Gove ridiculous lampooning of a couple of Russell Tarr and the Historical Associations’s suggested learning activities for history has all the hallmarks of someone far happier on the attack than defence. His unteachable KS2 and 3 proposals have found little support beyond a few academics who have very little knowledge of how history is really being taught in schools. Recent attempts to elicit from the DFE the nature of the damning surveys he keeps referring to reveal that there is little substance to his claims and that he is really just peddling his own prejudices. As we get closer to the final proposals expect even more sideswipes at current teaching methods but don’t let that weaken your resolve to oppose his proposed curriculum AT ALL COSTS. I think he might bow to pressure to restore to KS3 the early modern and probably the medieval period in response to the KS2 teachers’ justifiable concerns about being non-specialists overloaded with a mass of new content, with insufficient training and no resources. I’m now off to badger my MP to whom I wrote over six weeks ago and have only a holding reply.
