TEACHERS’ MEMORIES – STATUS OF HISTORY
Teachers born in the 1940s
IJ/T40/HiE33
Career profile: 1962-95 Grammars (62-mid-70s) Comps. (mid-70s-95) in Leeds.
In each of the schools I have taught history had a high status—we often got the best children doing history and got good results—BUT we had to constantly fight our corner. Often it was the Head teacher’s attitude was the problem—seeing Geography as the ‘useful humanity’ and not appreciating the unique nature of historical study. The SHP was helpful as it was difficult for a non historian to teach history –also we were doing course work before any other dept and demonstrably using active methods to teach—I was ‘head hunted’ by the LEA IT adviser to become an advisory teacher for IT . My colleague was also working in curriculum development.
I worked in a small dept most of the time – 2-3 teachers of history
For us curriculum change (SHP) helped history as a subject—the enthusiasm of the pupils and their ability to talk about historical issues at home eg appreciation of the history in the locality and of current affairs- made parents aware of the value of history in school.
I think history will always have an image problem in schools—in spite of the popular interest in history in the media and on TV. History is not seen as useful—or tending to a career- and with the current crowded curriculum at eg GCSE--- history is possibly being squeezed out.
In my early career history was a compulsory part of the curriculum from ages 14- 16 up to O level. I would not want that to happen again as I would always want willing students—but we lose our knowledge of the history of our community at our peril...
On the other hand what aspects of our community’s history should be taught? There is the fear that history might be used by governments with a particular axe to grind—propaganda tool. The arguments about national curriculum history are a particular case in point.....
EH/T40/HiE28
N.B. INTERVIEWED
Career profile: 1961-97 Four sec. mods. (61-75), one grammar/comp. 79-97 all near Pontefract, West Yorks.
History had a high status in two of my schools – North Featherstone CS and The King’s School; both heads were ex Heads of History! I had a largish department at King’s with three permanent members, two or three part-timers and even the Head teaching the subject. However, he insisted on teaching his favourite O-level syllabus!
PW/T40/HiE36
Career Profile: 1979-2000 Two middle schools and two primary schools, Staffordshire.
I think that History was rather a ‘lost’ subject. Staffordshire provided many training sessions and courses for teachers and this helped to support the specialist and non-specialist alike. I believe that curricular change went too far in expecting children to learn about foreign history when they knew very little about their own countries.
JF/T41/HiE20
Career profile: 1966-9 Grammar School, latterly (no dates, infant school supply teaching)
Perfectly respectable but not as high as Maths!
PD/T41/HiE124 N.B. INTERVIEWED
Career profile: 1964-93 Secondary mods. and comprehensives, all in or near Whitehaven, Cumbria.
In the 1960s I don’t think history held a very high status in the schools I taught in. When the very large comprehensive came to Whitehaven in 1984 we had a large and well-0run history department which had a very high status in the school.
TM/T41/HiE135
Career profile: 1964-93 Three sec. mod. Schools in York, then Lincs. 1964-75, One comp. 1975-93.
I think the status of history with other teaching colleagues depended on how they saw the staff responsible for the teaching. Although it was afforded respect generally, teachers of other disciplines which were in competition with history for students in the Great Options Stakes would sow seeds of doubt – “it doesn’t get you a job; you can’t use history in your work; what good is kings and queens and dates (probably parents input)” etc.
Pupils gave it a middle to high ranking – in terms of their apparent enjoyment and choice in options.
What is a small (or rather a big) department? I always worked with another colleague and shared the history teaching. I always seemed to get saddled with a deputy headmistress (4 in all over the years including one who became head!!) somewhere along the line. At one time I shared the teaching with 3 other colleagues – though their involvement was not extensive.
Curricular change . It can be seen from the above that in my 29 years 244 days experience, change was often on the horizon.
The introduction of the CSE and the objective-driven assessment of this examination led many teachers to examine their own teaching and assessment methods.
I think the Schools Council had the most benign influence on the school curriculum – including history. Because it could be labelled a quango, it was short lived as its opponents (Thatcher’s cabinet) had their own quangos and placemen waiting in the wings.
The GCSE undoubtedly made many traditional (ie GCE) history proponents sit up and look to their rationale. The GCE boards and their traditional clientele found this a difficult period. The CSE wing of assessment definitely won the day in that by repeatedly asking “what are you trying to measure objectively?” and “How do you propose to do it?” it was able to secure a majority of support behind the national criteria and the new GCSE assessment.
