An empowering History curriculum? What does the Curriculum Review mean for school History?

People protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline march past San Francisco City Hall. Pax Ahimsa Gethen https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stand_with_Standing_Rock_SF_Nov_2016_11.jpg

I have written extensively on the role of school History (see the end for links). Now that we have explored the broader issues in the Curriculum and Assessment Review, I want to look more closely at the role is sees for school History as well as the changes the authors suggest. This is the third blog in my series on the Curriculum and Assessment Review. You can find the rest HERE. 
 
The Role of School History
There is a long standing tradition in History teaching, especially for those of us in the Schools History Project tradition, to frame curricular discussions around meeting the needs of young people in the contemporary and future world. Today I think we need to expand that to include the needs of young people in the midst of a planetary crisis exacerbated by ongoing extractive colonial and capitalist mindsets. Therefore, while I think there are a number of sensible recommendations in relation to school History, there are still a range of significant shortcomings in the report's recommendations with relation to History. This begins with the fact that the History curriculum is claimed to be ‘broadly working well’ (p84), with no real sense of which elements of the research base informed this claim. This complacency sets up a pattern in approaching History education which suggests that no real changes are required. This is not simply a lost opportunity, but is actually actively create more harm.  

Broad Issues
The first major point of departure for History is that the EBacc 'qualification' is being abolished. School History has benefitted significantly from the focus on Ebacc, with take-up of the subject at GCSE rising from 31% in 2009/10 to 42% in 2024/25. On the surface, this is welcome news for breadth of study for pupils. The real challenge is whether or not History can sustain pupil faith in a world where schools will (theoretically) no longer be actively pushing pupils down this pathway. That said, because the calculation of Progress 8 does not change, is is not yet clear whether or not the focus on EBacc will in fact change at all. 

It was a relief to see that concerns about the History GCSE have been noted and recognised, particularly the issue of ‘content overload’ (p85). No solutions are yet proposed but there is a call for a review of the requirements of each component. There is also a focus on the concerns that students are doing rote learning to pass exams. The solution however does not seem to recognise that disciplinary concepts are already routinely tested as part of GCSE (though no longer as a personal study), so a call to review the assessment objectives seems shallow. The scope to reintroduce some disciplinary approaches to History, including allowing pupils to conduct their own studies does feel like a potential opportunity, but this seems to have been quashed already in a later section on assessment forms.

Diversity and Inclusion 
There is interestingly very little focus in the report on the diversity and inclusivity of History education. Indeed, the words ‘diversity’, ‘inclusivity’ and ‘colonialism’ don’t seem to appear at all. This feels like a deliberate and disappointing sidestepping of what teachers and pupils have been long raising as concerns about the nature of the examples given in the History National Curriculum. Instead, we are told that History covers ‘a wide range of eras, contexts and cultures’ (p85) and are told that teachers want more guidance to enable them to ‘capitalise on existing flexibility, particularly when representing a wider range of perspectives in British History’ (p85). The suggestion is for non-statutory examples of content to be included. Whilst I understand the need not to poke the Daily Mail beehive this also feels like a betrayal of what many teachers and even more pupils are asking for. History at its core should help young people understand the world they live in and to make more diverse and inclusive content optional sends a very weak message about its importance. Although I am sure many History teachers will jump at the opportunity to include more diverse and decolonised histories in their curricula, I also know that increased specification in other areas, as is suggested, will just draw more time and attention away from these aspects in most schools. 

History and the Planetary Crisis
Equally absent is any mention of History’s contribution to the exploration of the planetary crisis. History has a unique position in enabling young people to explore how past societies have grappled with environmental and existential impacts, adapted and learned to live in new ways. Crucially a focus on the impacts of colonialism and the ways in which Indigenous communities have survived its ecological, socio-political and economic impacts reveals a great deal about the resilience of peoples to adapt and survive in spite of all the odds. To fail to place the planetary issues and an understanding of the impacts of European colonialism into the curriculum feels not just like a lost opportunity but an active barrier for pupils in fully understanding the world today and the potential for a human future.  
 
Although there was a brief nod to the importance of local history, once again, its potential to reveal the interconnected nature of local, national and global stories, as well as of the local, national and imperial, shows a significant lack of imagination. To further suggest that Oak National Academy and its AI fabrications might provide appropriate exemplification of local history is not just an insult to the thousands of teachers doing fantastic work on this front but also a direct assault on the nature of local history and its deep connections with real, human (and more-than-human) experiences. Local history requires careful time, work and resourcing. It opens up space and place. It draws on lived experiences and connects communities. It explores the impacts of shaping forces like industrialisation, globalisation, capitalism, and colonialism. If done well, it builds trust. To try to shortcut local history is to achieve the opposite of these things. It does violence against people, places and planet.  
 
