Michael Gove's new History curriculum for UK schools

Hello ILX. I don't usually start threads here but I'm making an exception because I don't think there's been enough outrage for this. And most of the press coverage is focused on either it being too British centric / jingoistic or how wonderful it is because it is return facts, knowledge, narrative and chronology (as if we don't do any of that). But the press don't seem to have actually shown anyone the curriculum so I've copied and pasted it below for your gawking pleasure. What is being ignored is how completely bonkers the new History curriculum is - showing absolutely no awareness of age appropriateness / child development, how overloaded it is, how completely prescriptive this is, and how there has been a total lack of consultation with History teachers, save for Niall Ferguson. If I had to teach this, kids would be completely turned off History.

Here it is:

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.

Subject content

Key Stage 1 Year 1 & 2 or Ages 5-7

Pupils should begin to develop an awareness of the past and the ways in which it is similar to and different from the present. They should understand simple subject-specific vocabulary relating to the passing of time and begin to develop an understanding of the key features of a range of different events and historical periods.

Pupils should be taught about:

- simple vocabulary relating to the passing of time such as ‘before', ‘after', ‘past', ‘present', ‘then' and ‘now'
- the concept of nation and of a nation's history
- concepts such as civilisation, monarchy, parliament, democracy, and war and peace that are essential to understanding history
- the lives of significant individuals in Britain's past who have contributed to our nation's achievements - scientists such as Isaac Newton or Michael Faraday, reformers such as Elizabeth Fry or William Wilberforce, medical pioneers such as William Harvey or Florence Nightingale, or creative geniuses such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Christina Rossetti
- key events in the past that are significant nationally and globally, particularly those that coincide with festivals or other events that are commemorated throughout the year
significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

Key Stage 2 Year 3-6 ,or Age 7-11

Pupils should be taught about the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome.

In addition, across Key Stages 2 and 3, pupils should be taught the essential chronology of Britain's history. This will serve as an essential frame of reference for more in-depth study. Pupils should be made aware that history takes many forms, including cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history. Pupils should be taught about key dates, events and significant individuals. They should also be given the opportunity to study local history.

Pupils should be taught the following chronology of British history sequentially:

- early Britons and settlers, including: the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages, Celtic culture and patterns of settlement
- Roman conquest and rule, including: Caesar, Augustus, and Claudius
- Britain as part of the Roman Empire
- the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire
- Anglo-Saxon and Viking settlement, including: the Heptarchy, the spread of Christianity, key developments in the reigns of Alfred, Athelstan, Cnut and Edward the Confessor
- the Norman Conquest and Norman rule, including: the Domesday Book, feudalism, Norman culture
- the Crusades
- Plantagenet rule in the 12th and 13th centuries, including: key developments in the reign of Henry II, including the murder of Thomas Becket, Magna Carta, de Montfort's Parliament
- relations between England, Wales, Scotland and France, including: William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Llywelyn and Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the Hundred Years War
- life in 14th Century England, including: chivalry, the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt
- the later Middle Ages and the early modern period, including: Chaucer and the revival of learning, Wycliffe's Bible, Caxton and the introduction of the printing press, the Wars of the Roses, Warwick the Kingmaker
- the Tudor period, including religious strife and Reformation in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary,
- Elizabeth I's reign and English expansion, including: colonisation of the New World, plantation of Ireland, conflict with Spain
- the Renaissance in England, including the lives and works of individuals such as Shakespeare and Marlowe
- the Stuart period, including: the Union of the Crowns, King versus Parliament, Cromwell's commonwealth, the Levellers and the Diggers, the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London, Samuel Pepys and the establishment of the Royal Navy
- the Glorious Revolution, constitutional monarchy and the Union of the Parliaments.

Key Stage 3 usually Year 7-9, Age 11-14

Building on the study of the chronology of the history of Britain in Key Stage 2, teaching of the periods specified below should ensure that pupils understand and use historical concepts in increasingly sophisticated ways to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts. They should develop an awareness and understanding of the role and use of different types of sources, as well as their strengths, weaknesses and reliability. They should also examine cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social aspects and be given the opportunity to study local history. The teaching of the content should be approached as a combination of overview and in-depth studies.

