Exploring History Through Dramatic Inquiry

Mantle of the expert has always been an enigmatic approach, not least because of its name, which is hardly catchy, but also because it seems to contradict many of the assumptions of how a classroom should work. Some have called it nothing more than a drama convention, others like to label it as a return to progressive, laissez-faire education. The truth is mantle of the expert resists easy analysis and is difficult to pigeon-hole. On the surface it seems quite straight-forward – establish an imaginary context, in which the children work as a team of experts, for a client who commissions the team to complete various tasks, that create opportunities for curriculum teaching and learning – however underlying this simple structure is a sophisticated pedagogic approach that incorporates drama and inquiry to create multilayered narrative threads, complex power relationships and dynamic learning opportunities.

In this article we will go step-by-step through the process of setting up an imaginative-inquiry context. We will start with a straight-forward inquiry using a painting which will establish the historical background to the work, then we will ‘step into’ the past (the world of the context) by using various drama conventions and finally we will build the expert team around the children’s ideas and developing knowledge.

The imaginary context begins with a farmer finding of an ancient Roman security box while tending his field. The box has lain undiscovered for 2,000 years, originally buried during the Iceni revolt following the Roman invasions of AD43. By using the box as a bridge into history the context is further developed by the children recreating the dramatic events surrounding its burial. It then returns back to the present as the children adopt the expert point of view as a team of archaeologists, work first outside the fiction to invent the objects hidden in the box and then working inside the fiction as the team interpreting the objects historical meaning.

To make the planning steps easier to follow I’ve divided them up into three discrete sections of approximately one hour each. This does not mean you have to teach them as three separate lessons although you may choose too.

 Session 1 – The Painting: Introducing the Romans and Celts (see Pdf for painting)

Resources:

• Painting of ‘Vercingetorix Throws Down his Arms at the Feet of Julius Caesar” (1899), Lionel Royer (see attached picture)

• Post-it notes – different colours (for Step 4)

• Topic box with books on the Romans and Iceni

For many of the students in your class this might be the first time they have studied the Romans and the Celts. It is likely some of them will have a bit of background knowledge, but for others it will be an entirely new subject. As a teacher I resist as much as possible telling kids stuff. For one reason, it’s too easy for them. For the second, I’ve noticed they don’t really listen until they are interested. When I’m starting a new area of study I concentrate first on getting them actively engaged in the subject, asking questions, making connections, and drawing conclusions. Once this happens then they a more likely to be receptive to new information.

To make this work I need to choose a resource that will grab their attention and, at the same time, give them a wealth of new information. Stories can sometimes do this, film, photographs, and first-person interactions with an adult-in-role. These are all useful strategies but for this context I’ve chosen a painting, ‘Vercingetorix Throws Down his Arms at the Feet of Julius Caesar” by Lionel Royer painted in 1899. I like this painting a great deal because it is full of dramatic tension and captures wonderfully the moment of triumph and defeat that lies at the heart of the Roman invasions. However, it does have drawbacks. The first, and most obvious, is it was painted nearly 2,000 years after the events and is merely an artist’s interpretation. The second is the Celts in the painting are a different tribe from the Iceni, in a different country. Nevertheless, the painting’s advantages (in my opinion) outweigh its disadvantages and I’ve used it many times with children of different ages who have all found it stimulating and exciting.

The following steps are a detailed outline of how I use this painting as the centre of an inquiry. My aims are:

• To engage the children in the context of the painting

• To give them time and opportunity to study it without being told what it is about

• To let them ask questions, make guesses and discuss possibilities

• To encourage them to make inferences and deductions and to begin to draw conclusions

• To give them new and detailed information (at the end) about the people and cultures depicted in the painting

Step 1: Looking at the painting

‘I’d like to show you a painting. It’s quite an old painting, but not as old as the events it portrays. When you look at it could I ask you first just to say what you notice.’

The students might try to guess what is happening in the painting. If they do, acknowledge their efforts but ask them to hold back on those thoughts for a while and just to describe what they can see as accurately as possible. Sometimes this can take a little while, but it is an important step because you want them to really ‘look’ at the painting and not yet start interpreting it.

“Hold on to those thoughts for just a moment, we will be coming back to them very quickly, but just for now can you say only what you can see. For example – I can see a man on a horse pointing empty handed to the floor towards a pile of weapons.”

As the students work help them to use precise language, as if they were describing the events in a book, without the reader seeing the painting.

Once you feel everything in the painting has been described (and before it becomes boring) move onto to the next step.

Step 2: Interpreting the painting

“In art nothing is included by accident. This is not a photograph of the event, but a painting, made hundreds of years later. The artist has thought carefully about every tiny detail and what it might mean to a person looking at it. For example, what do you make of this man kneeling here with his arms tied behind his back?”

Give the students time to talk and build on each other’s ideas. Try not to do too much of the work for them and keep back your own knowledge; let them speculate for the time being. It will be a good opportunity for you to find out what they already know. Ask questions to help them dig a bit deeper and make connections. Keep the language speculative…

“Um, I see. So you think this man might be the king’s brother. Is he hoping to free him do you think?” etc.

Step 3: Giving some background

Once the inquiry has developed it is likely the children will be ready for some answers…

“If it will help I can tell you something about this painting. It was actually painted in 1899 in France, nearly 2,000 years after the event. It depicts the surrender of a Celtic chieftain, called Vercingetorix (werkiŋˈɡetoriks – try www.howjsay.com for a pronunciation) who lead a revolt (a war) against Roman power. Here he is surrendering to the Roman Emperor, Julius Caesar. After this, he was imprisoned for five years, then paraded through Rome and finally executed.”

Give the students the opportunity to ask you questions. Be honest about what you don’t know and don’t make things up. It is important they can use you as an accurate historical resource. You can find all the information you need on Wikipedia.

Step 4: Reflection

For this next step you will need some post-it notes, ideally two different colours.

“So, what do we make of these people, the Celts and the Romans? I’m wondering if by looking at the painting, the way they are dressed, their weapons, their banners and everything else, we might be able to say something about them as different cultures. For example, what about the different shapes of their shields and their motifs?”

Your aim is to begin a discussion about the contrast between the straight, angular, lines of the Roman designs and the more rounded, organic, shapes of the Celts. Encourage the students to ask questions and make inferences about the two different cultures and what was important to them as people.

Finally, use the post-it notes to work with the students to collect their thoughts. On one colour ask them to write the things they know (or might know) about the Celts and the Romans. On the other, to write questions they would like to know more about. You could also introduce them to the topic books as they work, putting them out onto the tables – “You might find these useful…”

By the end of this session you are likely to have the makings of quick wall display with a copy of the painting surrounded by different coloured post-it notes recording the children’s new knowledge and questions.

Session 2: The Roman Box: Stepping back into history

• Some large sheets of sugar paper (to write down key questions and ideas)

• Stack of A5 paper (for the children to use)

• An adult in role (AIR) (in Step 4)

Step 1. The farmer finds the chest

Gather the class round a large sheet of sugar paper. Start drawing the outline of the box (a large rectangular shape). At the same time tell the following story:

“I’d like to tell you about something that was found in a field… it was found by a farmer, who was out ploughing one early morning. He was driving his tractor when the plough caught something hard. He knew a sound like that could spell trouble (a broken blade or something) so he jumped out of his cab and rushed round the back of the tractor to have a look. There, after he cleared away some of the earth, was a very curious thing. A large metal box buried deep in the ground, you can see the size of it, a large metal box with a curious lid. (Start drawing the two handles) The lid had two metal handles, that looked like this… he tried to turn them, but couldn’t, that had to be done later at the museum, after the box was carefully lifted out of the ground and washed clean.”

