ࡱ > V X U I bjbjVV 4V < < A + 8 Q m N 0 z z z $ ~ B g z z g g g * g P=̥ 0 N b ' b b z " z z z ! z z z N g g g g b z z z z z z z z z : Summary of Teacher Interviews the Status of History in the Curriculum MHinton p.25-7 I think it was taken as a standard subject. It was quite a radical decision to make it an option at GCSE. I mean there werent nearly so many subjects around in those days and I think history was an established central part of the curriculum but I wouldnt say that that meant it was well taught or anything like that. We were able to choose what we did. Yes, the enchanted garden of the curriculum, the sacred garden that even the inspectors didnt dare comment on, that was the The only general inspection I was involved in was at L. [grammar school in the 1960s] and that just involved a nice, modest, quiet man coming and sitting in the back of a few lessons and giving me a very laudatory comment. That was all it involved. I know that they condemned the school dinners very strongly. [both laughing] It was a very civilised thing in those days, very gentle. [Speaking as a headteacher from later in his career] I think that most of the history teachers for most of my career were quite content to plough an accustomed furrow, put it that way. I took the view which I think was the common view at that time, that it was the subject departments job to decide how to teach the subject. And it was only in special circumstances, like with the introduction of humanities for example, that you [the head] should interfere with their decisions. If the exam results werent too good you asked some questions. But even there, we did in a sort of way almost everything thats done now in the way of checking up, but it was infinitely more gentle and there wasnt the punch behind it; it was very very difficult to get rid of teachers and it wasnt expected that you would be peremptory with people who were failing. And of course its partly a function of personality, I suppose Id rather encourage people than condemn them. EHinde p.17 As a head of department, I wrote the syllabus, nobody else. I mean, subject to the heads approval of course. I arranged who would teach what, nobody else told me. They asked me for advice on how to do this, that and the other, or whatever. And I looked at peoples record books and things and checked that they were marking properly and all that kind of thing. But yes, I had total freedom. I wasnt restricted by government edict at all. [laughs] Never had enough money to do what you wanted. [laughs] Ever. [laughs] No, you were always restricted by money. In secondary modern schools, yes it was usually two or three forty minute periods it originally was an eight period day or a seven period day. That was the normal. When we went on to options and they chose, then you got four periods a week as a rule, usually two doubles, sometimes a double and two single was how it worked. EHinde p.23 [Status of History] Varied very much according to the people who taught it, really. When I was a head and it was an option subject I noticed that sometimes, specially a lot of people would choose either history or geography and it would depend on the status of the history and geography teachers in the department at the time, whether they felt theres a fighting chance of getting one of those two or three really good history teachers or one of those two or three really good geography teachers. Did depend on who was teaching it. EHoulder p.27 It [History] was always seen as an optional, not very important. People always said maths and English, latterly the sciences, and I agree that theyre all vital but I think historys just as important as all those. It isnt less important because you get things like these people who just dont understand the past and then from that, they cant again, Afghanistan. Youve got to understand whats happened there in the last 200 years to appreciate the problems that were having now, and to try and find a solution, which weve done in the past. And had modern politicians really gone into that, they might have a better idea. And, of course, the whole population if theyd been taught that in history. PADawson p.24 In the comprehensive it was [high status], definitely. Our department, because the three of us were workaholics I suppose in a way you would say, certainly my Head of Department was. And she demanded high standards, but the three of us were very, very highly regarded as conscientious, hard-working our results were excellent. There was a huge uptake of history. No, the head was never pleased with [grade D-G] results and he was never pleased by the fact that the boys right the way throughout the school performed far worse than the girls did. He was constantly on our backs. The boys were not keen on project work, whereas the girls were. And this would tend to pull the boys down anyway, you know. But certainly our department was very, very highly-rated. I think in fact some of the departments were jealous. RWood p.18 I think history was better [before the NC] it was done more frequently and more thoroughly than it is done today. My cross examination of the two little girls next door, I got the feeling that a lot of work is being done towards SATS and the humanities get pushed out a bit. I still get The Teacher and you get very little work on [history] and its all about science, and talking to colleagues. I go in [to the school where she worked] about once every two years now to do old toys because Ive been a hoarder, Ive still got my old dolls and that and I go in and Im now pushed to the very end, Im the fill