Should the history & process of British Politics be part of our Education System

I was schooled before the National Curriculum, in a town which vied with Abingdon to be 'Britain's oldest recorded town'. So we did The Romans. Continually and repeatedly. It seemed SUCH a good idea to each new, young teacher! Oh, in junior school I think we listed the Kings of England. But it was mostly The Romans.
I know all there is to know about the life of a Roman housewife. I was taught nothing about why we had just fought a war. (Not that the reasons were as clear-cut as 'official' history likes to tell us. But that's another matter.)

The National Curriculum at least prescribes a range of eras and topics. And thank goodness for the Internet, which allows those who are interested to sample viewpoints and opinions from Government pronouncements to lunatic-fringe conspiracy theorists. Not just the one textbook.

Small children can't comprehend 5000 years ago. Their history needs to be very recent surely.
Teaching through project taps into their personal interests (and research skills that are deemed important by the govt). The presentation skills in feeding back to the others develops both oracy and ICT skills, both important for the world of work. In a multicultural world, history needs to be world history, not just UK.

History teachers have specialist eras, just like physics teachers don't know 'all physics'. The curriculum is laid out by the govt.
There aren't any teachers of politics in secondary schools unless they have a 6th form where they do A level Politics (fairly rare)

I remember at junior school wondering where cowboys & indians featured in the grand scheme of things.... oh dear!

Secondary schools in Greenwich, not free schools, teach ww2. My gd was so bored, she loves Greek history and Egyptian but they are now doing English history. So glad I took her to the museums when she was younger.

I'm sorry to add that I didn't learn history properly. We learned about the Reformation of the Monasteries with an elderly teacher who then repeated that year again as he'd forgotten how far we'd got. One being reminded about this he said, 'Oh well, it's a very important part of our history so it bears repeating.' We didn't learn much else and it was taught in such a dry way that any love of the subject was killed stone dead. My knowledge of many of our Kings and Queens is really scant and shameful.

We started with the stone age...and worked our way through to the Victorians... I do think it important that children learn about the first and second world wars....

Urmstrongran: 'I remember at junior school wondering where cowboys & indians featured in the grand scheme of things.... oh dear!'

this comment also shows that history can be taught in so many ways and from so many angles- usually the victor rather than the victim. I remember firmly believing the Indians were the 'baddies' - we know better now.

I did O level British Constitution decades ago, so yes just lessons explaining how it all works and how to vote would be good. I don't think anybody would let history be taught as it once was as it would probably be considered sexist, imperialist etc and having no relevance to modern children.

The most recent National Curriculum, M0nica does have chronology at its starting point - so much so that KS2 children start with the Stone Age and get as far as 1066 so no Tudors or Victorians (unless they choose to do a short study covering those periods). Secondary age children also have Citizenship but I recall doing British Constitution in the 6th form for GCE

I was schooled before the National Curriculum, in a town which vied with Abingdon to be 'Britain's oldest recorded town'.

I think you and I must have lived in the same town, ExaltedWombat! But I think we covered more than the Romans in junior school. Not that I remember much about it but our school 'houses' were Romans, Saxons, Danes & Normans so we must have at least covered them in history. (Then at Grammar School we started all over again with the Romans )

Abingdon?! Oldest recorded town in Britain . That's the first I've heard of it in 60+ years... We were the first...

(Off to google it now)

When i was at Grammar School history started with Henry V111, followed by Oliver Cromwell. That was it!

jura2, all my children have undertaken a 6th form education in one way or another and each of them has had to do more than 3 or 4 subjects, although they were only examined in those. I currently have a 17 year old who is in the lower 6th doing 4 A level subjects for both years alongside an extended project in a subject of his choosing and an extensive enriched curriculum. He is not at a State School but the other 5 have all had to do similar in their State Schools or College.

I was extremely disappointed when I chose history as a GCSE subject. I wanted to study monasticism. It definitely wasn't that. I couldn't tell you anything about it now!
Dgd (7) watches Horrible Histories tv programme. It's wonderfully informative in a fun way.
She shocked me and her GGAunt recently when she announced that Egyptians pulled people's brains out of their noses! Apparently she learnt this at school ?

The people having their brains nasally extracted were dead
It was part of the highest quality embalming process (poor quality one just left the internal organs in the body)

I was always interested in history at my secondary school until we got to the Georges and then I switched off a bit, with a bit of resurgence of interest as we skimmed over the Napoleonic Wars (still a favourite subject). There seemed to be a lot of skimming over. The depth of our historical learning seemed to depend on whether our history teacher was interested in the period or not. It was not until we got to the Corn Laws that he actually showed any enthusiasm for his subject, by which time most of us had switched off! If I was interested in a subject, I was encouraged to go to the library and do further reading. Mostly I read books about the Greeks and the Persians, fell in love with Alexander the Great, got to grips with the Mongols, and the hordes that overthrew the Roman Empire; none of which had any connection to our exam syllabus and therefore did me no good whatsoever other than to foster a lifelong interest. I love that children now have so much access to “living history” and historical heritage - I remember sitting with my children in a reconstructed Bronze Age roundhouse in mid Wales. We came out smelling of the smoke from the peat fire burning in the middle. My son particularly still remembers how atmospheric it was.

There’s enough brainwashing going on in schools without having that as a subject! Better to teach logic, so the kids can see through the lies.

Well at least the kids of today have great access to the internet to read up on topics they are interested in. Bluddy wonderful invention!

Icanhandthemback - good to hear - but even so, it is still extremely narrow- and definitely not the norm to keep 4 subjects for Upper 6th in State Schools- even for the top students. Competition is too great and they have to aim for all As for many Uni courses. We lost so many of our great linguists- who just had to concentrate on all sciences to do Medicine or Vet. for instance. When I started to teach A'Levels- all students had to also continue with General Studies- but this was dropped due to pressures for high grades for top students, and pressure for any grades for lower students.

Jura2, I agree it is a problem for many and we looked for the IB for our boy particularly because I wanted him to continue with a language but he wants to do Dentistry so he felt 'A' levels were his best option. I do think young people have to specialise far too early before they even know what different jobs there are in the world. However, I think often people enjoy learning for the rest of their lives and one of my sons has learned far more since leaving school than he ever did at it yet he was the one who came away with the worst grades!

I've always loved history. At primary school we worked our way through history chronologically.

We also did history chronologically at grammar school with specific periods for A Level. We studied the British constitution, how government works, suffrage etc. All done very thoroughly with knowledgeable graduate teachers although in my day many graduates did not have teaching certificates which didn't seem to impair their teaching. We sat in rows and listened and took notes. Probably not like classes today but I certainly know my history.