History Teaching

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Chope, for allowing me to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on securing this valuable debate, which has really put into practice his excellent skills of research, data analysis, econometrics and geography. All those skills have been brought together today, showing that he is a superb historian.

It seems to me that what we are discussing today is not really geography; we are discussing the two-nation divide in terms not of the north and south, but of a class divide, based on the traditional Disraelian notion of two nations.

I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that history has a particular locus and place within schools. In many ways, I was opposed to the push under the last Government for citizenship teaching, because it seemed to me that, first, citizenship teaching took a chunk out of the syllabus and more often than not history teachers were forced to teach citizenship and that, secondly, we should teach citizenship through history. A study of the past is the best mechanism for understanding one’s role in the present. Obviously, one can divert into the constitution, the judiciary and all the rest in terms of the modern world, but in terms of understanding both our place as citizens and the role of Britain, it seems to me that history is the best place to do that. At one point, we actually had a review that said we should teach history as part of citizenship, which seemed to me to get things slightly the wrong way round.

As we have heard, history is also a very effective academic subject. The Education Secretary likes to draw on the case of Mark Zuckerberg studying ancient Hebrew and then founding Facebook, but one can also point to many innovative entrepreneurs, successful public servants and business people who studied history and benefited from the rigours that studying history brings.

It seems to me that the subject is not necessarily in crisis. The hon. Member for Kingswood mentioned David Cannadine’s new book, which points to this perpetual debate about the nature of history and, without being too partisan on the first day back after the break, I suggest that this is a crisis within the Conservative party. The party likes to talk about the teaching of Britishness and of British history and our understanding of it, partly because of its own various problems with the nature of modern Britain, and it retreats into a debate about the teaching of British history often, it seems, as a vehicle for other more contemporary debates. Of course, historically, the role of history is to retreat into the past to analyse the present.

Figures for the take-up of history at GCSE level hover around 30% to 35%. The percentage has gone up and down over the years, and I think it stands at around 33% at the moment.

[Chris Skidmore]

I will send the hon. Gentleman a copy of my report, so that he has the accurate figures. I came to this debate not wanting to make party political points, but the percentage has not hovered; it has gone down consistently every year in comprehensive schools since 1997, and it has just gone below 30%, which was partly the trigger for my calling this debate and writing the report.

[Tristram Hunt]

I am grateful for that intervention. I was referring to the national figures, and let me now come on to the specificities of the hon. Gentleman’s debate.

There seems to be a class divide—a worrying schism in what our children are taught. As the hon. Gentleman suggested, it is more than the loss of an academic subject; it is the loss of a patrimony and of a broader understanding of citizenship and identity. By not teaching history in many of our disadvantaged communities, we could be losing some brilliant future historians. We are very good at history in this country. Indeed, we are often accused of being too obsessed with the past, but we produce a good number of scholars, often from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, we have faced an unacceptable shunting of children from disadvantaged communities away from academic subjects and, more often than not, on to semi-vocational ones. That has boosted grades for schools but has sold these kids, who have wanted to go on to sixth form and university, a pup. There has been an ethos that in certain communities such subjects are too difficult, and that has presaged league table results.

We can all relate anecdotes of young people being pushed away from subjects that they should be encouraged to take up. We need a rethink. We are all in favour of proper training in vocational subjects, but it should come after a detailed and solid academic training. That is the German model, and the Alison Wolf report importantly suggested that we should get the grounding right and then allow young people to make the decision about which way to go, with either businesses taking on the training or it being continued in schools.

We should not shunt children from disadvantaged communities off academic subjects; nor should we allow schools to merge history and geography into a humanities subject in which pupils appreciate no element of the discipline. That is particularly a problem in certain academies, and Ministers are slightly shifty on the subject, not least because it is very difficult to get data out of the academies about what is being taught. I have tabled endless questions, which have been answered in different ways, but it seems that in the push for league table results certain academies are disfranchising children.

This also raises an interesting point about the ambition of the Secretary of State for Education for a national story of Britain and Britishness. If the Government’s policy is for ever greater pluralism in educational provision, with free schools and academies, where will we get the national cohesive story from if every school tells a different story about history and if every school is encouraged to talk to its own student make-up? The Government have an interesting tension between a traditional conservative belief in a national narrative and their open-market approach to schools and what they teach.

