On 10 September, the Telegraph reported that many schools are now removing history from their curricula, or ‘streamlining’ it into another kind of course: Either a combination of history and geography (a practice which has been common in America for some time now) or else condensing it further in a rather vaguely defined ‘humanities’ course.
The Telegraph report was based on a survey conducted by the Historical Association, which gathered opinion and fact from over 700 teachers in schools differing widely in administration and student demographics. The survey was largely relative to the Spring 2009 GCSE testing round, and showed the rates at which history education remained a discrete subject in different schools, and attempted to correlate those numbers with the number of students taking up history as one of their GCSE topics. Many schools, including those that still offer history as a distinct subject, have also reduced the time given to the subject per week.
When teachers taking part in the survey were asked why fewer pupils were continuing to study history, many seemed to feel that the subject has been misrepresented and that curricula do not make sense. Some feared that courses ‘lack coherence,’ while others feel that, ‘students are no longer aware of when they are learning history and geography.’
One of the more disturbing ‘trends’ in history education, however, was the practice, largely found in academies, of barring students from taking history if they were predicted to achieve less than an A or B-grade, or had their GCSE options limited and were compelled – occasionally, against students’ own wishes – to take GCSEs in subjects other than history.
There were a few bright spots in the survey, however: Many independent schools – over 90% of the independent schools who responded, in fact – continued to teach history as a subject discrete from others. Independent schools, such as Chavagnes International College, were also able to devote more time to history education per week, which led to more GCSE uptake and better scores on taking the exam.
As history continues in its recognizable pattarns – boom and bust, rise and fall – this trend away from history in comprehensives and academies is worrying: A subject that is, according to the National Curriculum, 2008, supposed to ‘[equip] students with the knowledge and skills they need for adult life’ must not be allowed to disappear – since removing it from the curriculum may lead to further misquotes of an already-overused bon mot.
Catholic boarding schools 