Dr Nicola Sheldon, Institute of Historical Research, University of London Melbourne House Talks 30 January 2011 This presentation draws on the results of the History in Education Project, which has been running since January 2009 and is due to conclude in March 2011. Our purpose is to create a history of history teaching – collected resources include documents on teaching and learning, books, materials, including 335 survey forms with memories of teachers and pupils, plus oral history interviews with nearly 70 people – politicians, designers of the NC, teacher trainers, curriculum innovators, teachers (retired and current) and former pupils and also a photographic archive – 22 different collections of school work. Am drawing on all of this today. History ain’t what it was in my day – why don’t children learn about kings and queens any more in school history?

What’s wrong with history today? Perhaps the most potent symbol of public ignorance of history! 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Press coverage of the History National Curriculum 2009-10 A selection of headlines shows the press concern – that children aren’t learning history, that they study some things a lot and other things not at all. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Outline of this presentation Was there a ‘golden age’ when children learnt all about ‘kings and queens’? Why did the national narrative disappear from the school curriculum in the 1970s and 80s? Did the new National Curriculum of 1990 restore it? To what extent is there a ‘new style’ national narrative in English schools? Should Mr Gove restore the national narrative? Start with our question – it presumes that at one time in the past (maybe 30-50) years ago, school history was an outline survey of the history of Britain (mainly England) focusing on political history, specifically the lives and careers of the kings and occasionally queens of England – their battles and wars (with foreigners, nobles, the church or even half of his kingdom in the case of Charles I), their treatment of their subjects and their personal foibles and habits (e.g. Henry VIII’s penchant for marriage or Edward II’s horrible death). This is what we might call a ‘national narrative’ and one of the questions I’ve been looking at is whether the national narrative was really taught ‘everywhere’, how it came to disappear and why, despite the National Curriculum (around for the past 20 years) there has not been a return to learning a lot of our national history and certainly not to learning all the kings and queens and their dates. Finally, I hope we will have an interesting discussion about the final question – that’s where you all join in! 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Control over the curriculum in English schools No central or nationally-legislated curriculum No prescribed text books ‘Advice’ given by Board of Education dwindled after 1945 No central control over teacher training Examinations controlled by university bodies Majority of children never took leaving examinations pre-1965. One of the remarkable aspects of the history curriculum in English schools was that this was not a curriculum ordered by the centre, or even by local education authorities. Schools did not even have to teach history at all – but they all did. Over the 20th century, central government became less interested in the curriculum in schools, leaving it to local government, who tended to leave it to schools, who left it to teachers to decide. Universities controlled examinations at age 16 and 18 and these varied in terms of period and topics, but only a tiny proportion took leaving exams, less than 10%. Yet most children left school having studied a common national narrative in their history lessons whatever type of school they attended. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The traditional national narrative Firstly, the teaching of the British history in primary schools. This was a commonly-used text book in primary schools from the 1920s onwards and you could have found them right through to the 1950s – Piers Plowman interpreted the national story through social history but children were, as here, being taught about national themes – in this case, kingship and power. Iconic stories were used to reinforce the ideals of the nation – fairness (Robin Hood), resistance to injustice or oppression (Hereward the Wake, Magna Carta, the Peasants’ Revolt), resistance to invasion (Alfred, the Armada). Here are a few of the comments from our survey evidence: KI born 1952, went to primary school in West Yorkshire: My memories are of learning about famous people such as Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale and Capability Brown. We had no text books but listened to the teacher talking. I really enjoyed history because these people came alive to me as the teacher spoke about them. I could see a point and relevance to their lives and the effect their lives had on future generations MS, born 1958, went to primary school in Kent: Some local history – Kent and the Romans, Vikings, Iron Age etc. Some odd pieces on personalities, e.g. Scott of the Arctic (sic). Used the Unstead History series in Junior School – so some chronology but very limited – and I had my own copy of the book at home which I read. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