Step 2. Speculation

‘I’ll show you how the opening mechanism worked.” (Lean over the box and ‘grab’ the handles, turn them simultaneously. Show them again, and then sit back. The children might like to have a go.) “Clearly whoever put things in this box, must have thought a lot of them…’

Wait a moment and see if the students say anything. If they’re getting interested they might start making some suggestions.

Give them a little time to think, if they don’t start to speculate then guide them along, however try to avoid leading them or being ‘teachery’.

‘Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble, this box is very heavy and why would they want to bury it? When they cleared off the mud the archaeologists found wonderful engravings, carved into sides. This was not something you would want hidden in the ground.’

This is a sort of ‘fishing’ exercise. You are not after the right answer, you just want to draw the children out, giving them time and opportunity to speculate. Don’t worry if their ideas seem unlikely or fanciful, as the story-teller you can always get the narrative back on track and if someone does start to make the right connections then you have the perfect in.

Step 3. The Roman villa

“There was something else the archaeologists uncovered when they examined the site where the box was found. After some more digging they found the ruins of a Roman villa, not much left now, but what there was showed signs of fire damage. It is possible the villa was completely destroyed by fire.”

Again, give the students time to talk and speculate. Go carefully, this is all about negotiation and judging the right moment, the students don’t want to feel as though you are playing them along. They might start to join everything up, but don’t be disappointed if they don’t.

Step 4. Burying the chest

Up until now you have been holding back on information (in the same way you did with the painting inquiry) giving the children the opportunity to ask questions, make connections and imagine possible events. In this next step you will use an adult in role (AIR) to shift the inquiry from the classroom space into an imaginary historical space and build a contextual inquiry through the use of dramatic conventions.

“I just going to ask Mrs Brown if she would help us out. What we would like to see Mrs Brown is the moment just after the box was buried, but before the villa was burnt down. Obviously the people who burnt down the villa didn’t discover the box, because its here! But there might have been a moment when they were outside trying to get in. We’d like you to help us with that.

OK we’re just going to watch as Mrs Brown gets ready.

The adult then takes a position crouched on the floor, next to the box, her head down. This is a convention of drama where the role is depicted as frozen in time, like in a painting or a statue. The children have permission to stare and make observations and the role will not react.

After the class have had time to talk and the time is right you can bring the role to life with a touch on the shoulder. Starting a new convention where the person in role will listen and respond as if they can hear what the children are saying even though they are not with them. The children themselves are outside the fiction looking in, the convention gives them the opportunity to question the person inside the fiction without having to participate. It is an extremely useful teaching strategy as it allows the person in role to give important information (including curriculum knowledge) to the class without it feeling like a lesson.

Through this process the AIR should convey the following information:

• The house is being attacked and they are outside, she can hear them thumping on the door, screaming.

• They’re climbing on the roof. There’s no way out.

• When asked she should tell the children the attackers call themselves the Iceni and give them some information, she might apologise for not knowing much.

• She has buried the box to protect the things inside. They are precious, family things, and she doesn’t want the barbarians getting hold of them.

• Her husband is a general in the Roman army, he is away fighting the war, and her eldest son is with him.

Step 5. The children step in to the fiction

In this next step you will use a further convention to help the children step into the fiction, joining the woman either as members of her household or as the Iceni warriors outside.

Start by addressing the woman in the story: ‘Thank you, I think we have taken enough of your time.’

AIR returns to the still-frame, head bowed. ‘You know rich Romans were rarely alone. They had large households of servants and slaves, she might even have had other children with her at this time. If you would like to be in this picture as one of these people then we could make that happen. Is there anyone who would like to represent one of her family?’

Be careful to take this slowly. As each of the volunteers makes themselves known ask them to say who they are and to join the AIR in the picture. Ask the rest of the class to watch and interpret their choice of actions. Are they standing close? Are they worried about themselves more than the woman? Are they being protective? Etc. In this way the children will create a tableau, a moment trapped in time, just before the Iceni broke into the house and these people’s lives were changed forever.

It is unlikely all the children will volunteer to be members of the household and you will be left with a group sitting and watching those now in role. These will soon join the fiction, but be careful they might be a bit worried about being stared at. Make sure the students feel safe and protected. The aim is to have everyone involved, but not scared.

Ask those sitting outside the fiction to please stand. ‘This is the story of the night the box was buried in the ground. Desperately those people of the Roman household hid away their most precious objects in the near and certain knowledge that they would never see them again. Outside the house, the Iceni warriors – fierce and angry – gathered, preparing to break in. Watching from the shadows were the Roman people’s neighbours, terrified it would be their turn next.’

The remaining children can now choose between representing either the Iceni warriors or the neighbours of the Roman family. Allow them the opportunity to change role if they want to at any time.

Give the children time to decide where to stand. Gather together those representing the Iceni warriors. Hand them each a flaming brand. ‘We are here because we have been driven here. We didn’t choose this. We didn’t ask the Romans to take our land, enslave our people, steal our food. Each of us must protect our queen, protect our land, take this burning flame and be ready.’

Be careful not to let things rush ahead at this point. Step outside the fiction and talk to the children.

‘I wonder what the Iceni warriors shouted?’ They were angry. Terrible things had been done to them, to their people, to their queen. But the people in this house aren’t soldiers, they are ordinary people, children and servants, try and hold the moment to give the class the opportunity to think and reflect. Remember they are representing the people in the fiction, not being them. This is a chance for the children to experience in a small way something of what it might have been like, but they do not have to agree with the actions the Iceni took.

I wonder which one of us will be the first to light the fire? Be careful, don’t do this lightly… whoever it is will carry the burden for the rest of their lives, there are women and children in this household, innocents. And slaves who have chosen to die with their Roman masters… I wonder if there are any among us who have doubts?’

‘Two thousand years later we know the Iceni did it, [Note, the shift in language to distance the students from the action] we can see the evidence, and I doubt they would ever admit it, but in their own hearts, some of the warriors might have been reluctant about doing this, to innocent people, this is not noble, not the same as facing your enemies. Looking them in the eye. I wonder what happened to them to make them do such a terrible thing? To act in such a terrible way.’

Here is a chance to hear from the Iceni. Again hold the moment using convention and ask the warriors for their voices. You might want to structure it by using a line which all the warriors can repeat, something like: “I am here…”

- “I am here to avenge my family.”

- “I am here because the Romans burnt our crops.”

- “I am here to kill the invaders.”

“And what did the neighbours do? Were there any among them brave enough to speak out? To try and stop what was happening in front of them?”

Throughout this inquiry give help and support to the students and give them opportunities to help and support each other. The idea is not too ‘load’ them with the guilt of the people they represent, but rather to create a dramatic situation that will create different points of view and different attitudes. The use of the conventions can help the students to pull back from the events themselves and to re-interpret them from the distance of history.

Step 7. Reflection

Once the dramatic-inquiry is over bring everyone together again.

“What did you make of that? Did it have a sense of authenticity? I mean could you imagine it happening?

“What did you make of the Iceni warriors? And the neighbours, I wonder if there was anything they could have done?

“Do you think things that like that still happen in the world?”

Session 3: The Archaeology Team: the ‘mantle’ of the expert

A timeline recording sequence of events (see Pdf)

Step 1. Establishing the expert point of view

Gather the class together. Put the picture of the box on the floor. “I wondering what it’s like opening something like this for the first time in 2,000 years…

Give the students time to think and talk. “I mean for the archaeologists, working in the museum. I guess for them its like a time capsule, something that is going to teach them new things about the past. I suppose some of the things in this box will be familiar, but others might be completely original, the first (or should I say, last) of their kind…

“What do you think? I mean, if we were the archaeology team, what do think might be in here? I’m guessing not just gold. When we heard from the lady who buried it, she didn’t say treasure, she said precious. Precious I suppose means something different in this context. I remember her saying they were important things, important to her and her family because they held memories and she didn’t want the barbarians getting their hands on them.”

