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Citation: 

Guyver, Robert. “The History Working Group and Beyond: A Case Study in the UK’s History Quarrels.” In History Wars and the Classroom: Global Perspectives, edited by R. Guyver and T. Taylor, 159-86. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2012.

Abstract/Summary: 

Educational systems in the United Kingdom are not amalgamated but consist of four different systems. Guyver worked as a member of the British National Curriculum Working group for fifteen months from 1989 to 1990. He uses his memories from this period to write this chapter. He writes through the lens of a primary school teacher whose experience was affected during this time period. He begins the chapter by discussing the national curriculum, enacted through legislation in 1988 by the Thatcher government in order to centralize the school curriculum. He explores how this change specifically affected the history curriculum as it was drafted from 1989 to 1991. The working group, of which Guyver was a member, addressed both the content and the pedagogy. Nonetheless, Guyver discusses the impact of other factors and groups that were weighing in on the curriculum needs. There is discussion of the initial responses to the interim report of the working group, including the Dearing Review, and later responses such as those from Simon Schama in 2010, and of how the curriculum was implemented. Guyver concludes by describing the changes in the history curriculum in the United Kingdom in the last twenty years and gives examples of the history curriculum in 2010. He states that the United Kingdom could learn from Australia in assuring that history be viewed as a key component of the overall school curriculum.

Source/Credit: 
Erika Smith