in, you know just before the Christmas parties, whereas once upon a time it would be done, I wouldnt say better, but there would be more work on the walls. Now were doing about old things and Mrs Wood has got a lot of old toys so well have her in, sort of style. MWilson p.10 [talking about 2007 onwards] In the secondary school I was in, the people who were planning it were not historians so the history that they were going to include was not what I would call history, it was not good history, it was, well well do a topic on, I cant remember, Egypt, so you kind of bring in a bit about hieroglyphs and pyramids and things, but it wasnt proper rigorous history where youve got a real depth enquiry, it was putting together a nice little project and helping them to do some better English, which isnt such a bad thing but as far as the history was concerned it wasnt going to work, it was going to be a disaster. p.17 When I was doing the regional subject advisory job [2008-10], there was one school I went into where they had reduced history to just Year 7 and 8, their take up at GCSE was very low and in Year 7 .. I think they actually did two lessons a week but they werent a full hour, I think they did 50 minute lessons, and in Year 8 they only had one lesson a week and that was it, whole entitlement for history, and if they didnt do GCSE that was it. There was no way they were going to be able to get through any kind of national curriculum, revised, content reduced or anything, I mean, it was just going to be a complete skim through. JDClare pp. 32-3 I think, in less culturally advantaged state schools, its in terrible danger at the moment, because its a single award, its a difficult subject, it doesnt bring home many points. Its one of those subjects in which, in a school like mine, where basically the children dont know what a communist is and they dont know what the Urals are, and if you talk about Trans-Siberian railway, you have to tell them what Siberia is. They do not possess a kind of a background, cultural background, which allows them to analyse things, youre trying to teach everything. This is top down now, people are telling the school what results theyve got to get and the senior management team are going away and saying, Well, the children have got to get those results, you must get that from your teacher. Thats the way education goes at the moment in 2010. History is an unwanted subject, because it doesnt bring home the bacon, and so youre finding history is being sliced back in a whole raft of state schools, because its not supplying the points. p.34 I dont think its the children you need to convince, they quite enjoy doing history and just love it anyway. I think its the powers that be who need convincing that history has a viable and important place, and must be given the elbow room, given the room to actually perform. CHinton p.27 Historys a popular and successful subject in my school but I do have some underlying concerns. Its popular because the department is well qualified, bright, hard working, stable and innovative. Students know they get a good deal with the history teachers. Its the most popular option at GCSE; five classes from a ten form entry. However, such is the hold of exam league tables that the pressure is now on to not let students who would get below a C to do it. Unless the league table madness diminishes soon, I can see a whole category of child being disenfranchised from history after year nine. JHite p.22 In all the institutions Ive worked in, fortunately history has been highly regarded. It helps if you have a large element of historians in the hierarchy and then by chance certainly at B. [his first school], the two most powerful people were historians. But it also depends on the nature of the history that you are doing, and if you are doing the SHP I think people from other professions can see the value of that approach to history as opposed to just telling people about what happened in the past. Of course at A Level it is still [high status] you know there is this grading of various subjects as soft and hard, history has always been given great status. Although some people bemoan the lack of historical knowledge and argue that history now, with the use of sources, isnt as challenging and therefore as worthy of esteem as the old learn all your facts and regurgitate it in four hours. I think AS has certainly lowered the intellectual content and skill demands of a A Level, but I think at its peak where you had particularly these individual studies and you had [a] combination of essays, source work and individual studies, in many ways thats far more demanding than the sort of A Level that I did, which was just based on one formal assessment. So despite that I still think history is well regarded. Particularly with all the growth of the new subjects like media studies and sociology etc, which dont have the same street cred, so I think its surviving quite well in terms of regard. RSnow p.36 Well, on Kirkland Rowlands survey, where theyve asked pupils, were second in popularity with the kids, with the GCSE option After art, I think it is you know, senior staff I dont think like us having too many classes. So then do you compete with geography? Geography, PE, drama, IT, art, photography all the choices, massive. Theyve got too much choice in some ways. And, you know, were still regarded as a harder subject, but were still reasonably popular within the school. JEdgar p.32 For many years, prior to the vocational expansion, about half the children in the school did history at GCSE, give or