Pupils should be taught about:

The development of the modern nation
- Britain and her Empire, including: Wolfe and the conquest of Canada, Clive of India, competition with France and the Jacobite rebellion, the American Revolution
- the Enlightenment in England, including Francis Bacon, John Locke, Christopher Wren, Isaac Newton, the Royal Society, Adam Smith and the impact of European thinkers
- the struggle for power in Europe, including: the French Revolution and the Rights of Man, the Napoleonic Wars, Nelson, Wellington and Pitt, the Congress of Vienna
- the struggle for power in Britain, including: the Six Acts and Peterloo through to Catholic Emancipation, the slave trade and the abolition of slavery, the role of Olaudah Equiano and free slaves, the Great Reform Act and the Chartists
- the High Victorian era, including: Gladstone and Disraeli, the Second and Third Reform Acts, the battle for Home Rule, Chamberlain and Salisbury
- the development of a modern economy, including: iron, coal and steam, the growth of the railways, great innovators such as Watt, Stephenson and Brunel, the abolition of the Corn Laws, the growth and industrialisation of cities, the Factory Acts, the Great Exhibition and global trade, social conditions, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the birth of trade unionism
- Britain's global impact in the 19th century, including: war in the Crimea and the Eastern Question, gunboat diplomacy and the growth of Empire, the Indian Mutiny and the Great Game, the scramble for Africa, the Boer Wars
- Britain's social and cultural development during the Victorian era, including: the changing role of women, including figures such as Florence Nightingale, Mary Seacole, George Eliot and Annie Besant, the impact of mass literacy and the Elementary Education Act. 　

The twentieth century
- Britain transformed, including: the Rowntree Report and the birth of the modern welfare state, ‘Peers versus the People', Home Rule for Ireland, the suffragette movement and women's emancipation
- the First World War, including: causes such as colonial rivalry, naval expansion and European alliances, key events, conscription, trench warfare, Lloyd George's coalition, the Russian Revolution, The Armistice, the peace of Versailles
- the 1920s and 1930s, including: the first Labour Government, universal suffrage, the Great Depression, the abdication of Edward VIII and constitutional crisis,
- the Second World War, including: causes such as appeasement, the failure of the League of Nations and the rise of the Dictators, the global reach of the war - from Arctic Convoys to the Pacific Campaign, the roles of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, Nazi atrocities in occupied Europe and the unique evil of the Holocaust
- Britain's retreat from Empire, including: independence for India and the Wind of Change in Africa, the independence generation - Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, Kenyatta, Nkrumah,
- the Cold War and the impact of Communism on Europe
- the Attlee Government and the growth of the welfare state
- the Windrush generation, wider new Commonwealth immigration, and the arrival of East African Asians
society and social reform, including the abolition of capital punishment, the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality, and the Race Relations Act
economic change and crisis, the end of the post-war consensus, and governments up to and including the election of Margaret Thatcher
- Britain's relations with Europe, the Commonwealth, and the wider world
- the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

italics are my additions

ahem English and Welsh schools. We dont let dafty tories mess with our curriculum in Scotland (otherwise I agree with you and posted about it on FB a week or so ago)

7 - 11 are intense

sooner michael gove and pals are history the better

The point, you see, isn't that the children should appreciate history, but rather that they should have been taken through the paces by a teacher and all the basic facts ticked off the list.

Britain as part of the Roman Empire

ahem

yeah i think wales is going to ignore this altogether. they've said as much about whatever gove does to gcse's.

xp - and it will be taught by your average primary schoolteacher, no disrespect to them, but good luck teaching cnut to 9 year olds

That's kind of a lot, isn't it? There are tons of areas there I still know zero about. I couldn't name very much of what I studied at school by way of topics - the industrial revolution, WWI, some early Scottish stuff - but I'm sure there wasn't an emphasis on *covering ground*, it was about learning techniques and spotting points-of-view.

i swear i was the only one at primary school in my class(and we moved around a bit so went to a few primary schools) that ever liked history.
This new curriculum is gonna seriously bore the tits off everyone who has to endure it.

Didn't Gove get his ideas from crazy american guy at a conference?

ismael did you do changing life in scotland 1760 to 1820 too?

WW1
and russian revolution? (boring as fuck despite everyone thinking that would be a good one)

This new curriculum is some serious Daily Mail appeasing bullshit.

so it this basically a list of dates to name and no emphasis on writing essays(technique,critical thinking etc like we were taught ).