“And they would be precious to us as well, as the archaeologists… but in a different way.”

All along during this monologue it is important to be slow and thoughtful, as if the thoughts are just coming to you as you speak. Be patient and give opportunities for the students join in with thoughts and ideas of their own.

“We’ll have to wear our gloves. If the box is air tight, the artefacts won’t have been exposed to any air for 2,000 years. If we are very lucky there might even be some surviving parchment… Have you got your cameras ready? After we take the objects out, one at a time, they will have to be photographed and researched…”

Pick up the A5 paper and start handing it out…

‘You can use this paper to draw pictures of the things you find. Please use the books here (point to the topic books) to help with your research. You might find some of the objects within their pages.’

Step 9. Research

You will need a selection of books and pictures out on the tables. There are many good topic books on the Romans, but you might also want to make up a collection of fact sheets.

Repeat as you hand out the (A5) paper: “Please take of these, for the photographs, you might find the books on the tables useful. Could you please make a drawing of the photograph of the object you are looking at from the box. Please include as much detail as you can. We don’t want to miss anything important…”

As the student’s start to work, help them out where needed. Try and hold the fiction, as much as possible, although you might need to step out of role if you have a child who is really unsure. “Um, have you looked in the books? You might find something that looks like one of the objects from the box in one of those. If you do then a quick sketch would be very helpful.”

Remember the students are authoring and inventing, not pretending to be archaeologists. As they work extend their thinking; “Would you mind please writing next to your photograph what the object is and what (if any) use it had.”

Once the objects are drawn collect them together on the evidence table. You can extend this activity by creating (with the students) the other tools and equipment used by the team. Alternatively, you could bring in real equipment: gloves, tweezers, magnifying glass etc.

Provide some feedback and invite thinking. Remember, this is not ‘show and tell’ and try not to praise. Try to find the language ‘inside’ the fiction. It’s often worth practicing before hand. Something like, “There is more here than we could have ever hoped for. And so varied. Some of these artefacts are beautiful, look at this ring for example, and others just plain and ordinary, like this child’s wooden toy. What’s clear is there is a real mystery at the heart of all this. Why put all these objects in a security box and bury it in the ground? Do you think they meant to come back for them? They must have been important… but why?”

Brian Edmiston prefers complex to complicated and I think I agree. Complicated is what the data-trackers, progress mapping charts and APP assessment forms (unintentionally) make of the process of evaluating progress. They are tools of empirical science that want to take shifting, complex processes and re-interpret them as a matrix of data.

The purpose of this is to give teachers, schools, parents and inspectors clear objective information for assessment, tracking and accountability.

All good sound motivations. Unfortunately, rather than simplifying matters, they actually make things far more complicated and ironically do more to deflect teachers from the real practical purpose of teaching and learning than almost anything else.

This paradox is wonderfully captured by a metaphor from Donald Schön, shared by Roo Stenning @TheRealMrRoo, pic.twitter.com/zXa2serveC

Edmiston argues educationalists need to embrace complexity – what Dorothy Heathcote called developing a tolerance of ambiguity – and actively resist models that look to define complex social reality into data-sets and reduce progress as steady linear growth.

The development of data-tracking software has had an unintended effect on lesson evaluation and by extension teaching practice, by reducing the complex messy process of learning into an objectively measurable and observable phenomenon. This outcome pretends to invest inspectors with super-human powers of observation and has terrified many teachers into game-playing the whole teaching and learning process for the purposes of accountability.

This does a disservice to the practice of pedagogy and damages the link between useful formative assessment and genuine learning experiences. Pushing (a very unhelpful metaphor) children up linear, objectively defined and measured, pathways often results in confusion and stress as learners are introduced to new learning before they have grasped a sufficient understanding of the last.

Empirical progress mapping has its place and is important for accountability and for giving broad indicators over time, but it is always contingent and always liable to critical analysis. After all behind the numbers are human-beings not rolling stock.

Becoming an expert teacher who can make expert professional judgements of children’s progress takes time and practice in the classroom. APP and other systems can help in this learning process, but they are not a substitute for the expert opinion of a teacher who knows the learners well and can make a thousand informed observations and evaluations every hour and use this information to adapt, innovate and respond as a result.

Let’s not confuse assessing progress for formative learning, with record-keeping for accountability.

Unfortunately the national debate over the new curriculum has been overshadowed by the Blob controversy, which has created an unfortunate division within the profession between those supporting Michael Gove’s perceived advocacy of more ‘traditional’ direct instruction methods and those supporting more ‘progressive’ cognitive-thinking methods. This has not been helpful and has distracted the argument away from where the real focus should be.

What we should be asking is, is this document one that can be used by schools to design a practical, coherent and effective education? In other words, is the new curriculum fit for purpose?

The following questions are the ones we should, as professionals, be asking the authors of the curriculum:

1. Is the new curriculum practical?

• Can it be used to plan from?
• Can it be covered in the time available?
• Are the programmes of study appropriate for KS1 & KS2?
• Do teachers have the relevant knowledge and skills to teach the POS?
• And if not, is the DfE planning to support and fund the appropriate training?
• Is the timescale for implementation (Sept. 2014) realistic or driven by political expediency?

2. Is it coherent?

• Has it been properly researched?
• It is designed with a coherent philosophy of teaching and learning?
• Does the content match the expected outcomes?
• Are the different subjects of the curriculum part of a coherent whole or do some areas interfere or contradict others?
• Are the POS designed to match the assessment methods?
• Is there a consistent and coherent model of learning appropriate for primary aged children?
• Do the POS contain prescribed methods of teaching, something which the Secretary of State for Education has consistently said will not be included in the New Curriculum?

3. Will it be effective?

• Will it provide children with a broad and balanced education or are some parts of the curriculum preferred above others?
• Will children be challenged by the curriculum?
• Are the programmes of study appropriate to the age and development of all learners or will some children be left behind?
• Do the POS allow children to develop through stages – developing understanding in one stage before moving onto another or is the drive to move children through the stages to keep pace with their age?
• Will the new curriculum raise standards in all areas of education, across the curriculum?
• Will the new curriculum prepare children for KS3 and for life after school?

These questions are highly debatable and would need a good deal of time to answer. The 16^th April deadline is far too ambitious and there needs to be a much longer period of consultation, with far more opportunities for proper open discussion, among a much wider group of participants – something like the Cambridge Review maybe.

We know Michael Gove has postponed the date for publishing the English, Maths and Science curriculum subjects in the past, we need to put pressure on him now to do the same again for the wider curriculum review. If you share this view then please add your name to the petition being organised by Debra Kidd – @debrakidd – you can find more details on her website – Love Learning.

Debra was the only practicing teacher invited to sign the “100 Academics” letter published in the Independent - 100 academics savage Education Secretary Michael Gove for ‘conveyor-belt curriculum’ for schools

Many teachers contacted Debra asking if they could add their voices. This is her response.

If you wish to sign the petition adding your name to the protest please contact Debra through her website.

Calling All Teachers

Dear All,

Please find below the first draft of a letter which we hope to distribute later this week. We are hoping that 1000 teachers and educational professionals will add their support. If you would like to add your name to the letter you can either do so by emailing me or adding comments to the twitter link or facebook link you came to this page from. Email address is debrakidd68@gmail.com Please state your name, job title (eg Teacher/Headteacher/AST/Teaching Assistant) etc and the sector you work in (Primary/Secondary/Academy/Private/FE/HE) etc. We are hoping to have a full cross section of teachers from all sectors and phases. Please feel free to offer amendments and ideas on the comments pages below. Please retweet/share to anyone you can think of. And thanks.

THE REAL ENEMY OF PROMISE….

