6.6 Enabling pupils to see how history works

Implicit in much of school history is a desire to introduce pupils to the way history works. After all, carrying out enquiries, working with sources and producing explanations are core activities of an historian. ‘What is History?’ type activities were designed to help make the process explicit. Similarly, exercises that explore how interpretations are constructed enable pupils to understand the relationship between evidence and interpretation. Helping pupils understand how history works was one of the drivers of curriculum development in the late twentieth century. This approach influenced the National Curriculum and the original SHP GSCE course, which had a strong focus on helping pupils understand historical methodology, as did the AEB 673 A level and Edexcel’s Syllabus E A level. Residues of this approach can be found in the Advanced Extension Award.

Introducing pupils explicitly to how history works is important because it enables them to see that historical knowledge is based on evidence derived from sources and that interpretations of the past may change in the light of new approaches and new evidence. Understanding the status of historical knowledge is a defence against the abuse of history for political ends. Badly taught such an approach can, of course, lead to death by gobbet or pupils believing that history is worthless because we cannot be certain about what happened in the past. Well taught it can introduce pupils to the nature of discipline. To teach this well trainees and teachers really do need to understand how history works.