R J Unstead (1915-88) 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon Here we have a mention of R.J. Unstead, whose books I am sure some of you will have read. Unstead was a prolific author of history text books (1 title alone sold 8 million copies worldwide), much loved by some teachers because his books contained such lovely line drawings which could be easily traced into the pupil’s exercise book and coloured in, although one of the primary teachers we interviewed had used them and thought they were too woolly (not enough detail or dates). Show the books with me. I call this development the ‘ the advance of the imagination in history teaching’ – not that ‘imagine you were a …’ wasn’t set before that, but in the 1960s, the whole of primary education was going over to child-centred learning and that meant starting from what were thought to be the child’s interests – the local, the picturesque and the material and prioritising the child’s imaginative response over the acquisition of factual detail as such. The aim of Unstead’s books was to bring the child’s imagination into their learning of history, to support narrated stories with more detail and build up a better understanding of period as well as events. By the 1970s, the imaginative approach was also fostered by specially-made historical dramas on school’s television and materials to support the classroom work. Here a primary school teacher from the North East reminisces about the trips she ran in the 1970s: We went to Beamish quite frequently … I can remember one group looking at the steam train belching very black smoke and saying, ‘What a lot of pollution!’ But one of their favourite places was the coal mine which was, as I say, came from a coal mining area which they had all forgotten about because the mines had been closed so long…. when we did the Victorians, having a walk in cupboard, I quite often gave them the experience of being in there with only one lighted candle, and the writing afterwards for fantastic about what they felt like. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Examples of the English national narrative in school work pre-1970s So what of the English national narrative in secondary schools? Here are two samples from work which former pupils have sent to us. They are more than a decade apart, but one would not know that, they are so similar – and about the same historical story, Alfred the Great, regarded as the monarch who laid the ground for the emergence of English democracy over 1,000 years ago. This work would be done in the first year of secondary school at age 11, so some drawing is still allowed. Alfred’s famous deeds including setting up a navy of ships to fight off the Vikings and the writing of a code of laws and the promotion of English as a written language of government. The establishment of sound and fair government become the baseline story of the national narrative as significant events such as Magna Carta, the first parliament, the English civil war, the 1832 Reform Act and the suffragette movement were studied in the following years on secondary schooling. Based on a chronological account of the reigns of kings and queens and following the expansion of trade and then the British Empire, this narrative was taught almost uniformly in English schools from around 1900 to the 1970s. Courtesy of Muriel Longhurst 1947-50 and Ian Colwill 1960-67 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Outline of a typical history course for secondary pupils pre-1970s Age 11-12: Ancient World to Norman Conquest Age 12-13: British History 1066-1485 Age 13-14: British, European and World History 1485-17th,18th or 19th century…. Age 14-16: British History 1815-1945 British/ European History 1789-1939 British Social and Economic History 1700-1945 Modern World History 1870-1945 A New Look at History (1976) p.26 The main focus was British history with European and World History only in so far as the British had contact with other countries – for instance, the Napleonic Wars or the American Revolutionary War. The exception to this was the modern world history course, which focused on international conflicts and diplomacy and that had grown in popularity since the 1950s. This curriculum was supported by text books which focused on political development of the nation primarily. Books such as C.P. Hill’s A Survey of British History (following slide). 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

A Survey of British History (1951) C.P. Hill’s A Survey of British History for grammar school pupils was first published in 1951 but re-printed 6 times, was then updated in 1965 then re-printed twice after that, so it was both popular and long-lived as a school text book. It was part of a chronological series covering mainly political history from pre-history to 1939. In their preface, the authors state, ‘the story of the growth of Great Britain is the central theme’. The sort of learning the Hill text book supported in secondary school classrooms would today be called very dull – mostly copying notes and memorising – many of our survey respondents also recalled it in this way. RT, born 1953, grammar school in Essex: Mrs Wren read to us from notes in a notebook. She was still reading the same notes to my sister three years later. I suspect she was as bored as we were. JS, born 1954, grammar school, Northampton: I became disenchanted with studying history. The teacher read from her notes, we copied them down, she wrote dates and names on the board so that we could copy them correctly; there was no discussion and at the end of the lesson she left the room. There was no interest sparked or encouraged and no suggestion that we should do anything but learn the facts she put in front of us and pass our exam. I felt … we could just as easily have been learning hymn words, recipes for pastry or anything else that required lists.   JD, born 1961, grammar school, Taunton, Somerset: I loved all the topics. The only thing I hated was the way Mrs Kelly taught us history in the 3rd and 4th forms at the Grammar School. I don’t think I’ve every forgiven her for despoiling the teaching of history. All that I can remember is that she literally gave us a long list of dates/time line that we had to learn. Nothing to fire our imagination, no visual impact. Boring. Boring. Boring. What’s surprising is that many of them say they like history as a subject and have rediscovered an interest in it as adults. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The history classroom: 1960s-70s However signs of change in the secondary school were popping up by the 1970s and 80s – illustrated here by the different photos of history classrooms – from the didactic to the collaborative with pupils working together. Partly this was the result of the trends I identified in primary education – the desire to involve children imaginatively in learning history - but at secondary level, stories aren’t enough, more of the progressive teachers wanted to introduce children to the ‘stuff of history’ – through local site visits and through using historical documents to ‘bring history alive’ and also to illustrate the complexity of some historical questions using a ‘discovery’ approach. In this case, adapted historical documents were used as part of a problem-solving exercise. To some extent this was a product of progressive teacher training colleges where the lecturers were keen to get student teachers studying using historical sources from archives. It was also informed by changes at university level, particularly the growth of social history and the development of philosophy of history, especially The Idea of History by R.G. Collingwood, published in 1946. This chimed with the post-war reassessment of the idea of historical progress – there was less certainty in the world and more need to understand the motivations and even thoughts of those distant from us in time. Copyright London Metropolitan Archives Copyright The National Archives 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Marjorie Reeves 1905-2003 Native of Bratton (daughter of R.J. Reeves, Bratton Iron Works Trowbridge High School for Girls – St Hugh’s College, Oxford Doctorate on medieval mysticism 1931-8 St Gabriel’s Teacher Training College Tutor at St Anne’s College, Oxford until 1972 Edited and wrote Then and There series of text books (195s-80s) Why History? (1980) I am going to mention one historian now – partly because of course, she was born and raised in Bratton – she went to Trowbridge High School for Girls, then St Hugh’s College, Oxford to study medieval history (Anne will know her work from the 1930s on medieval mysticism). But also Marjorie Reeves is important (and unusual) because she retained throughout her life an interest in the teaching of history in schools. She worked from 1931-8 at a teacher training college in London and there promoted the idea that children needed to make a personal response to history and to do so, they should be provided with adapted but genuine extracts from the sources available to historians. Show copy of The Medieval Castle – note use of photographs rather than artists’ illustrations like Unstead. Of course, one of the problems with what she called the ‘activity revolution’ in the classroom was the use of time – you just could not cover as much history when children were not ‘heads down’ writing all the time. The response to this was that ‘patches’ of history in depth were better than an outline that few children really understood. If it was then not possible to cover the whole of British history, the next question was what should be included. Here Reeves explains her approach: Shall we, for instance, ditch the Kings and Queens of England? As the acquisition of a useful framework I am not against learning their dates at an early age. This is a limited exercise, like learning tables, to be knocked off in the odd half-hour…. But this, of course, is not real history, and our problem at the secondary level is that we select from British political history… selection there must be…. This general surveys get nowhere and … there is still selection concealed under a spurious objectivity. (p.20) She then suggests ‘four great positive themes’ ‘how government developed; how British men and women adventured to the ends of the earth; how we dealt with minority groups, radicals and refugees; how we related to Europe’. But on the next page, she then recognises that some attention must be paid to international history (for instance, it would be difficult to cover the 2nd world war in her existing themes). Reeves was trying to get to grips with what should go into a curriculum for the post-war world – not just national, but local and international perspectives for the balanced citizen were part of the modernising challenge and the time on the school timetable for history was shrinking rather than growing in the late 1960s. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Challenges to the position of history on the curriculum Threats Comprehensive secondary schools by end of 1970s – mixed ability classes and full ability range to cater for. New subjects crowded the curriculum. History seen as traditional and unpopular (surveys). Opportunities Post-war cohort of teachers + expanded training colleges. 1964 Schools Council set up to fund curriculum innovation. Response ‘Defensive innovation’ by history teachers:- New curriculum, e.g. world history, social/local history A re-think of the rationale of the subject - ‘love, freedom and new history’ The 1960s ushered in a period of change in schooling in England and the effect was to question the traditional curriculum. Not every school was asking this question, but some were… and history teachers in some places realised they would have to confront an existential question about the future of their subject. Why? First, the Threats New types of schools were part of the reason. History courses had been developed for less able students but in the large comprehensive schools, new subjects could be introduced easily – such as social studies, economics or integrated studies which blended together different subjects such as history, geography and sociology. Several surveys showed the average students, not the most able, found the traditional history course boring whereas new subjects