary school children were to be taught, amongst other things, British history from the earliest times through to the early eighteenth century. The widespread concern at what was proposed focused on a number of issues including the amount of material to be covered at Key Stages 1 and 2, the appropriate nature of some of the suggested material, the requirement at Key Stage 2 that British history had to be taught ‘sequentially’, and the capability and capacity of primary school teachers to teach what was expected of them so that the worthy and significant aims of the curriculum were fulfilled. For many teachers, concern became anger at what was being suggested. Teachers, academics and commentators voiced their disapproval through online forums, the media and educational organisations such as the Historical Association. Together they created a robust rebuttal of the government’s initial proposals, which were succinctly summarised by Simon Schama in his speech to the Hay Festival in May 2013 as ‘1066 and all that without the jokes’. By this time the support of Simon Schama and the bulk of the history community for Michael Gove’s reforms had clearly evaporated (Historyworks, 2013).

Changes were made to the draft curriculum and when the final programmes of study were published in September 2013, some of the issues that had caused so much concern to history teachers and academics had been addressed, at least partially (Department for Education, National Curriculum 2013). For example, the requirement for history to be taught sequentially at Key Stage 2 had been removed, and the expectation that primary school children would study history up to the early eighteenth century had been scaled back. Instead, 1066 was selected as the cut off year, with secondary school pupils studying British history beyond that date and primary school children studying British history before and up to that year.

The revision of the primary history curriculum was long overdue and the new curriculum has provided opportunities for pupils to study different topics and for teachers to refresh their approach. Nevertheless, the history curriculum that has been taught since September 2014 has also meant that teachers in primary schools have had to face, and are still tackling, a number of significant concerns. These issues threaten the very success of the new curriculum in ensuring, for example, as noted in the ‘purpose of study’ in the revised curriculum, that pupils receive a ‘high-quality history education’, which will help them ‘gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world’ (Department for Education, Primary History 2013).

Curriculum analysis: the role of Ofsted

In March 2011, during the period in which the National Curriculum review was being undertaken, Ofsted, the school’s inspectorate, published History for All, its latest triennial report into the strengths and weaknesses of history teaching in schools (Ofsted, 2011). The report showed that although pupils in primary schools generally had good knowledge of particular topics and episodes in history, their chronological understanding and their ability to make links across the knowledge they had gained were weaker. This was because teachers found it difficult to establish a clear mental map of the past for pupils and this was partly due to the fact that they lacked expertise in the subject. It was also because the National Curriculum specifications treated topics in a disconnected way.

In other words, the inspectorate made it clear that the primary history curriculum needed detailed revision and that highly effective history teaching and learning depended on teachers having the skills to develop pupils’ chronological understanding. The report limited itself to two principal recommendations for government, stating that the Department for Education should:

• review the requirements for initial teacher education and the provision of subject-specific professional development opportunities nationally to support primary school teachers more effectively in their work on history; and
• ensure that, as a result of the National Curriculum Review, pupils in primary schools experience history as a coherent subject which develops their knowledge, thinking and understanding, especially their chronological understanding.

(Ofsted, 2011, p. 7)

It seems clear that the review of the National Curriculum has done much to help fulfil this second recommendation in requiring teachers to review what they teach and how they teach it. However, the review has had little impact in relation to the first recommendation. This is because government has taken the view that it is up to the history community and history teachers and trainers, and not ministers and officials, to improve the content of teacher training courses and the provision of ongoing training opportunities for serving teachers.

Curriculum implementation: the role of teachers and the history community

From the publication of the revised programmes of study in September 2013 to first teaching in the following academic year, teachers in primary school had nigh on 12 months in which to prepare themselves for the task ahead. Although they were faced with introducing revised curricula in all year groups in both Key Stages 1 and 2 and in all subjects, there is no doubt that throughout England most teachers were concerned about how they were first to organise the curriculum structures in their schools and second to go about teaching the content. The issues they faced in preparing to teach the history programmes of study are still pertinent at the time of writing (April 2016). What is more, they are issues that every teacher has to consider on an annual basis.

The principal themes that concern most primary teachers revolve around:

• ensuring history’s place in the whole-school curriculum;
• managing curriculum choice;
• organising the selected curriculum topics;
• acquiring appropriate resources to ensure sufficient depth of knowledge and understanding; and
• determining how to assess pupils’ achievement.

The remainder of this chapter will seek to comment on each of these issues.

Ensuring history’s place in the whole-school curriculum

There is mixed practice in primary schools. In some, history appears on the timetable as a discrete subject that the pupils in Key Stage 2 study at the same or similar time each week. In most primary schools, though, over many years the practice has developed of history being combined with other foundation subjects in a ‘topic’ or ‘theme’ in which over a term or half term all the subjects involved linked their work to the selected theme. This cross-curricular approach can help pupils to see the links in their learning and between different subjects. However, in far too many schools the history element of the topic is rarely explicit enough and planning for progression in historical knowledge and thinking does not receive the attention it deserves. In addition, the history chosen is often selected to fit the theme and does not necessarily provide pupils with a coherent historical experience.

As a result, in schools where the curriculum thinking has focused on the theme and not the subject, history has started to lose its identity and its integrity. Ofsted’s 2011 history report was concerned about this development but it added that including history in a thematic approach ‘did not of itself undermine the integrity of the subject. Integrated work succeeded where the development of the knowledge and thinking of each subject was emphasised’ (Ofsted, 2011, p. 33). It is vitally important that where a school adopts themes that the history chosen to link with each theme sits within a coherent historical framework.

Evidence published by Ofsted has also shown that pupils’ progress in history tends to be slower when they are taught within a thematic approach than when history is taught as a discrete subject (Ofsted, 2011, p. 33). This has significant implications for how the whole-school curriculum is organised at Key Stage 2. As a result, senior leaders in primary schools need to be much more aware of the implications of whole-school curriculum design and its implications for pupils’ achievement in their historical knowledge and understanding. The assumption that a thematic approach to which several subjects should be linked is the best way for organising the curriculum is not necessarily correct. Where this approach is adopted, the key is to select the themes that are best suited for the curriculum content for each subject. In short, in the past too many teachers have focused on the theme rather than the history. The challenge is to ensure that a coherent history curriculum for pupils is strengthened and not compromised by the history studied within each theme.

Managing curriculum choice

In the immediate aftermath of the publication of the draft programmes of study, there was much criticism of the revision as being highly prescriptive. For some the final version was also too rigid. A detailed analysis of the programmes of study, however, reveals that teachers have much more flexibility than might at first appear to be the case. Although examples are suggested for the ‘events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally’ and for the ‘lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements’, such content is clearly marked as being ‘non-statutory’ (Department for Education, Primary History, 2013).

Teachers have considerable freedom because the only ...