There was nationally a curriculum that met the needs of school leavers and employers. A few schools – which gained notoriety for their outré stance on educating adolescents – attracted negative attention and the rest of us were branded as similar. TV’s Grange Hill was accepted by the great unknowing (ie government backbenchers) as being typical of comprehensive schools. Enter the great white knight in shining armour to slay the army of teacher dragoons. A magic circle was established which produced a curriculum that threatened the real progress that had been made in establishing history in schools as a serious academic study for all pupils – and not just a trick of memory and an opportunity to write at length about what others had thought and had told them.
SF/T43/HiE134
Career profile: 1975-2002
Taught for her whole career at one school in London, initially as a grammar, then a comprehensive from 1977, but ‘there were 7 years of grammar school children who followed the grammar school curriculum, while things were changing for the comprehensive intake’.
When I started teaching, the status of all academic subjects was high, There was a great deal of ability among the pupils and I used to have excellent O level and A level results . It remained high until the 1980s. The National Curriculum coincided with the dramatic academic decline in pupil ability and more problems in dealing with discipline which was most marked in inner city areas. We experienced the tendency to choose our school for pupils with problems, ‘because the school was small’. I do not believe that history can really prosper where literacy is low and pupils prefer subjects with less reading and written work.
Many pupils enjoy Lower School history but once GCSE choices have to be made, there was a History/Geography/RE timetable block and some of the brighter pupils saw Geography as the easier option (as indeed it obviously was!). Once the ‘Humanities’ block itself disappeared, History had to compete with Drama, D&T and Art and I got some rather grim groups.
Ofsted demands in the 1990s were unrealistic and unattainable. In addition, the NC took away the right of History teachers to formulate their own curriculum. The greater emphasis on Maths, English and Science which all pupils have to do until Yr 11 meant that some subjects had a smaller slice of the pie. When the school timetable allows only one period of one hour per week, it is clearly impossible to teach the history of the world as the NC would like.
RW/T43/HiE31 Primary Teacher
Career profile: 1964-2008
1964-84 primary schools in the Midlands and Oxfordshire
1984-7 worked for National Trust; 1987-97 supply teacher in primary schools
In the days before the NC, I don’t think history played a very important part in the primary school curriculum. Each school had its own priorities. In some science was given some prominence, in others there was virtually no science a similar situation happened with history. A number of topics were repeated regularly by teachers – autumn and bonfire night which led to the story of Guy Fawkes. The battle of Hastings and 1066 was another topic that had a regular airing but history was often wrapped up in a half or termly project. In one school the headteacher was very keen on ‘Environmental Studies’ and history featured quire prominently , but in other sit hardly existed. In the secondary school I was part of the history department and had a set scheme to follow. I tried to make the history as exciting as lively as possible within the constrictions of the scheme.
I do not think the NC has helped primary school history. The prescriptive nature of the topics is questionable. Some of the content is not appropriate in the primary school. Primary school history should excite children and encourage them to take an interest in the local area by focusing on local history. Children need to know that history in inclusive of all strata and members of society and not just about kings, queens and battles.
RW/T45/HiE23 Primary Teacher N.B. INTERVIEWED
Career profile: 1965-98
For all but the first year of her career, worked in two primary schools in Gateshead and Haltwistle, Northumberland.
When I was a child, history was important, a history degree showed you were literate and able to do research, now I feel that history has slipped down the league table of subjects and is an additional subject if there is time in the curriculum.
SS/T45/HiE34
Career profile: 1967-2002 series of part-time jobs (67-72), grammar (72-6), sixth form college (76-2002)
a)History was always a high status subject at Barton Peveril College. When I left in 2002, it was the second largest department (second only to business studies with more than 300 students). I believe it is bigger now. I was a member of a department of 10 by 2002, some of whom also taught A level law.
b)Curriculum 2000 (and I only had two years experience of it) certainly attracted more students to the subject, but I felt it compartmentalised the subject matter and put the whole emphasis on skills. With constant sitting of units, and resitting, of course a student can work his/her way up to an ‘A’ – and any good ‘A’ level teacher can tell them how to do it, especially since one can get marked scripts returned for analysis.
c)I don’t know the current position of A level teaching – but at University Level, lack of a broad outline knowledge of, for example, British History, is becoming an issue. Student study Elizabeth I, not having looked at her since the age of 12. In 2002, there was only the necessity of doing one essay at ‘A’ Level history for Edexcel. Several University departments, including Southampton, are specifically teaching essay-writing to undergraduates. I am pleased, however, that the earlier fascinating with Hitler and few other topics is now waning.
MP/T45/HiE29
Career Profile: 1968-2004 Comprehensives (Wales after 1978)
In my early career, history’s status was not particularly high. It had a higher status at Guildford.