Before the Easter break, almost 100 academics drawn from the spectrum of educational research and practice, published a letter in The Independent querying the wisdom of Michael Gove’s changes to the curriculum. The response from the Secretary of State for education was astonishing to say the least. He claimed that the academics belonged to a sinister ‘blob’ dedicated to ruining the lives of children. He claimed that they were Marxist. He called them, and anyone who might associate with them, ‘enemies of promise’. On Question Time, he glibly noted that he could find 100 ‘good’ academics who would agree with him. To date, he has not. The 100 academics, on the other hand, have found support in the teaching profession and beyond. Around 1000 of them have attached their names to this rebuttal. They are people working in and with education on a daily basis. Many of them are also parents. They are drawn from primary, secondary, FE and HE sectors; from state schools, private schools, grammar schools and academies. They are tired of the way that educational research is being misappropriated by the current secretary of state. They are tired of a ‘yadda yadda’ approach to this crucial job – if I hear something I disagree with, I’ll just shout over it. They are astonished that a man appointed to serve the education system behaves like a child who has not yet learned to listen and to respect boundaries.

Michael Gove has used, frequently, the words of cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham to support his notions that the curriculum should be based on the acquisition of facts. Gove’s interpretation of this idea is that the curriculum should consist of nothing but facts, but Willingham argues in much of his work, that critical thinking is essential in learning and that all knowledge learned should be supported by thinking. Futhermore, he warns that in the United States, a similar programme led to teachers ‘giving children lots and lots of facts at the expense of critical thinking.’ Far from attacking thinking skills, as Gove suggests, Willingham values them, when taught within context and points out that ‘we’d love to test critical thinking if we knew how to test critical thinking. But we really don’t. So what we tend to do is test factual knowledge.’ It is hardly a ringing endorsement of the education secretary’s approach. Indeed, all of the academics and teachers listed at the end of this article would fully support an education system in which children acquire knowledge, but it is how this knowledge is acquired and tested which forms the bone of contention. The education of our young is too important to leave to opinion and ideology. It requires evidence and thought.

This was a position that Michael Gove adopted when he came to office. He appointed ‘experts’ to advise him. Some of those experts have signed this letter. Others have publicly voiced concerns about the way he has ignored their evidence. Let’s take the expert panel on the National Curriculum as an example. In the report that the panel submitted, there was an entire chapter, based on decades of research that oracy underpinned academic success. This can be quite hard to understand if one considers that few examinations take a verbal form, but our written thoughts stem from the speeches we form in our heads. In order to be lucid on the page, we need to be lucid in our minds and practising the articulation of ideas is key to this. It is one of the reasons that the private sector places so much emphasis on debate. It is why Oxbridge universities continue to fund the hugely expensive tutorial system. It is why many of our leading orators – and Michael Gove is one of them – hone their skills in a debating society such as The Oxford Union. It is why we interview people face to face for jobs. Think for a moment of a working life in adulthood in which presentations, participations in meetings or any other form of communication was not essential. Research shows that vocabulary in child hood is a key indicator of future academic success and that building vocabulary and articulacy is essential in bridging that gap between children from disadvantaged and advantaged backgrounds. This chapter has been completely ignored in Gove’s proposals. In fact most of the advice offered by the panel has been ignored, leading to the resignation of all but one of the original expert panel.

Policy on literacy was based on the advice of two well known experts in the way children develop reading skills – Debra Myhill and the teaching of synthetic phonics – Ruth Miskin. Both have voiced concerns in the past few weeks at the way the government has ignored their advice. They describe the tests as ‘flawed’ and warn that they will lead to ‘poor teaching’. Indeed the DfE’s own research paper into ‘what works’ in teaching children to read warns against teaching and testing grammar ‘out of context’. So, Mr. Gove, where are your good academics – the ones who agree with you? They cannot all be enemies of promise.

Mr. Gove’s oratory skills and his ability to tap into the deepest fears of parents mean that his policies often find support in voters whose access to information is viewed through the lens of a privately educated media. These fears are seated in a belief that standards are falling and that Britain is failing to compete internationally with other systems. But if one explores the data from the OECD – the organization who administers the international PISA tests, we find some interesting ideas which do not at all sit in accordance with Michael Gove’s policies. Firstly, the tests are not based on knowledge, but the application of knowledge in ‘novel situations’. The highest performing countries have students who are able to think critically and innovatively to apply the knowledge they have. The OECD data throws up some other interesting facts. For example when the factor of class is removed, British state schools outperform private schools. In the highest performing countries, teachers are more highly valued than any other profession – in Finland for example, rather than being viewed as ‘enemies of promise’, they set and mark their own tests, are all educated to Masters level and enroll on university courses which are more competitive than Medicine or Law. In fact, the key unifying characteristics of those successful countries is the autonomy of the teaching profession and the regard in which it is held. It is difficult to see how Michael Gove’s attacks on the profession, or his changes to the curriculum help us to compete on an international stage.

It is difficult, when one reads the research written by those that Michael Gove admires, including the Marxist, Gramsci, to find the evidence that supports the highly selective interpretations that Gove incorporates into his policies. He glibly makes statements, presented as facts, which have no basis in reality at all. His statement that ‘you cannot be creative unless you understand how sentences are constructed’ denies the existence of childhood and yet it is delivered as a fact. If challenging this anti-intellectual reasoning makes us bad academics, or raising our concerns makes us bad teachers in the eyes of the Secretary of State, then so be it.

Let us repeat that we do not oppose the acquisition of knowledge. Nor do we oppose the idea that all children should succeed. We instead question the removal of skills from that process. We question the wisdom of the decontextualized testing of knowledge and the notion that there should be high stakes testing in which children’s futures become fixed once and for all. Michael Gove’s proposals for examination changes are akin to altering the driving test to the theory only examination and removing the option to retake the test. Despite the fact that it took six attempts for him to pass his own driving test, in schools Gove proposes the removal of second chances and mistakes. It amounts to the removal of hope and that is the real enemy of promise in this debate.

Debra Kidd

Later in the comments section, a contributor (@jadedjogger) asked: “Yes. It’s an own-goal by the teaching profession. How did we get here?”

This also sounded heart-felt and made me think.

This is my answer.

I don’t think people in education do bad things for bad reasons, but our education system is poorly designed and built on internal inconsistencies. As a consequence the sad situation described in the Secret Teacher article is unhappy familiar to many of us.

From the late 70s politicians have taken an increasing interest in ‘running’ education.

They have done this for good reasons (generally) – because they believed through their management and guidance the educational outcomes of children could be improved and, by consequence, the economic prosperity of the country. There is some evidence to say they have been marginally successful in this.

However, education turned out to be far more complicated and difficult to manage than anyone knew. For example, some argue the single most important factor in the educational success of a student is the educational attainment of his/her mother. Not something easily changed by government policy. Further, other significant factors – family, peer group, community, and economic background – are also something very difficult to effect through direct intervention.

So, as this realisation grew inside the DfE, they decided the only part of the equation they could directly influence was schools.

At the same time, another well-meaning group of people started to have an influence in government, they called themselves the ‘Delivery-Unit’. The Delivery Unit were made up of mathematicians who believed sincerely and honesty the more data we have, the more we can manage the system and generate effective outcomes. This view has grown in prominence in the preceding years and has had a profound influence on our school system – directly and adversely affecting children’s experiences in school and teacher’s professionalism.

This, let me stress is an unintended outcome. I’ve met Michael Barber, he seems a very nice man. I don’t think any of the people involved in designing the new system of data collection and analysis wanted to make people’s lives’ worse – quite the opposite – but it happened because the system is far more complicated and difficult to understand than their systems allowed. As a consequence, what we are in the middle of is a huge social experiment, the hypothesis being: “Will focusing on raising standards improve educational outcomes for children and the economic success of the country?” We might also ask – “If it does, at what cost?”