take, roughly speaking. Were now slightly lower than that, theres about three GCSE groups in any year, which is still not unhealthy. We really have to survive in a big option group, you know, its not an option between geography, history, RS and maybe one other, its a massive block were competing with art and all sorts of subjects. So I think history does pretty well in a school like this which is in terms of ability level weve got a profile that is mid to low but as more children opt for subjects that carry a larger amount of time for their delivery, thats the threat point, then obviously thats going to squeeze lots of other subjects out of the curriculum, because if Im choosing a subject that carries four GCSEs, I know its got the time of four GCSEs, then Those children in the past would have had another three subjects that theyre no longer following. DHughff p.14 Its tough, especially when you consider that next year history wont exist in year seven. Its going [over] to a thing called Discovery, where all the humanities subjects have a morning and we cover bits, but where do we cover the National Curriculum? Theres bits of it which we will cover, but weve got to change it in year eight and year nine to fit that. We will have about twelve lessons which are dedicated history time, which are basically the skills and will probably get the Norman Conquest done in that time. The rest of the time, its themes around the humanities topics so for example well do the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day. Well have a few weeks doing the history of Hartlepool, looking at Ralph Ward Jackson, how it was created. It all ties in, but its how do you fit the National Curriculum elements into that? And the reason its being introduced is for an obvious thing, literacy. Literacy is the problem within the school, and the idea is that with individual lessons on [history], youre struggling to get the proper literacy in. And thats why its combined to get a lot more literacy in its going to be a nightmare trying to fit everything in. pp.23-4 We are what I would class as a fifth division subject. Division one is maths and English, because thats what the school is judged by. Division two is PE and technology, which are thespecialisms of the school. Division three is anything that has multiple awards, which you can get big GCSEs for in the time that youre given leisure and tourism, stuff like that, engineering is a third division. The fourth division is the other options subjects, our single options so I would say things such as media, that type of thing. And the fifth division is the options subjects that are hard, MFL [modern foreign languages] and history. And in our school we are a fifth division subject. And its because its hard. And that is why. I would say its valued by the students because our [numbers] are always high, but by the school it isnt because our contribution to CVA [contextual value added in the league table] is practically nothing. The top kids will get As and Bs, but they wont get the A*s because A*s in history are hard. and because of that we wont get the status within the school. We can work as hard as we can but because on average across the board I think history is half a [grade] down on English. If youre being compared to that, you cant compare. And as a result the subjects losing its status. SBishop pp. 12-13 I do think at GCSE, I think history is beginning to rear its head in terms of the amount of literacy needed to get a very good grade in it. I think it stands head and shoulders above many other subjects in terms of the amount of literacy we expect from students. I think if anything over the last few years the literacy requirement of other subjects has gone down whereas history is still the same. I mean the questions on the exam papers are not differentiated. You need a high standard of literacy just to understand what the question is asking you, let alone answer it. [At the secondary modern school in Kent] we had to teach what each type of question meant. It was difficult for the students to understand, especially the lower attaining students. And history has a gap as far as I believe. Youve got GCSE and youve got entry level certificate, but youve got nothing in between. So a student could do GCSE history, get a D or an E or an F, but carrying through into the work place that kind of grade does have connotations. p. 23 We seem to be rated reasonably well. I know Ive got other colleagues having to fight not to be made into a humanities department. Were very lucky its respected well in the school. Students like it, parents like it. In terms of timetable time, we were recently going to re-do our timetable for September and that probably will give us slightly more time. So in other words we wont really lose out. Were very lucky. There was one proposal where we would have lost out, and then I wouldnt have been too happy, where students would have only been receiving one history lesson a fortnight. The current allocation is two 50 minutes a week, and that will go down at key stage 3 to three 50 minute lessons a fortnight which I can live with. Ive taught that before and it is do-able, but any less than that, it suddenly becomes very difficult to cover the content. GCSE its three 50 minute lessons a week, and that will be maintained. And A-level, its five 50 minute lessons a week. So not too bad. PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT 5 G H I K P W X z { ! @ A I _ d s! # # # ( ( :) ;) B) ļߴ߬ߤߑ߉ynf h, CJ aJ hO hY CJ aJ hY CJ aJ hE CJ aJ h2Zz CJ aJ h_X CJ aJ hO hO CJ aJ hO CJ aJ hNi CJ aJ ht