As a head of department, I made sure that history achieved a high status, particularly in Wales. In my last two schools (Powys), the status was very low when I arrived (eg 1 -3 studying at A level) but I ensured that it became a high status subject (eg 14 – 18 reading A levels) within a few years. At one school, all the senior staff were scientists and attempted to prevent the success of the subject at the expense of Physics and Chemistry, even using TVEI to undermine my student numbers. I responded by introducing A level Politics and Government, which ensured that the subject survived and that within a couple of years numbers were back to normal. In fact, I was told that –with two A levels- I then had the largest number of A-level students in the school in the department. Obviously, this could not have been achieved without encouraging students to opt for history in lower forms by ensuring that they found the subject a satisfying one to study. Many parents told me at parent evenings how much their children liked history.
GB/T46/HiE26
Career profile:1968-2001 Apart from first year, taught in a grammar school in Manchester, boys only from 1969-86, then co-ed from 1986-2001.
History always given a high regard – I was Head of History (dept. of 3) 1974-86 then Head of Sixth Form (still teaching history) 1986-2001 (retired) in a dept. of 4 – National Curriculum was restricting and stifled independent developments.
RG/T46/HiE136
Career Profile:1982-2005 Sixth Form College (82-91), public school (92-2005)
High status, large department offering a range of 4 different history courses at A Level. It had some of the ablest teachers in both the schools I taught in. Curriculum change meant that it was combined with RE and Geography in a Humanities course for the younger pupils.
BB/T46/HiE127
Career Profile: 1971-99 One grammar + four comps. Herts., Peterborough and Leics.
The status of history at Haberdashers’ was based on fantastic success, with three or four A level sets and many Oxbridge entries; at Sir Frederic Osborn we raised the status and standing on our own to the point where other subjects were envious and even resentful. Our assumption was that the best children should do history and it became so. I now deplore this in myself, but you were rewarded for such success in those days.
NT/T47/HiE31
Career profile: 1971-2002 Three comprehensive schools.
Small dept, progressively declining in status, Integrated skills approach diminishes history, Traditional content approach is still there. History will decline like classics. Lack of support from LA adviser.
MB/T47/Hie38
Career Profile: 1968-2001 Two comps. Rotherham (68-87), then FE College (87-2001)
We always had two classes a week for years 1-3; the CSE and O Level classes had three lessons a week and the status of the department was high. Both of my departments in secondary schools comprised three or four staff. In FE, there were two of us and some part timers, but really, I did most of the teaching (the other full time lecturer was a PL, i/c O and A Level programme). We always had at least three classes for O Level/CSE (the other option was Geography and our results were good.
PD/T47/HiE129
Career Profile: 1970-97 Two comps. London (70-88), Sixth Form College, London (88-97)
High in all three institutions. Each Department around 3 or 4 persons plus at times some senior staff who were History graduates.
Provided that the same high critical standards are maintained especially in written work, I feel that learning has been made more attractive to students and that there is a healthy take-up of A level courses. My main criticism is that the Schools Council syllabus was disjointed in its content.
I later enjoyed teaching a chronological period in the modern way in the later 1980s.
The main issue is for History to remain a discrete subject and not be subsumed under Humanities or Citizenship.
TB/T47/HiE32
Career Profile: 1970-88 7 Primary (70-2), Comp. 72-88) – has worked in museum ed. since then.
In the circumstances of ever increasing curriculum all subjects must tell under the pressure of time or lack of it. I do feel that history has had to contend with the attitude that I had when I was a student – enjoyable and interesting, but what use is it? It is interesting that the teaching of history has given me the answers to this question, but I think that probably this has not been a general conversion. With regard to the size of departments I have little experience to go on. At the comprehensive school I worked at the history teachers were thought of as radical and innovative and consequently we were in demand as teachers in other subject areas as well – hence my move into social studies – this meant we had a large number of part time history staff. This had advantages and disadvantages with regard to the status and commitment of the teachers to history as their sole specialism. One of the things that has struck me over the years is the pervasiveness of history – it’s not just a thing of the past. It gets everywhere. In spite of all the innovative and exciting history teaching I have seen it seems difficult to shake people out of the view either that history is about dates and learning irrelevant details about kings and queens or it’s not enough about kings and queens! There is a lot of whinging. The issue really is that history is hard as well as being gripping and sometimes people get put off by the hardness of it, and so do not allow the gripping bits to come through. This goes for the teachers as well.
AR/T48/HiE30
N.B. INTERVIEWED
Career profile: 1972-85 Wakefield Comp. (72-5), Norfolk Sec. Mod. (75-78), Norfolk Comp. (78-85)
History had medium/high status and we got consistently good results. There were 2.5 people in the department.