The problem is not the syllabus. Key stage 3 teaches empire, industrialisation and a narrative story of British history. It is a pretty good syllabus if it is done well and, crucially, if it is given the time, but the average 13-year-old in a British school gets only one hour a week to study history, and with such timetabling—only 33 or 34 hours a year—it might not be possible to develop the skills, understanding and narrative. There are cries about there being no Nelson, Wellington or Churchill in the syllabus. That is not true, but there needs to be the space and context within which those characters and their history can be taught.

History teachers do not regard the syllabus as the problem, and the old divide between skills and narrative is not so much the problem any more either, because the best history teachers combine them—one of the advantages of modern information technology and teaching mechanisms. It is exciting if teachers can get kids to use the internet to look at mediaeval roles, the Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights, and that also teaches a narrative history.

[Chris Skidmore]

Ofsted’s “History for all” report found that the quality of subject training for teachers was inadequate in one in three schools and that teachers in those schools did not fully appreciate progression in historical thinking.

[Tristram Hunt]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We all know that inspired and inspiring teachers are key. With numeracy and literacy over the past 10 years, it seems that in certain circumstances teachers got bored and that children could sense it. If teachers are not inspired and children are not inspired by them, we do not get the learning, and we need much more focus on ensuring that teachers are inspired and that they are up to date with the latest scholarship and understand progression.

In Stoke-on-Trent, I would like to get Keele and Staffordshire universities together with the local teachers to ensure that the latter are up to date with the scholarship and are still inspired by it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) said, if a teacher is inspiring—as he was in his classroom—the children come alive, and are passionate and interested in the subject.

I will end here because I know that many other Members want to speak, and I apologise for doing so, because I have to meet a constituent later this morning. I am still in two minds about the push towards compulsory history to 16. I have an open mind about it. We risk damaging interest in pursuing the subject if we make it compulsory for huge swathes of children who are simply not interested. That will affect learning in the classroom.

I appreciate the broader issue about history’s role in citizenship. I also understand the point about learning and over-learning certain elements of our national past, such as the Third Reich and dictators. That has much to do with the commerce of education. Once we have history textbooks and the machinery of learning, it is difficult to get out of the rut of learning and teaching the same things over and again. It is challenging to get undergraduates who are almost trauma victims, having studied the Third Reich three times, to appreciate broader European or British history.

[Jim Shannon]

When I was at school, I had the opportunity to learn Irish history, which is probably most unusual for a person from a Unionist tradition. It did not make me any less of a Unionist; indeed, it cemented my Unionism and made me stronger in my beliefs. That is an example. I learned something else, but remained a Unionist.

[Tristram Hunt]

Those of us who are privileged to have read W. E. H. Lecky’s “A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century” will know that, although we might think that studying the history of Ireland will push us one way, it can take us in a very different direction.

I conclude by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Kingswood for his research and for bringing the matter to national prominence. Class and social division are an issue. We must ensure that schools in disadvantaged communities and areas allow their pupils the opportunity to study history in all its wonderful manifestations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bob Russell]

As the three previous speakers have said, the point that needs to be made is that we need to instil enthusiasm in our young people and get the education system to embrace history, because I regret to say—the hon. Gentleman’s statistics prove this, and it has not been denied—that interest in history has declined over the past 30, 40 or 50 years. I was lucky with my schoolteachers, first in my Mile End primary school and then at secondary school, and with my parents. It is all to do with giving encouragement, and getting teachers to be enthusiastic about teaching history.

[Tristram Hunt]

There is an important point to make about how we attract primary school and early secondary school pupils to the subject, so that they have a passion about the past. At its best, local history is not parochial; it goes from a local story to a national and then international story, but it is very difficult to begin to tell and teach children an international story without those building blocks. Colchester seems a good example of a story about a global imperium.

[Sir Bob Russell]

I will conclude in a moment, because with one intervention, the hon. Gentleman, to whom I am grateful, has embraced precisely the point that I have been trying to make. We can have anything we like in post-14 or post-16 history, but unless the foundations are there, the rest will not happen. It is up to the Government to provide the enthusiasm and direction. Since my education, experience has shown me that many teachers can be enthused and are enthusiastic. They provide that enthusiasm, and they must not be stopped.