To collect, analyse and communicate the new data the system started to invent new procedures and methods of measurement; these were seized on by politicians as tools they could use to influence schools and affect change. A big frustration for a series of education ministers was how ineffective their policies had been, this they blamed, not on their policies, but on ineffective teachers and resistant schools. The new data and their publication as league tables (and later as a main focus for inspections) was seen as the way schools could be forced to follow government policy. This development continues to grow.

At the same time, there were others, within the system who were concerned by the new focus on data and were arguing the department should be promoting a new professionalism with better trained and autonomous teachers. As a consequence many teachers engaged in research and schools became far more interested in pedagogy and cognitive science. There was a growing realisation, among the profession, that many of our teaching and learning strategies where outmoded and in need of reform. Although the situation is still far from perfect, there have been great strides forward in this area over the last 15 years.

Further developments also happened during the 90s and 2000s and by the end of the last Labour government there was an almighty ‘struggle’ happening within the system as the best way to move education forward, between those promoting the ‘standards agenda’ and those promoting curriculum and pedagogical development. It is a mistake to think there is a consensus within the establishment, in fact there is a war, which is why we constantly hear contradictory messages from the DfE, Ofsted and HMI.

So, what has this all got to do with the poor children and teachers in the article above? Simply, they are the ones that suffer. The architects of our education system, whatever their motivations, have through accident and lack of understanding created a climate where good people, do bad things, for the right reasons. And often hate themselves for doing it.

A good book on this is Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching: From political visions to classroom reality

‘Taught’ is another word appearing frequently in both documents, but by ‘teachers’ only in curriculum 2000.  ’Skills’ is another dimension prominent in curriculum 2000 that seems to have disappeared almost entirely from the new curriculum. Other words prominent in curriculum 2000 and less so in the new curriculum include: ‘Activities’, ‘develop’, ‘appropriate’, ‘support’, ‘information’, ‘opportunities’, ‘ideas’, ‘design’, ‘planning’ and ‘language’.

In contrast ‘words’ has become much more prevalent in the draft curriculum, along with ‘spelling’, ‘number/numbers’, ‘fractions’, ‘requirements’, ‘statutory’, ‘programme’, ‘read’ and ‘key’.

I’m not rushing to judge the new curriculum, and have no interest in defending the current one, however these word clouds do seem to suggest a significant change in focus between the two documents. In particular a new emphasis on being taught specific knowledge, although not necessarily by teachers.

It would be interesting to hear other people’s views. Please comment below.

This is the proposed new National Curriculum word cloud.

This is a word cloud for the current Curriculum.

On 7 February 2013 the Secretary of State for Education announced a public consultation on the draft National Curriculum which will run until 16 April 2013.

A final version of the new National Curriculum will be available in autumn 2013 for first teaching in schools from September 2014.

Background information on the review, including details of previous publications, can be found in the Review of the National Curriculum section.

You can download the Draft National Curriculum programmes of study from the DfE website.

Please find the time to reply to the consultation.

Responses to the Draft Curriculum

Following the publication of the draft curriculum there has been a great deal of discussion (particularly of the POS for History), the following is a short selection (if you know of any important articles or blogs I’ve missed please let me know in the comments section below):

Revised 9 April, 2013

• Debra Kidd – Calling All Teachers
• Michael Tidd – National Curriculum Consultation Response Form
• Via Michael Tidd - PowerPoint showing the “What’s in and What’s out?” of the draft primary National Curriculum
• Tricia Kelleher - Gove’s Daily Mail column confirms he doesn’t understand how learning works
• 3D Eye – A collection of blogs on the curriculum review (scroll to the bottom of the page)
• Prof. R. Alexander & Board of Cambridge Primary Review Trust - National Curriculum Consultation response form

Revised 3 April, 2013 – Recent developments including some more considered opinion

• Warwick Mansell - Is the proposed new national curriculum too much too soon?
• Russell Hobby - The new curriculum will not work without backing from teachers
• Tom Middlehurst - Are we all singing from the same curriculum handbook?
• Matthew Jenkin - Climate change and the curriculum: teachers share their views
• David Green - Michael Gove’s planned national curriculum is designed to renew teaching as a vocation
• NUT National Curriculum survey: “This must not be the future for the children of England”
• Conservative Home - Heresy of the week: There should be more than one National Curriculum
• Pat Thomson - Just a letter from 100 academics – some thoughts on ‘impact’ and ‘public engagement’
• Martin Spafford - What knowledge? Whose knowledge?
• Dr Michael Riley (pub. 11th Feb, 2013) - The unthinking history curriculum
• Richard Preston - Idiotic academics (pt 2): facts yes, but we don’t want Dickens’s Dr Blimber and Mr Feeder teaching our children
• Richard Brown - ‘Pub quiz facts curriculum’
• John Giles - ICT – Programming: The ‘Human Factor’

Revised 28 March, 2013 – to include new articles and “The Blob” row:

• Various - 100 academics savage Education Secretary Michael Gove for ‘conveyor-belt curriculum’ for schools
• Michael Gove - I refuse to surrender to the Marxist teachers hell-bent on destroying our schools
• Terry Wrigley - “Academics savage Gove’s conveyor-belt curriculum” (The Independent)
• Michael Bassey & Terry Wrigley - Gove’s new National Curriculum demands too much, too young
• Laura McInerney - Marxists, Feminists & The Blob”: Rethinking Gove’s Outburst
• 3-DI - Reviewing the National Curriculum
• Luke Brunning - How can we have an Education Secretary so hostile to those who work in higher education
• Guardian Letters - We need cross-party curriculum talks
• LearningSpy - Redesigning the curriculum
• John Elledge - Not everyone who disagrees with Gove is a ‘wrecker’ or an ‘enemy of promise’
• Richard Evans - Michael Gove’s history curriculum is a pub quiz not an education
• Miles Berry - Draft Response to the National Curriculum Consultation
• History Works - History Curriculum: Gove, Newsprint, & BBC Debates
• Andywarner78 - Response to Michael Gove’s MailOnline Article
• Michael Tidd - The DfE vs the Experts
• Matthew Hunter - At Last: Gove goes for the culture of Excuses
• Peter Wilby - In Michael Gove’s world who needs teachers?

Dated: 11 March, 2013

• Dr Grant Bage – Six Questions for Mr Gove about the proposed history curriculum
• Miles Berry – My First Reaction to the New Curriculum
• Matthew Hunter – History Lessons for the 21st Century
• Oliver Wiseman – Is Hunter’s History Bunk?
• Tim Taylor – Some thoughts on the draft National Curriculum for History in Primary Schools
• Nicola Sheldon – Back to the past for the school history curriculum?
• Nicola Sheldon – This is a Ladybird curriculum. Is anyone ready to teach it?
• Robert Guyver – Should we thank Mr Gove for giving us more history?
• TES Comment – Primary curriculum is in a critical condition
• John Bolt – Moving the primary goalposts … again
• Key Stage History Blog – Strangle Gove’s monster at birth: why we need to respond quickly
• Ken Robinson – Robin Alexander’s Response to the National Curriculum proposals
• Michael Bassey – Free School from Government Control
• The History Association – Forum: Give us your views of the new draft curriculum
• Matthew Jenkins – Draft national curriculum: change for the better or a step back in time?
• Guardian discussion – Is the curriculum putting students off learning?
• Luke Abbott – Hawks and Doves? The new draft national curriculum
• Giles Fraser – The idea of history as progress is underpinned by a hidden theology
• Colin Richards – Heads need to wake up to the nightmare
• Janet Downs - Minister tries to reassure teachers that the Government isn’t being “doctrinaire” about phonics. She fails.
• Keith Turvey – Horse-burgers & the draft National Curriculum: Is there a connection?
• Simon Jenkins – History teaching? Karl Marx would agree with Michael Gove – and so do I
• Niall Ferguson – On the teaching of history, Michael Gove is right
• Seumas Milne – Michael Gove is not just a bungler, he’s a destructive ideologue
• Guardian – Michael Gove’s new curriculum: what the experts say
• Guardian Letters – History curriculum ‘experts’ need to consult primary sources
• Guardian Letters – History teachers learn to face the facts
• Cambridge Primary Review – National Curriculum Review – Are we nearly there yet?
• History Association – Curriculum Concerns
• Ian Dawson – National Curriculum Reform
• Michael Tidd - Horrible Histories: the Gradgrind Govians
• Daniel Boffey - Historians attack Michael Gove over ‘narrow’ curriculum
• Warwick Mansell - Education in brief: rewriting history
• Stephen Bates - Stick to Facts, Mr Gove
• Guardian Letters - Plan for history curriculum is too focused on Britain

