Letters | 7 March 2013

Gove’s history lessons

Sir: ‘The idea that there is a canonical body of knowledge that must be mastered,’ says Professor Jackie Eales, ‘but not questioned, is inconsistent with high standards of education in any age.’ This is not true. Primary education is, or should be, all about just such a body of knowledge. This gives children a foundation of fact, preferably facts learnt by heart. Without it, they cannot begin to reason, and develop valid ideas, in the secondary stage. It may be a tight squeeze to get them through English history up to 1700 by the age of 11, but it is better than not covering the ground at all. The bizarre result of 25 years of the national curriculum is that schoolchildren don’t know English history. Because the GCSE and A level exams focus on the 20th century, that is often the only period that is studied seriously, by would-be historians, from 14 onwards — and frequently at university as well. My niece, studying history at Oxford, confirms that her fellow students, who are very bright indeed, are often surprisingly ignorant about the actual events of the past. Without knowing the origins of the great English institutions of monarchy, church and parliament, how can anyone act as a responsible citizen today?
Nicholas Debenham
Twickenham, Middlesex

Sir: Speaking from experience, I recommend the following: when the child is nine, hang on their bedroom wall a pictorial chart of the kings and queens of England (mine was courtesy of Eno’s Fruit Salts on the occasion of the silver jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary) and give them a copy of Our Island Story. I inherited both from my elder siblings, and the basic timeline became fixed in my memory and is still there. Simpler than the revision of the curriculum planned, no?
Elisabeth J.