A primary school teacher has undertaken a study of the history curriculum as available on school websites in five local education authorities. The results are fascinating and insightful. A must read for anyone who thinks education should be valued for its own purpose and not its effectiveness to engender political activism:
Overall the idea that history is being ‘whitewashed’ in English schools does not match the reality of what is being taught. Moreover, it is important that in aiming to diversify the history curriculum it does not become overly focused on the twentieth century and therefore limit the range of individuals and historical periods studied. In addition, there is a clear risk that in order to meet more politicised content demands that the delineation between studying history and other politicised goals is blurred. This could lead to pupils gaining a distorted sense of the purpose of history study. Ultimately schools need to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, a requirement which is not the objective of external actors and organisations with singular agendas.