were seen as more contemporary and relevant. But there were Opportunities There were many more young teachers coming into the new schools eager to try new ideas and the Labour government set up a public body whose task was to fund new ideas – initially to revitalise science and foreign languages teaching. But in 1972, the Schools Council agreed to fund a history project. How did history teachers respond to their new situation? The overall response from history teachers, who as we have seen were not naturally fond of change, was ‘defensive innovation’ – they had to do something to make their subject more popular with pupils and with school managers who wanted the curriculum to be modern and relevant to pupils’ interests and needs. Already teachers had been embracing new topics in a bid to increase the interest of pupils and activities such as outdoor fieldwork for local history or the use of documents to add interest to the study were being used by teachers in some places. But this was to some extent just a change of content. Some teacher and teacher educators were starting to think fundamentally about the purpose of learning history in school and concluded that memorising a national narrative was an insufficient basis on which to develop an understanding of the past. As had happened in other cultural realms in the 1960s, old ideas were challenged … so ‘love, freedom and new history’ all came along at the same time. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

A history teacher remembers his youthful idealism … I got a job in Devon at Exmouth School, which was the largest comprehensive in England at the time with 2,400 students. Great place … to learn. There were twelve NQTs (first appointment teachers) in the school the September I started. It was a time of huge excitement and we really thought that the world was going to change. It was 1969, the world was going to change, it was going to be a better place, there was going to be peace and love and better history and I expected and hoped to be part of that movement. (Interview: Chris Culpin, 22 September 2009) To illustrate the enthusiasm for innovation in the air at that time, here is a first-hand recollection of that period by a teacher again who was starting his career in the late 1960s in a large comprehensive school, where there was plenty of encouragement to do new things in history. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

School work in ‘new’ history from the 1970s-80s If we look at school work from that period – the late 1970s and early 1980s, we can see it has completely changed. On the left are some notes done in class about motivation in history – why do they do it? It is about causation. On the centre page, is a piece of work on archaeology looking at what the evidence from Sutton Hoo, a Saxon burial ground, can tell us about life in Saxon times. This is in fact only shortly before the period of King Alfred but the work is very different from the examples given from the 1940s and 1960s. It is not a descriptive piece about a king’s achievements but gives details of the archaeological dig and what the findings might suggest about Saxon life. Thirdly on the right side is a sheet of answers to questions set by the teacher – these are not memory questions requiring factual details. The pupil explains what the various items in the burial mound tell us about the ruler buried there. This work is not part of a connected outline narrative – before this, the pupil completed work on Christopher Columbus. Courtesy of Charlotte Crow, 1979-80 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The alternative(s) to the national narrative 1970s-80s Schools Council History Project based on the ‘needs of the teenager’ What is History? - introductory investigations History Around Us – local history study including site visits (coursework = 20%) Study in Development – a theme through a long period of time (Medicine Through Time) Depth Study – Elizabethan England 1558-1603;or Britain 1815-1851; or The American West 1840-1890 Modern World Study – Communist China; or Arab-Israeli Conflict; or The Irish Question Many teachers were attracted by new ideas for teaching history which had nothing to do with a national narrative. The Schools Council History Project became a popular syllabus in about a third of schools – its focus in terms of content was to provide the pupil with an experience of many different types of history. We see local history, a long themed study, a study in depth with 3 alternatives and a contemporary study. As you can see, it would be possible for pupils to study very little British history. This syllabus was completely contrary to the idea that pupils needed to learn a common national narrative in order to understand their national identity. The syllabus designers stated their aim was to meet the needs of the teenager – that is to say, to provide a social identity. They explained the needs as follows:- The need to understand the world in which they live; The need to find their personal identity; The need to understand the process of change and continuity; The need to acquire leisure interests; The need to develop the ability to think critically. Notice there was no attention paid to creating a common national identity through history. History teachers were doing what they could to make their subject interesting to modern young people. School managers were only concerned with ensuring that their school was successful and as long as examination boards would set exams on these new syllabuses they were happy too. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The birth of the National Curriculum 1988 proposed introduction of the National Curriculum in 10 subjects; History the most controversial – PM wanted a core of factual information based on British history - a chronological national narrative; History Working Group responded by emphasising ‘historical enquiry’, ‘skills’ and economic, social and cultural aspects as well as political history. But this did not last long… by the late 1970s, the government was starting to ask pointed questions about the effectiveness of the education system it paid billions of pounds each year for. Some politicians, especially those on the right wing, believed that some trendy schools weren’t really educating their pupils properly any more as knowledge had ceased to be the top priority and new ‘ologies’ has replaced traditional subjects like history. In 1988, the government legislated to introduce a national curriculum with history as one of the 10 foundation subjects and Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, wanted history to focus on the core of factual British history as it once had. A special committee was appointed to decide the new history curriculum under the critical eye of the media and right-wing pressure groups. What they came up with was not however, the restoration of the national narrative. It was 50% British history. However, their overall aim was the same as the Schools Council course, to introduce pupils to a wide range of history including European and world history topics and not just from a British perspective. They also made a strong case for including cultural and social history alongside political events. There is no introductory statement in the History Working Group’s Report about the role of history in the formation of national identity. Several of the members of the English History Working Group have done interviews for the Project – none of them wanted to produce a national narrative consisting of a single version of the nation’s past which all children would learn. They were committed to the idea that pupils would learn to think about history by studying different viewpoints of the past, including those of other nations. The aim was to produce a knowledgeable, but critical history student. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Brief summary of the first NC KS2 (age 7-11) core topics: Ancient Civilisations: Greece (also often Egypt – a ‘non-European society’) Romans, Vikings, Anglo-Saxons – ‘invaders and settlers’ Life in Tudor and Stuart times Victorian Britain or Britain since the 1930s KS3 (age 11-14) core topics: ‘Medieval Realms’ - Britain 1066-1500 ‘The Making of the United Kingdom’ - Britain 1500-1750 Britain 1750-1900 Twentieth-century World A past non-European society (e.g. the Aztecs, Mughal India, Black peoples of the Americas). This is a summary of the main content of the NC implemented in 1991, but then revised in 1994 because there were so many complaints that the whole curriculum was overloaded – each of the 10 subjects had as much content as history. It has been revised (some would say ‘whittled away’) twice since – in 1999 and 2008 (KS3 only) and each time, more content has been removed to allow the teacher to decide what to concentrate on. That is the basis for Michael Gove’s criticism that there are only 2 people mentioned in the current KS3 history curriculum – Olaudah Equiano and William Wilberforce. The important point is how this curriculum was taught in the classroom. In fact, a lot respondents who went to secondary school in the 1990s mention Medieval Realms and modern world history, such as the two world wars. If one looks at text books, there is a tendency to focus on key incidents, the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta, the Plague and Peasants’ Revolt in the first year, then Henry VIII and the Armada in Year 8, plus the non-European study and the slave trade, with a bit about the industrial revolution. Thus the slate is clear for the twentieth-century world in the third year, to include both world wars and the Holocaust, which with the slave trade are the two mandated topics still left in the history NC. One of the most interesting things to note is that most former pupils talk about the content they learned and most history teachers talk about the importance of learning history in a particular way – with sources and different interpretations. That may seem optimistic for 11-14 year olds, but essentially it is the orthodoxy of history teaching – historical understanding is a matter of perspective not a received corpus of information. Essentially, the teaching profession and the public are viewing this issue from different perspectives and it means that for teachers the content is less important than the method of learning – so although they are happy to teach an overview they prefer to do a few topics in detail so that children do get to understand that history is created from historical sources and one can disagree about what they mean. It was summed up at a conference I attended in October when the discussion turned to a curriculum which would cover the whole of British history – and teaching it in one or two hours a week over 3 years. One teacher said ‘I don’t want to be just teaching time lines’. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The National Curriculum and the Welsh national narrative Cultural identity at the heart:- ‘the centre of gravity of Welsh history … has lain in the social, economic and broad cultural experiences of the people of Wales’ ‘the awareness of the Welsh as a separate people rests… on a belief in the particularity of their own past and traditions… the teaching of the history of Wales … is a crucial aspect in safeguarding that identity.’ (Final Report of the History Committee for Wales, June 1990, paras. 4.2, 4.5)) Connected to this issue of methods of learning history is the issue of national identity and the role of British history in forming a cohesive national identity. The approach of the Welsh History Committee was quite different to that of the English History Working Group on the subject of the content of the history curriculum. Here are quotations from their Report which makes clear the role that Welsh history would play in forming the Welsh national identity. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