(Not strictly on the draft, but apposite to the debate on how the new curriculum could affect pedagogy)

• Eduthink - A Pedagogy of Poverty
• Webby101 - Discriminating in favour of the more able
• Heymisssmith - Yadda Yadda. It’s Me Against the World
• Headguruteacher - From Plantation Thinking to Rainforest Thinking
• Janet Downs - Minister tries to reassure teachers that the Government isn’t being “doctrinaire” about phonics. She fails
• John Bolt - Moving the primary goalposts … again

Finally, Toby Young has also written a number of blogs on the subject, but because hasn’t added anything useful to the debate I can’t bring myself to show his links to the ones above. But if you’re really desperate you can find most of them here, all except the ones in the Daily Mail. There are limits.

• Telegraph Education Blogs

It is 5.00 in the morning and I am awake, listening to the Mullahs outside my hotel in Ramallah. I am also planning my day to work in a school in the desserts of Jericho that is famous to Palestinians. It is made out of car tyres covered in mud and serves the Bedouin community. I

After an impassioned plea from a member of the Jericho Bedouin community to Qattan in the summer, who feel they feel they might have been forgotten, my good friend and colleague Nader Wahbeh who works with Qattan immediately made contact with the thought that the project we are involved in should stretch from Jerusalem to Jericho.

The class, of 7 to 9 year old children and the Qattan team will all be there. Nader as the research person and brilliant liaison person and of course my dear friend Kefah who has long stood as my simultaneous interpreter.

The Jericho school I am told is very compact and has around 30 local children who attend. So, what can an affluent British teacher teach in such circumstances, and avoid the label of colonialism by any other name?

Since Qattan have commissioned me to support teachers in the region using drama for learning I am thinking through the possibilities………….Best to have one up my sleeve as well just in case……….I will prepare a context in my head that involves an image I woke up with this morning, that of a stranger seen in the far dessert distance, waving his hands in a deliberate crossing motion then disappearing.

I will offer them The Stranger. It is for me always difficult to project into a new situation in teaching. I have learnt by fire the error of not being prepared in any way and letting it all happen! I can think through the sequences of dramatic action if I pan for The Stranger and it may give the class more to go on in an instant. I can now imagine myself with them. The first steps and the negotiations. I will draw an outline of a high plateau similar to the ones around Jericho on a large sheet of paper.

This will enable us to create the dramatic imagination.

06.22 getting ready for the day ahead now, quick shower and breakfast (Arabic dark coffee essential) and to be picked up by Nader at 07.30 to get to Jericho after transferring to a taxi at 8.30. Some of the journey at the end I hear will be off road to get to the school.

We have taken the rickety road to Jericho through Qalandia junction. This is the notorious Israeli ‘check point’ and well worth a read on the net just to see what everyday life is like under occupation. We arrived at 8.45 at the Bedouin community of Al Khan al Ahmar where their school is situated. After a quick look round so the children could get a look at this very white haired individual, we began the work at 9.05.

The story of the man caused great excitement and the mystery began immediately. Where could he have gone? Could he really simply have disappeared? Nader was just right, representing the witness. The children immediately suggested he must have gone on a boat, or down into a cave or even perhaps in a car? One student was pretty sure he had gone down into a volcano…………so what next?

We had large rolls of paper, lots of very large new markers, scissors and art crayons. I suggested that maybe we could draw what we thought as well? Within seconds, the pens were distributed by the class with fantastic sharing skills and the job of the drawings started. We were all astonished at the power and speed of the class as well as their inventions.

My job was harder than I thought as the class had to see their ideas in practice and all had to be translated by Kefah. The children were also summoning up large stores of uninvested creativity and drawing with such energy it seemed as if they had an unquenchable thirst to give their outpourings a conduit.

Our next step was to contact the man in our story. My task to enable the class to ask questions of Nader was hard as well as they all wanted to show him their drawings… However slowly-slowly, we managed to explain our thinking to him.

The trouble was how to get there? Lots of talk together in Arabic and again.

Mustafa suggested we should all go to the mountain by balloon and headed straight for the pens at the same time as the words came out of his mouth.

He and a few of his friends definitely had the idea by now. We invent something then draw it. He insisted on turning the paper with our first drawings over (in order to conserve it).

All of the adults were much quicker by now too-we got the paper to them in seconds this time and the big balloon drawing event started in earnest.

In no time, at all, we were being hauled into the air and swift winds took us out of the classroom sheltered awning to the true outside…what excitement.

We arrived at the mountaintop (aka school yard usually used for football) all together and started to look for clues on the ground covered by stones of 2 different colours dark grey and white.

One very fearless girl (Iman) saw a clue in the stones……….was this the cave perhaps or something else? Electric activity ensued as we witnessed the class creating the outline of a door with white stones.

Our next task together in groups now was to create the objects down below as we had with the door. They were at it again. Getting one idea and making it happen all over the stoned area. Beautiful shapes of a ship emerged, then a car then the volcano! All meticulously created and cleaned of anything inside the shape, so in minutes we had the imagined objects the man used to get out of his land this time on the ground.

Our next task was to find the ‘people in the mountain’ and gently introduce us as those who meant no harm. We were here to help and we thought the Man who Signalled was asking for help. The class were immediately informed they were right by one of the adults who asked if they could deal with a wild lion that was rampaging around the inside of the mountain.

First, the leg was found by Arwa, (white stones made with great care and attention to the detail of the curve of the leg) then the back leg, made by Ahmed in a similar fashion, then the head (huge stone) then the teeth, then the body. Everyone was finding bits of the lion all over the place!

What a strange land……….. We soon realised together we had created the whole lion and luckily it was asleep. Good time to kill it now; ‘as it’s helpless’ say many of the boys. The girls also agree. Our science team are getting very excited. Look how much science we could investigate here………body parts, organs, species, zoos.

(We must again remember the children are used to killing predatory beasts, wild dogs have been seen as well as fox, eagles and wildcat for example. All of these are creatures are known, attack and eat newborn goats and sheep.)

We discovered that the person wanted us to take it to a zoo-but at the moment there was no such place under the mountains………well of course the class had the answer……….take it back to our land then build the zoo under the mountains later on!

Therefore, carrying the lion in its sleepy state we took our balloons and the lion home and had a well-deserved rest till the work started again. We were ready for the lunch break and the taxi was called from Ramallah to be with us in half an hour. I am not ashamed to say that the experiences affected me deeply at a gut level as I have said already. Reflecting on the writing, we did for the Head Teacher’s day book in English and Arabic gave us the chance to retell our experiences in a different way.

