British History Curriculum (Draft) is Criticized

…I disagree with your last point.

So you’re saying you don’t want any 19th or 20th century history taught at primary-school level? :confused:

Creaking Door

You’re enthusiastic – as usual but, wide of the mark. knowledgeable teachers make for good teaching practice and therein lies the problem. There aren’t enough that, so far as the teaching of history is concerned, have bothered themselves with learning about the early history of the peoples of these islands during the period that I’ve mentioned.

It requires some application of scholarship and therefore like maths and science tends to be neglected by a primarily female teaching establishment. That’ll make me popular with all the feminists – male as well as female.

I’ve taught Early English history – by invitation – at private schools. My teaching aids were flags, symbols and modern made copies of various artefacts from the relevant period. My students were animated and asked a huge number of intelligent questions more than demonstrating their interest.

History is not and should never be solely about Kings and Queens and dates. Yes, there should be a structure but, it should not overwhelm and should be integrated with the teachers narrative.

….If there was as much effort put in to providing Anderson Shelter – type experiences from other periods why shouldn’t children engage just as strongly….

Some do Charlie – one example from my patch that immediately springs to mind is Romano-British! {Their description not mine!} This was used for many school visits.

…..Ironically, teaching World War II history to the Polish children in a British school may be exactly the sort of inclusive curriculum that we need in today’s Britain.

Interesting comment CD – a few years ago one of the school groups I hosted included several Polish boys and they certainly related to evacuee experience; they became even more engaged when they translated the Polish markings on the Zurowski ZP.1 helicopter.

Newark also has a large travelling community and they have also ‘engaged’ with the World War II evacuation topic!

[QUOTE=Creaking Door;2013546]
Let’s be clear, I’m not against any other period of history being taught but if there is a limited amount of teaching time available (and there is) I don’t think that trying to include every period of British history into the primary-school years is a good idea. I am also absolutely opposed to excluding history from the 19th and 20th centuries from being taught in these primary-school years.

[/QUOTE

Yes we agree about that first statement. There is no suggestion that every period should be included – quite the opposite in fact. And I disagree with your last point.

I don’t think there is any doubt that it is more accessible. One of the initiatives at my local school was to invite local pensioners into the school so that the children could interview them about their wartime experiences. Not much chance of that with Romans, Tudors or Victorians and soon it will not be possible to find anybody who lived through World War II.

Let’s be clear, I’m not against any other period of history being taught but if there is a limited amount of teaching time available (and there is) I don’t think that trying to include every period of British history into the primary-school years is a good idea. I am also absolutely opposed to excluding history from the 19th and 20th centuries from being taught in these primary-school years.

Ironically, teaching World War II history to the Polish children in a British school may be exactly the sort of inclusive curriculum that we need in today’s Britain.

The sense I am getting from you chaps is that more recent history is more accessible. That’s only because you FEEL it is more accessible, and so make it more accessible. For a 7 year old WW2 is not much closer than the Victorians.

If there was as much effort put in to providing Anderson Shelter – type experiences from other periods why shouldn’t children engage just as strongly.

But we are unlikely to agree, that’s clear.:)

Brilliant! That’s the way to teach history! 😀

It certainly is – you may be surprised to know (or not) that plans are currently afoot to get one installed at NAM! 😉

I’m really looking forward to ‘evacuating’ the Dambusters Hut when the siren goes and heading for the shelter – note to self: let the neighbours know what’s being planned!! 😀

I am just trying to make the point that all history should be treated equally with none getting a greater emphasis than another for the age groups we are discussing.

Sorry, but I just think there is too much history for it to be given equal emphasis at primary level. There simply isn’t enough time in class to cover it in enough depth for children to differentiate between the different historical periods; even if you start at the Roman period it would just degenerate to a long list of dates and the names of tribes or kings-and-queens.

The thing that I found most shocking when I actually went into the classroom was how quickly the class rattled through the day; I know children’s concentration spans are not what they used to be but it seemed that they’d hardly set-up for one subject when it was time to pack-up and start something else.

The teaching staff were also under great pressure to score well in ‘reading, writing and arithmetic’ and the school that I was in must be a great rarity these days because the class size was smaller than average and English was the first-language of everybody in it!

There is much Roman, Ancient, Saxon, Medieval, Tudor etc etc history to be found in museums and National Heritage sites. I suspect part of the problem is that teachers are neither interested nor know much “history” – probably because they were not taught it either.

I’m not disputing that other periods of history are equally important or that there aren’t local resources available to promote an interest in these but what the proposed changes to the curriculum mean is that more recent history cannot be taught before secondary school!

Let the younger children benefit from the more accessible recent history before the more serious ‘book learnt’ history that they’ll get when they’re older and it is more suitable to their ability to understand.