What does Britishness mean? Interviewer: Do you think the history you were taught at school helped you to feel proud of being British in any way? Ken, born 1923: When I saw that question I smiled, because that’s a question for a modern schoolboy. It has got no relevance at all to a schoolboy in the 1930s. We were proud; everyone was patriotic. We were aware of our nationality. Today it’s different and that question is relevant, but it wasn’t relevant in 1935. The thought never occurred to us. This is a question we asked those who were talking about their experience as pupils – Ken is reflecting on the changes in British society. Where once a commonly-held understanding of the national character existed, that is no longer the case, so we have to ask the question about what being British or English means. The changes in history teaching have to some extent reflected those changes. 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The problem of identity in English school history 1970s- present day Old narrative out of date – end of Empire; Multi-ethnic Britain challenges any single narrative; Devolution and the problem of English national identity; Uncertainty about the national characteristics England/Britain should promote; Cultural change since the 1960s – scepticism the basis of the new history? Here are some suggested reasons why the English History Working Group resisted the imposition of a national narrative in the history curriculum – and why in fact it would be difficult to make schools teach it…. The old narrative was based to some extent on the imperial narrative, though there were also other narrative themes, such as the development of parliamentary democracy, and the development of other rights and freedoms. More seriously, the changing ethnic balance of England, particularly urban England, challenges the idea of one narrative viewpoint. Political devolution to Scotland and Wales has ‘freed’ those nations to emphasise their cultural separation from England and create a distinctive historical narrative apart from the story of Britain, which had effectively been that of England. However, none of this would be an issue for the English if they had certainty about their national identity – and this is what politicians have been grappling with in recent years – what does it mean to be British? Nobody really knows and most have the honesty to admit it. I asked one of the members of the History Working Group from twenty years ago what she would say was the defining characteristic of the English as a nation and she said ‘scepticism’ – we have trained children to be critical, to doubt and to question and that is the basis of our history teaching… so perhaps that is the basis of our culture…. and our identity? 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The evolution of history in schools – the National Curriculum in 2010 The slave trade and the Holocaust the only mandated topics in the National Curriculum (although most teachers still do a lot of British history) (Be nice!) Tolerance and social cohesion the priority Citizenship more prominent (history as a means of learning lessons for the present). But…. No national narrative – so, have we lost our way or reached a new level of maturity in our study of history in schools? So what has happened to the teaching of history in English schools since the National Curriculum was introduced? Inevitably society has changed, as have the priorities of governments – and these are reflected in the history curriculum. The only topics which are compulsory are ones which suggest that the message for pupils is ‘Be Nice!’ and citizenship has been introduced with history used as a means of learning lessons about civic action rather than national identity. What does this mean about England? Have we lost something vital for our future identity or reached a new level of maturity where national identity doesn’t really matter anymore? 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

The Dutch canon and the re-birth of national narratives Well, if we have given up, other nations haven’t. Here is the latest attempt to reconstruct the national narrative for the multi-ethnic European state of the 21st century. The Dutch canon. The idea of an agreed content of significant national history is being revisited – the Dutch canon has been very controversial in the Netherlands. Its defenders say that the 50 key items should be ‘windows’ to wider themes (Erasmus and Rembrandt to the European Renaissance). Its detractors of course point both to the significant Dutch figures it has left out and to the argument that national history is outmoded in an age of international migration, when 20% of the population have been born outside the country. This brings us to some very important questions about the function of a single national story with an agreed common corpus of historical knowledge. I’m going to quote Marjorie Reeves again – writing in Why History? in 1980 but which could have been written last week: In the present political climate the hardest type of emotion to handle with sincerity is that of national loyalty. In a world more drawn together, we recoil from the divisiveness of extreme patriotism… On the other hand, we see the country falling apart from regionalism and stricken with racial division. Can a multi-regional and multi-racial society achieve any solidarity of purpose, and is there enough common heritage of history to feed fuel to this national loyalty? (P.38) 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon

Mr Gove and the Curriculum Review 2011 Should History be part of the National Curriculum at all? If so, what content should be prescribed for it? If content is prescribed, how will it be tested? 19/04/2017 N.Sheldon