Luke Abbott

The KS1 Curriculum is divided into three sections:

• Vocabulary
• Concepts
• History studies

Vocabulary

The section on vocabulary seems a straightforward and reasonable list of words children should know and understand by the end of Year 2

• Simple vocabulary relating to the passing of time such as ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘past’, ‘present’, ‘then’ and ‘now’

Concepts

In contrast, many of the concepts in this section better belong in the Key Stage 2 programmes of study as they are abstract and require different examples for children to begin to understand. The key phrase is: “begin to develop an understanding”. It is not clear from the draft if this refers to the concepts or only to the “key features”. We need some clarification on this. I would suggest the following alterations to the draft:

• Children begin to develop an understanding of the following concepts at Key Stage 1:
  • Monarchy, war and peace, nation
• And the following (among others) at Key Stage 2
  • National history, civilisation, parliament, democracy.

History Studies

There are three history studies for teachers to plan. They are quite prescriptive – predominantly about Britain’s national history – but are also quite open to interpretation and could be enjoyable for children to study. There would seem to be enough room for teachers to plan other history subjects (such as dinosaurs) outside of the prescribed curriculum. The three history studies are:

1. 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

2. 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

3. Significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

Some clarification over exactly what is required would be helpful on the following:

• What does such as and or mean? It seems to read that teachers have a choice either to choose individuals from the suggested list and/or to add others who do not appear. The latter would allow more flexibility.

• The Key Events study seems so wide open it is difficult to understand what they had in mind. Some non-prescriptive examples would be helpful. I’m struggling to think of one that fits all the criteria: “significant events nationally and globally, coinciding with festivals or other events, commemorated throughout the year.” Bonfire Night? But that’s not an international event. VE day? Not really something children would understand without studying WW2. When is that? End of KS3?

Key Stage 2

The current KS2 History curriculum is already very large, but is as nothing to this new proposed programme of study. It is shorter than Curriculum 2000, but fewer words do not mean less content or more flexibility.

Some thoughts:

• It is incredibly prescriptive; with so much content there is very little flexibility or opportunity to study any history off the list.
• It is very anglophile, concentrating almost entirely on English history after Year 3.
• With so much content it is difficult to imagine teachers will have the time to teach for the depth of study required for real understanding. There is a genuine danger the history curriculum will become a ‘skim read’ for most children, especially if they are having regular ‘catch up’ sessions in phonics and numeracy.
• Teaching the chronology of British history sequentially is a good idea, however by trying to cram everything many children will be confused.
• There is a real concern this ‘do as much as possible’ approach will mean children will be taught history by straight-forward transmission teaching and, as a result, they will become bored and stop enjoying the subject.
• It seems very unlikely children will have the time or opportunity to develop the critical thinking and historical inquiry skills listed in the curriculum’s Purpose of Study: “A high-quality history education equips pupils to think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement.”
• The Key Stage 2 history curriculum seems half-baked and ill thought through. It lacks a basic understanding of either pedagogy or child learning and seems driven by ideological dogma rather than a genuine appreciation of how history should be taught. The subject aims are noble and achievable but are hamstrung by a behemoth of content.
• With so much content to cover and with (rightly) ambitious aims there would seem little choice but for Primary Schools to turn over large amounts of their academic curriculum at KS2 to the study of history. As a consequence many will have to adopt a cross-curricular approach teaching English, Maths, Geography, Art, Design and Science through the lens of a history study. I’m not sure this is what the architects of the new curriculum hand in mind, but there are only so many hours in a week and teaching so much history content will require a great many of them.

The KS2 history curriculum can be divided into 15 distinct history studies. There is a requirement to teach of the ones that cover the chronology of British history in a sequential order. Beginning with Stone Age (c.25,000BC) in Year 3 and ending with The Glorious Revolution (1668) in the summer of Year 6.

In addition children in KS2 will also be required to study the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome.

While studying these different periods of history the curriculum requires children should:

• be taught the essential chronology of Britain’s history,
• be made aware that history takes many forms, including cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history,
• be taught about key dates, events and significant individuals,
• be given the opportunity to study local history,
• be given the opportunity to study local history.

The KS2 programmes of study seem to be divided into four categories:

• cultural studies,
• history studies,
• historical individuals,
• historical events.

The POS seem to divide into 15 different periods of history (Note, I’ve divided the Stuart period into two different studies partly because the early and late Stuart periods are separated by the commonwealth and partly because this allows them to studied in more depth by Year 6 students over two terms, especially as the Spring Term is often distorted by SATs):

1.     Study of the ancient civilisation of Greece

 2.     Early Britons and settlers, including:

• the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages (Cultural study 25,000BC – 43AD)
• Celtic culture and patterns of settlement (Culture study)

3.     Roman conquest and rule, including:

• Study of civilisation Ancient Rome (history study)
• Caesar, Augustus, and Claudius (historical individuals)
• Britain as part of the Roman Empire (history study)
• the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire (history study)

4. Anglo-Saxon and Viking settlement, including:

• the Heptarchy (history study)
• the spread of Christianity (culture study)
• key developments in the reigns of Alfred, Athelstan, Cnut and Edward the Confessor (historical individuals and history study)

5. the Norman Conquest (historical event) & Norman rule (history study) , including:

• the Domesday Book (historical event: completed 1086)
• feudalism (cultural study)
• Norman culture (cultural study)
• the Crusades (history study)

6. Plantagenet rule in the 12th and 13th centuries, including:

• key developments in the reign of Henry II, including the murder of Thomas Becket (history study & historical event 1170)
•  Magna Carta (historical event 1219)
• de Montfort’s Parliament (historical event 1265)

7. Relations between England, Wales, Scotland and France, (history study) including:

• William Wallace (historical individual d.1305)
• Robert the Bruce (historical individual d.1329)
• Llywelyn (d.1244) and Dafydd ap Gruffydd (historical individuals d.1283)
• the Hundred Years War (history study 1337 to 1453)

8. life in 14th-century England, (history study) including:

• chivalry (cultural study)
• the Black Death (history study)
• the Peasants’ Revolt (historical event 1381)

9. the later Middle Ages and the early modern period (history study), including:

• Chaucer and the revival of learning (historical individual d.1400)
• Wycliffe’s Bible (historical event 1382 to 1395)
• Caxton and the introduction of the printing press (historical event C.1473)
• the Wars of the Roses (historical event 1455 and 1485)
• Warwick the Kingmaker (historical individual d.1471)

10. the Tudor period, including:

• religious strife and Reformation (history study) in the reigns of:
• Henry VIII, (historical individual d.1547)
• Edward VI, (historical individual d.1553)
• and Mary (historical individual d.1558)

11. Elizabeth I’s reign and English expansion, (history study) including:

• colonisation of the New World (historical event)
• plantation of Ireland (historical event)
• conflict with Spain (historical event)

12. the Renaissance in England, (history study) including:

• the lives and works of individuals such as:
• Shakespeare (historical individual d.1616)
• and Marlowe (historical individual d.1593)

13. the Stuart period (i), (history study) including:

• the Union of the Crowns (historical event 1603)
• King versus Parliament – Charles I – (historical event 1640s)
• Cromwell’s commonwealth, the Levellers and the Diggers (historical event 1650s)

14. the Stuart period (ii), (history study) including:

• the restoration of the monarchy (historical event 1660)
• the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London (historical events 1660s)
• Samuel Pepys and the establishment of the Royal Navy (historical individual and events 1660s)

15. the Glorious Revolution (history study 1668):

• constitutional monarchy and the Union of the Parliaments. (historical events)

Note: I don’t know if anyone at the DfE bothered to map this POS, but it looks something like this - possible curriculum map for KS2 history.

As a child I loved games. Playground games, skipping games, card games, board games like Risk and Colditz, obscure data games like Logacta and, most of all, role-play games, where I could imagine being someone else involved in dangerous and exciting adventures.

My love of games continued into adulthood and when I became a teacher I wanted to use them in my lessons to engage and excite my students. In this purpose I was incredibly lucky. As a first year teacher I met Luke Abbott, adviser and former student of drama and education specialist Dorothy Heathcote. Luke and Dorothy taught a demonstration lesson with my year 1 class using imaginative inquiry.

