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Andrew Rosindell: This nation has a magnificent history, so why don't we teach children more about our past?
THIS month, I put forward a Bill in the House of Commons to make compulsory the teaching of British history in schools.
I, and many Members of the House, feel passionately about this topic but in recent decades it has been shamefully neglected.
The people of these magnificent British Isles – along with the numerous British territories around the world – have a proud history like no other. From Stonehenge to St Paul's cathedral; from the battles of Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo to the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the liberation of the Falkland Islands; and from the invention of the steam engine to the discovery of penicillin, the explorations of the seven seas and the British empire, the depth and breath of our history is unsurpassed.
Yet the comprehensive teaching of British history does not figure highly in our nation's education. I believe it is time that British history was made a core subject in schools at all stages of learning, so that every young person can grow up with an appreciation of all that has made our nation great, and with an ability to demonstrate that to future generations.
In 1066 and All That, Sellar and Yeatman's seminal work of 1930, they famously wrote that every schoolchild could be relied on to recall two key dates in our history – the Norman conquest and Julius Caesar's invasion of England. Today, we cannot rely on even that level of knowledge.
Despite the best efforts of history teachers to provide children with a solid grounding in the fundamentals, they are constrained by a curriculum that does not enable pupils to develop a comprehensive understanding of Britain's past.
A recent Ofsted report noted that pupils' knowledge and understanding of "key historical events" is not good enough, and that their knowledge is fragmented, "patchy and specific; they are unable to sufficiently link(...] historical events(...] form overviews and demonstrate strong conceptual understanding". It also noted that their sense of chronology is weak and that "they are generally unable to(...] relate to a longer narrative or story of the history of Britain".
Unlike in most European countries, the teaching of history is no longer compulsory in British schools after the age of 14, and evidence suggests that the curriculum in our country is deeply flawed.
Findings from surveys conducted over the last few years offer some alarming insights into this: 70 per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds did not know that Nelson's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar was called HMS Victory; more than 20 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds thought that Britain had, at one stage, been conquered by the Germans, the Americans or the Spanish and several children mistook Sir Winston Churchill for the first man to walk on the moon. He also joins King Richard the Lionheart and Florence Nightingale as being mistaken regularly by our youth as a creation of fiction.
As the Shadow Education Secretary has previously highlighted, full participation in our nation is greatly aided by a thorough understanding of our heritage and tradition.
The study of history helps children to grasp their own identity, and reading history enables our younger generation to analyse and question the present by examining what has gone before. Knowledge of history is important because it allows people to make informed decisions about the future of our nation. If children do not know where they come from, how can they possibly move forward? By learning about Britain's history they can identify with the culture of the country today.
Over the past decade, the number of students reading history has fallen, from 35 per cent of teenagers taking it at GCSE level in 1997 to 30 per cent in 2007. This led Ofsted to claim last year that history was increasingly becoming an "endangered subject". Something is going wrong. Many pupils harbour a negative view of history by the age of 16. According to some universities, many of those who study the subject in higher education have very little knowledge of history prior to the 20th century.
It is Henry and Hitler who now dominate the history syllabus. Most pupils today would be able to recite the fate of Germany in the Second World War and the tribulations of Henry VIII and his wives, but little else. The war and the Tudor dynasty were, of course, significant events in our nation's history, but to study them in isolation is not to truly understand the events that caused them and followed them.
Change is needed to ensure that young people's knowledge does not remain patchy, over-specific, tied only to one or two moments in our nation's history and ignorant of others. They need to be able to comprehend a longer narrative of our history. Knowledge of events such as the establishment of Parliament, the triumphs of the British empire, the monarchy and our Royal heritage has, to an extent, been cast by the wayside.
If we are to advance the cause of British history, we must not focus solely on England. Currently, the history curriculum sheds very little light on Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
British history should encompass all countries and all peoples of these isles, as well as those parts of the world in which Britain has had a significant input – including those whose people still identify themselves as British, such as in
Her Majesty's overseas territories and Crown dependencies.
A proper appreciation of our nation's history is an important factor in forging national cohesion. It would combat the failure of some pockets of our youth to engage with society and it would enlighten them as to the key factors that have shaped our nation over the centuries.
History has always been a great contributor to British democracy and has allowed us to conduct a pluralistic analysis of the status quo.
The importance of learning and appreciating history cannot be underestimated. To quote the revered historian, Anthony Seldon: "Only if young people learn about their own country, and its place in the world, will they be able to play their full part as citizens and voters."
Andrew Rosindell is the Conservative MP for Romford is the Conservative MP for Romford
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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