I’m not sure exactly what ‘secondary school’ means nationally but around here (Bedfordshire) the ‘three-tier’ system is still operated; up until they’re nine the children are taught (almost) every lesson by their form-teacher. They cannot all have a sufficient knowledge of history to make learning early British history the experience that it should be; at this age children would surely benefit more from dramatic, tangible, recent history, supported by school visits.

…the father of the teacher had come into school and built them an Anderson Shelter! 🙂

Brilliant! That’s the way to teach history! 😀

Charlie, equal weighting should be given to all modules that are taught (in all subjects) and those teachers that don’t achieve the grade should be identified as part of the inspection process.

I quite agree that “all history should be treated equally” but under the proposed changes to history on the National Curriculum – primary school children would be taught almost nothing that happened after the year 1688!

Indeed, TO – so uninterested and unknowledgable teachers are unlikely to make the more distant history interesting, are they? That simply should not be the case. They need to be engaging with your counterparts running museums and heritage sites from those periods and arranging visits and talks and demonstrations, in the same way you do for more recent history.

I am just trying to make the point that all history should be treated equally with none getting a greater emphasis than another for the age groups we are discussing.

Charlie, the whole point of the National Curriculum is that if a topic i.e. history (from whatever era) is on there; then it has to be taught, whether the teacher knows about it or not!

CD, re #40 – the best external input I’ve heard of in recent times was a Lincolnshire school who visited to cover World War II and the father of the teacher had come into school and built them an Anderson Shelter! 🙂

Well we can agree to differ, although our differences are not great. It is a given that the closer you are to “history” the more of it there is. For some youngsters the distance of history has its own fascination.

There is much Roman, Ancient, Saxon, Medieval, Tudor etc etc history to be found in museums and National Heritage sites. I suspect part of the problem is that teachers are neither interested nor know much “history” – probably because they were not taught it either.

Five years to ten years – 15 terms so just a bit more than a century a term. It means that by the time they are 11 they do actually know something of the history of their country. Broad brush strokes no doubt, but to my mind better than no brush strokes.

Logical, but I still do not agree. Too much of that historical period will be of little or no relevance to them; too much will have to be learned from illustrations and vague descriptions to sink in. Many six-seven-eight year-olds cannot get the months of the year in the right order so you’re going to need something more in-depth rather than covering all these periods with ‘broad brush strokes’. Better to cherry-pick a few dramatic moments in history and cover only these at primary-level. Fill in the gaps later.

In my opinion you need to cover periods of history they can get their hands-on; the industrial revolution at the local steam or canal museum and the world wars at their local military museum.

When my local primary school asked for help with teaching about World War II (partly because the entire school staff is female) I took in some of the relics that I’ve collected from the Battle-of-Britain. Surprisingly the thing they were most interested in (especially the girls) was they spent bullets and shell-cases I’d collected when I was young. They could hardly believe that (almost) every German aircraft shot-down during the Battle-of-Britain was shot-down with those ‘tiny things’ (a handful of 303 bullets)!

I was quite glad not to get a visit from the local bomb-disposal squad after they’d all gone home to tell their parents. 😀

Thanks Charlie, and yes the ‘independents’ might represent an opportunity.

Well it does indeed, TO, and my comment was laced with a degree of cynicism. It’s always the few who paint a bad the picture for the many.

We can all remember ( yes even me) the benefits of well organised and well presented school trips and both my son and grandson have benefitted greatly. Keep up the good work – for as long as you are allowed to!! Mind you there will be a small but growing number of independent schools which might be more than happy to avail themselves of what you can offer.

Not really Charlie – because when they left Newark most (if not all) had a greater appreciation of the wartime sacrifice that so many people gave when flying aircraft!

The high number of family visits that NAM receives immediately after a school visit; helps to illustrate that some meaningful connection is being achieved and that educational knowledge is being taken on board.

Not related to the story above but here’s an extract from a personal thank you letter that I received a few weeks ago from a Notts school that visited in February 2013:

“The children enjoyed the experience – they got such a lot out of it. We have made a lovely display at school with photos etc. as part of our literacy lessons we talked about how to write thank you letters and captions to accompany the photos, as well as making a class book telling others what they enjoyed doing on the visit.

Thank you once again for all of your help.”

It makes you feel like you’ve achieved something! 🙂

Illustrates the problem perfectly, doesn’t it?!:(

The best ‘moment’ I’ve encountered during recent visits (November 2012) was when an 8 year old boy, stood in the doorway of the Wessex helicopter at NAM and shouted – “I’m a celebrity get me out of here!”

Both his teacher and me were very surprised – me especially because he nearly perforated my ear drum with the loudness of the shout!