Within a few minutes of the lesson starting the children and Luke were involved in a full on mission to rescue the inhabitants of a village, which had been swallowed up by a giant hole. Children who I knew well (some of them reluctant learners) were working in active collaboration with each other, sharing ideas, talking animatedly, drawing, writing and making plans. My classroom no longer looked like a traditional classroom, heads bowed, teacher at the front, but more like a functioning workplace with people operating together as a team. Learning was happening everywhere, all at once, not in a tidy linear way; objective, success criteria, activity, plenary, but in a complex, multi-levelled, environmental way. It was emerging in all directions, both from the children and the adults, driven by the needs of the context.

For me it was a revelation and I’ve spent the rest of my career learning how to teach like Luke and others who use this approach.

What I recognised that day was Luke and the children were involved in a game. The rules were obscured by the way they worked, subliminal, not discussed or agreed, but there nonetheless. And allowing Luke to create with the children an imaginary place inside my classroom, a place where people where trapped underground, and needed rescuing, and a place where a rescue team made plans, collected equipment and went into the darkness. As part of my observation I made a list of the curriculum learning that was happening during the lesson: making maps, writing notes and signs, planning, questioning, working in collaboration, discussions on rocks, soils and materials, light and darkness, respiration, lengths of rope, angles, distances, counting, adding, subtracting, and multiplying. Early years teachers will recognise huge swaths of the key stage 1 curriculum.

In follow up sessions the children wrote reports of the rescue, newspaper headlines, letters of thanks, poems of remembrance, safety leaflets and instruction manuals. Over the coming weeks, following on from Luke, I was able to teach almost the whole year 1 curriculum through a single context and the kids loved it.

Fast forward 20 years and I’m working with a class of year 6 students. The context we have developed over the previous weeks is a Tudor house, now a museum, but once used by Henry VIII for a secret meeting with Anne Boleyn. Winding back history, the children are waiting for Henry’s arrival by river on a barge (think A Man for all Seasons). Henry has been corresponding with the people of the house and has made it known he wants time alone with Anne away from his wife Catherine and his chancellor, Thomas More. The household are, understandably, nervous; dealing with a king as notoriously short tempered as Henry is a terrible worry.

As the session develops the children organise themselves into factions, each one representing different points of view within Henry’s court. Those within Henry’s household that support his wish to divorce Catherine; those within his household who don’t support the divorce, those that represent Anne’s household, and those that represent Catherine’s. Within each household are those that are loyal and those that are looking to exploit the situation for their own ends.

The session comes to head when Henry (represented by a boy called Ryan) dismisses Thomas More (represented by a boy called Simon) from his household because Thomas refuses to give him what he wants. The moment is electric; Henry/Ryan lifts his hand and points at the door, Thomas/Simon bows and leaves. As he goes the other members of Henry’s household (who have waited for this moment) crowd round his chair and take his place. Simon comes out of the story, he’s furious, close to tears. “Why would he do that?” he asks, “I’ve been his friend for years.” The rest of the class are just as animated. Some argue from Henry’s side, others from Thomas’. What is clear is this matters; they are genuinely bothered. This is not an academic study, dispassionate and objective, but a real argument, respectful and reasoned, but also heated and heartfelt.

A lot has happened in education since I started teaching: the literacy and numeracy strategies, Ofsted, league tables, international comparisons, three changes of government and countless education ministers. But what still holds true (in my mind) is that children learn best when they are engaged in their learning, when it matters to them, when its contextualised in meaningful ways and when they have a sense of ownership and agency. The best learning I’ve been involved in has not been ‘delivered’ to a class, but built, over time, in collaboration with students. Explored, examined and argued over.

The curriculum is a dry document, full of the kinds of knowledge, skills and understanding we as a society believe are beneficial for children to learn. By all accounts the next one is going to be even dryer. But, however boring and prescribed the curriculum becomes (and of course the tests) there is no reason for our pedagogy to be the same. In fact, Michael Gove and Michael Wilshaw are at pains to make this very point. I believe we should take them at their word.

As a profession we should renew our efforts to research and develop modern, engaging and effective teaching methods. Ones that incorporate recent understanding of how the brain learns, help children develop the skills and aptitudes they need for a rapidly changing world and build on the work of our profession from the past.

Imaginative inquiry is based on a well-researched pedagogy with a long history of practical application in the classroom. Teachers use it in many different ways, some as a single lesson, others as a year-long project incorporating wide ares of the curriculum. It is a flexible approach that most teachers find, once the context is established, is easy to plan and resource. However, getting a project started can involve a substantial amount of detailed planning which can be difficult and time consuming. For this reason we have written up a number of popular contexts into step-by-step by guides to get teachers started. You can find these on our website.

This article is based on a planning unit called the Tudor House which you can access on the Guardian Teacher Network here. There is also amind map that accompanies it. You can also access the picture resources from the unit planning page on the imaginative-inquiry website.

Comments on Guardian:

• TimTaylor4

  05 February 2013 10:25am

  @solocontrotutti – I’m not sure where we would disagree.

  If I’m right you’re saying learning is a ‘cognitive-process’

  “learning is as much about reflection and the construction of knowledge at a cognitive level.”

  and we should prioritise learning above enjoyment.

  This is true. It is an argument I’ve heard elsewhere, but I’m not sure there is a conflict here between enjoyment and learning. Of course not every experience children have at school is going to be enjoyable and there is a good argument for students sometimes doing things that are boring, but ultimately satisfying – helping them develop resilience, overcoming boredom etc. However, this is an argument for including some ‘character-building’ opportunities, not for teaching that way all the time.

  I am definitely not advocating ‘happy-clappy’ lessons. They are hateful, patronising and a waste of children’s time. What I am arguing for is a pedagogy focused on effective learning. Boring kids to death – however cognitively challenging the learning objective – is not an effective teaching approach. In my mind the purpose of school is to develop children as learners, interested in the process of learning, not just in jumping through hoops to meet objectives. To do this we have to plan to engage their imaginations, plan contexts that have meaning and purpose, as well as challenging them cognitively. Too much of what we do at school is switching too many kids off, it is our professional responsibility to work at changing this state of affairs. Not washing our hands by saying its not our responsibility to make learning engaging or worse blaming the kids as some do.

• solocontrotutti

  05 February 2013 12:50pm

  @TimTaylor4 – We probably don’t disagree however as you allude to in your response, there is an awful lot of “magic bulletism” in education.

  I think the message of enjoyment has most definitely got through. I think that we now have a situation where aimless entertaining has got as bad as transmission based approaches that are boring.

  We got to a situation whereby OFSTED and many in education thought that an “outstanding session” (presuming such a thing exists) was one whereby numerous activities were packed into a session often at random where learners often seemed like passive objects at a comedy club. One pointless activity after another.

  Paulo Freire describes it pretty well; the teacher as subject and the learner as passive object. To me this is as true if the object is passive, sitting and listening to the expert teacher transmitting knowledge or passively completing mind numbing tasks issued by the jolly comedic teacher.

  Thankfully in the last year or so OFSTED seems to have had (another) change of heart and we may see more balanced approaches.

  I agree very much with the statement below but what I do not see are the words imagination, enjoyment etc. What I perceive this to be saying is that the professional teacher is using a variety of techniques to empower learners.

  It’s just semantics I know but very important to a job that is struggling against ongoing de-professionalisation.

  “But what still holds true (in my mind) is that children learn best when they are engaged in their learning, when it matters to them, when its contextualised in meaningful ways and when they have a sense of ownership and agency. The best learning I’ve been involved in has not been ‘delivered’ to a class, but built, over time, in collaboration with students. Explored, examined and argued over.”

  Indeed and it’s very hard work. Very hard to evidence and often requires a great deal of professional expertise.

  And more often it involves a battle against the system.