Disciplinary History 
It was encouraging to see recognition that one core criticism of the current curriculum has been its failure to give students a sound knowledge of ‘how historians study the past, and how they construct historical claims, arguments and accounts’ (p84). As Harris has noted, this lack of focus on the construction of historical knowledge has been directly impacted by approaches to History teaching which over-emphasise knowledge acquisition, and have been brought to the fore once again during the ‘knowledge turn’ in education. The recommendation made is therefore to ‘enhance the requirement for disciplinary understanding, without adding excessive content’ (p85). This suggestion does raise some questions as the importance of studying disciplinary aspects of history was embedded in the National Curriculum Levels (if poorly) between 1991 and 2014, and disciplinary modes of thinking are still a core aspect of the National Curriculum itself. The background concern is that we might see the creation of a separate unit within the National Curriculum focusing on disciplinary understanding which would run counter to decades of practitioner research highlighting the importance of historical enquiry in unifying the substantive and the disciplinary. 
 
Statutory and Optional Content
There is a helpful focus on the balance between statutory and optional content in the National Curriculum. The current curriculum is actually very open in terms of the topics for teaching, and many teachers have used this freedom to develop innovative content, relevant to their pupils, contexts and contemporary issues. However, it is true to say that the suggested lists have also led to a curricular narrowing in some schools who sought to reproduce an ‘island story’ type narrative for their pupils. The report claims that a confusing mix of mandatory and optional content makes the curriculum ‘appear overloaded’ (p84) placing the blame partly with teachers’ interpretation of the source. Rather than investing in upskilling History teachers to be able to make careful and well reasoned curriculum choices, as has been promoted the the Curriculum PATHS project for instance, we get the contradictory claim that by specifying what is mandatory, teachers will have more opportunity and professional freedom. We are told that more specification will ‘support teachers to decide whether to treat elements in depth or at a high level’ (p85). Almost no space is given to reflect on how political demands to teach a coherent and comprehensive British story, alongside inspection demands to have a highly detailed curriculum sequence, contributed to this feeling of overloading. Equally there is no further exploration of how the ‘knowledge-rich’ approach to History has led to the silencing of History as an active debate and turned it into a subject obsessed with content recall. Once again, the adherence to the Conservative curriculum paradigm prevents the review from tacking the most significant problems in History classrooms today. 
 
Meaningful Oracy
Although not covered directly in the History section of the report, there is a focus on the need for improved oracy in schools. I wanted to touch on this here as the lack of focus on oracy in the curriculum in recent years has been particularly notable. Thinking specifically about History, but with knowledge of the broader picture too, silent classrooms have grown exponentially in the last ten years and real opportunities for pupils to think and discuss key ideas, issues and topics have been all but removed in some contexts. The explicit focus on oracy in the report is a welcome shift in direction as it sits at the core of meaningful exploration of historical questions. As Ingledew has highlighted, talk is crucial to historical learning and reasoning, and indeed to make sense of disciplinary concepts which the report suggests need greater focus. Equally, meaningful talk sits at the heart of pedagogies which seek to address the planetary crisis. However, the past ten years has seen oracy turn into what Segal and Lefstein call an ‘exuberant, voiceless participation’, a ‘hollow and ritualistic’ practice which is more concerned with ‘animating the teacher’s voice’ rather than enabling pupils to offer ‘independent or original perspectives’. Oracy, the bedrock of meaningful socialised learning in classroom spaces, is at risk of becoming yet another performance to be assessed and monitored, rather than being restored to the heart of the learning process. This is equally true of the way oracy is presented in the English curriculum (p75). It is critical that oracy does not get reduced to an assessed skill but is seen as a crucial part of classroom pedagogies which foreground pupil voices and discussion. Given the focus on ‘speaking and listening requirements’ (p43) I fear however that the interpretation of oracy will be narrower than many History teachers are looking for. 
 
Conclusions
In summary, the suggested reforms to the History curriculum sit in the same bracket as much of the rest of the report. On the surface there appear to be sensible nods to change. However, the detail of the changes seems to pull in very different directions and risks not only leaving History in its present crisis, but actively making that crisis worse by failing to recognise what is preventing change from happening. I have made the case many times that History education has great potential to be a positive force in schools. However, nothing in this report seems to be pushing to realise its ethical, moral and social potential. Instead, it allows the deadening hand of ‘knowledge-rich mastery learning’ to slow teachers in their work to teach meaningful, engaging, accessible, global and  empowering histories to their pupils. 

Thanks for reading. If you would like to comment, please do drop me a line here: Alex Ford (@apf102.bsky.social) — Bluesky. To return to the rest of the blog click HERE.

Other blogs

• In Pursuit of Social Justice - Enabling Transformation Through History Education - andallthat.co.uk
• What is said and what is unsaid? The problems at the heart of the DfE's curriculum and assessment review - andallthat.co.uk
• How have we got historical enquiry so wrong? re-empowering young people through a radical reset of historical enquiry - andallthat.co.uk
• Disrupting Red Pill Thinking in Adolescence: The role of school history and why ‘mastery learning’ is taking us in the wrong direction - andallthat.co.uk
• Communities of Principle: Fighting for Justice in Education - andallthat.co.uk