I can't remember. Probably though, whatever era New Lanark represents we'd've done. We did do a bit about the pre-GB monarchs - even less relevant than the English ones tbh.

it sounds like history lessons the Bash Street Kids got

ahh yes new lanark and robert owens was Changing Life In Scotland 1760-1820. Much sniggering was had everytime runrig was mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nCKYEM8qRc

In fairness this stuff's all great to learn about; I do question how much of that can possibly be done, unless they drop maths, english, etc.

of course the Huge Nuts in France got the biggest laughs ;)

Do you teach, Danzig? How would this work?

yeah I teach Years 7-12. It would not work. We would have to throw out all our resources that we have worked hard on developing, everything on the Battle of Hastings onwards and instead start with Wolfe in Canada?!?! We would have to rely on the our primary colleagues to have taught their 10 year olds the complexities of 16th/17th religion so that they can begin to understand the Jacobite rebellions. There are also no textbooks with this content pitched at the level of these kids. All this is supposed to start in 2015. We have no time to develop any of these new curriculum, resources, lessons, assessments, etc. I teach in a diverse school in London, with a significant Asian and Black population. We mostly teach British History in a chronological order, but we do cover things like the Mughal Empire and the struggle for Black Civil Rights in USA, so History is relevant to them and not just old white men as this new curriculum will mostly consist of.

The irony of it all is that the government wants every school to become an academy, free from local authority control, and free to experiment and do whatever they please with the curriculum. Gove is keen on freedom, but this National Curriculum is the very opposite of it! The previous National Curriculum was intentionally vague, focusing on general themes within a chronological framework and explicitly mentioning only Slavery and the Holocaust.

The Battle of Hastings, we did that.

The paragraph at the top of each key stage does correspond to how we learnt, I think; but as I say we studied maybe six to eight things at all, so I can't believe that everything on this list is to be covered, or understand how it could be. It could be done in elite schools, I guess, but there's no sensible way I could imagine average schools covering so much ground other than by rote-learning.

my recollection of history classes in scottish schools is that there were cavemen and then there was william wallace and now there's a scottish parliament, fin.

At the moment the National Curriculum specifies Primary schools should teach WWII, Victorians, Tudors along with Aztecs, Romans, etc. in a non-chronological way - as these are topics that have either entered the national consciousness - so they can compliment it with watching things like Horrible Histories and interview grandparents, etc - or because they lend themselves to combining with roleplay, art, creative writing, - as History is taught by non-specialists. But I worry the new Primary curriculum is so abysmal that my primary colleagues will give up on History altogether, and we'll have to pick up the pieces.

In Scotland most people dropped History and took Geography after 2nd year in high school(O'Grades, as it was then, started in 3rd year, now its Standard Grades)

ya the way standard grades were structured at my school had us choose one from history, geography, or modern studies. which seems a bit unreasonable.

thats how it was in mid 80s for O'Grades too.

My 3 fave subjects. Hated everything else.

The Enlightenment in England, including… Adam Smith

tsk.

Surprised they let the foundation of the Welfare State in there tbqh.

Pupils should be taught about the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome.

this is actually maybe the tellingest "lol 19th century public schools" bit of the whole farce.

it's unworkable, ergo it won't happen. wouldn't worry, the education system's fucked top to bottom as it is.

greek & roman history was welcome respite from drab brit tedium in my day

i'm all for Greeks and Romans but it has a v. political subtext within this particular curriculum. our Hannah's done some stuff about the ancient Olympics but she's also done Incas and other South American cultures this year which she's been v. into.

Gove's grammar school fantasy has fuck all to do with what history is or what historian's do but hey ho school eh?

yup does he think kids can learn to paint by walking round art galleries?

or that they will learn piano if they can recite the keys of chopin's polonaises?

dick.

Gove heckled, a lot

How is this playing out on the ground? I can't recall any minister taking such a confrontational approach since Thatcher; especially not where his service is so dependent on the people he's confronting.

It all seems very weird and old-fashioned. Also that he's allowed so much ownership of this Titanic. Whenever Labour was this bold, Blair was always devoting as much time-and-energy as he possibly could to get a consensus going.

It's playing well within the Tory Party, which Gove is well aware of... as is Cameron

The swivel-eyed loons love him

Worth noting that this is Head Teachers who are heckling him, normally a fairly conservative bunch, I fear he might get lynched if he shows up at the NUT conference.

THE John Steinbeck novella Of Mice and Men, and other American classics including Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible and the Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird, have been dropped from new English literature GCSEs after Michael Gove, the education secretary, insisted teenagers had to study works by British writers.

Three-quarters of the books on the governmentdirected GCSEs, which will be unveiled this week, are by British authors and most are pre-20th century.

any links to a full article that aren't paywalled? Interested in the details/references to what Gove's actually said.

Not that i can find. The information about his preferences seems to be coming from the OCR exam board rather than anything he has stated in public.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bod_AS3CYAAC2Ox.jpg:large

Cheers.
I did Educating Rita and TKAM at GCSE (mid-90s). Both worthwhile.

Removing The Crucible strikes me as transparently ideological.

i didn't know about this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F212quQ1KI