CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SIXTH FORM HISTORY

CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SIXTH FORM HISTORY

M A R T I N R O B E R T S Leeds Grammar School

AS MARY PRICE suggested in ‘History in Danger’, most teachers concerned with sixth form history would deny that their subject is in any danger.’ They appear to have good reasons for their confidence. They are coping successfully with ever increasing numbers. History as a university subject remains strong while growing more lively and varied. In an age where the social sciences are rapidly expanding and diversifying at the tertiary level, there are many university economists and sociologists who do not regard their discipline as suitable for study as a specialist sixth form subject. Consequently sixth form history teachers can argue with some plausibility that their subject is the most relevant for anyone who wishes to keep open a wide range of options on the Arts/Social Sciences side. Finally, in the General Studies courses which have been such a striking development in the curricula of sixth forms in the last decade, historians are playing a leading part. The present, therefore, seems thoroughly satisfactory, the future rosier still.

However, there are good reasons, I think, for arguing that the present is less satisfactory than it appears. In the spring of 1968, the history department of which I am a member was considering the revision of its sixth form syllabus. In order to test ‘consumer reaction’ to the old syllabus, I devised a short questionnaire which was put to all members of the sixth form studying history as an ‘A’ level subject. I also asked colleagues in two neighbouring grammar schools to put the same questionnaire to their sixth formers so that I could see our own results in a broader perspective.2

The final sample numbered loo, 24 girls and 76 boys. 50 were in the first-year sixth, 49 in the second-year and 1 in the third-year. 65 were taking 4 ‘A’ levels, 30, 3 ‘A’ levels and 5, 2 ‘A’ levels. I t was a sample which could be typical of grammar schools throughout the country in all but three aspects. Firstly, two of the three schools (73% of the sample) were direct-grant grammar schools. Secondly, there was a significant proportion of Jewish pupils in each school. Thirdly, in both boys’ schools, economics was a comparatively strong sixth form specialist subject. I am not sure myself how these three characteristics

1 History, liii, 343. 2 I should like to thank Miss L. Braddy, Mr. D. N. Ireland and their respective de art

ments for their helpful and patient co-operation and all the sixth formers, particufarl; my present M.Mod.VIth, for the clarity and frankness of their comments.

393

394 CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS 0 1 2 SIXTH FORM IIISTORY

might affect sixth form attitudes to history and mention them only because some readers may find them significant. It may also be argued by those who remember their Crowther report that the practice of taking 4 ‘A’ levels is a reprehensible and specifically northern practicc which is bound to affect the performance and attitudes of the sixth formers involved. I am inclined to discount this argument since the fourth ‘A’ level taken by our sixth formers is a General Studies paper for which they do no specific preparation. All the schools studied the same syllabus though different alternatives within it. This syllabus, one of the more popular of one of the bigger examining boards, con- sists of two papers, one of which is a broad period of European history while the other is a more limited period of British history. T h e girls’ direct-grant school took European 1494-1789, British 1605-1714, the boys’ maintained grammar school European 1715-1939, British 1815-1914, and we (boys’ direct-grant) took European 1648-1 870, British 1815-1914. The syllabus is predominantly political, though the examination papers often contain questions on social, econoniic and cultural aspects of the period.

Obviously the results of such a small, local and statistically amateur survey must be treated with great caution. Nevertheless they arc interesting in that they reveal through the pupils four main problem areas which are also increasingly discussed in educational literature. These problem areas can be listed as follows: (1) The relationship between political history, social history and sociology; ( 2 ) the simi- larities and differences between contemporary history and the history of epochs of the more distant past; (3) the relationship of sixth form history courses to the wide variety of university and further cducation courses which our pupils now enter; and (4) the pressure of the ‘A’ lcvel examination. The problems that we face in these areas are many and serious. Unless we are prepared to face thcm urgently and systematically, the apparently rosy future of history as a subjcct of sixth form study may prove illusory.

One of our first concerns was to discover which aspects of history OUT

pupils found interesting and which they considered important. So as to establish an overall rank order, we asked each pupil to rank nine aspects of history firstly in order of interest, secondly in order of importance. We then added the rankings and divided them by loo (the number in the sample) to obtain an overall average. The results are contained in the table opposite.

Perhaps the most striking and alarming feature of this table is the lack of interest in the history of science although there is a grudging recognition that its importance is greater than its interest. Almost as striking is the apparent distaste for religious history, though this may reflect the proportion of Jewish pupils in the sample for whom Christian sectarian rivalries cannot hold much appeal. Most signi-

MARTIN ROBERTS 395

Order of Interest

Social History Political History

’1 Foreign Policy 4 Economic History 5 Philosophy of History 6 Art and Literature 7 Local History 8 Religious History 9 History of Science

Overall Auerage

2.7 1 2.7 1

3.48 3’52 5.43 5.47 6.05 6.49 6.82

Ouerall Interest Order of Iinportance Average Ranking

Political History 1.93 ( I = ) Economic History 2.47 (4) Social History 2.73 ( I = ) Foreign Policy 3.37 (3)

History of Science 5.67 (9) Religious History 5439 (8)

Local History 6.86 (7)

Philosophy of History 5.43 (5)

Art and Literature 6.25 (6)

~~ ~~~~~~

ficant, however, for those of us concerned with the place of history in the sixth form curriculum is the interest and importance ratings of social and economic history. These are more significant than they look because in practice our pupils study little of these aspects. Cer- tainly our examiners often set social and economic questions but neither with the frequency nor with the predictability of wording which characterizes the political/foreign policy ‘hardy perennials’. Consequently, our teaching can never stray far from the remorselessly political. As one pupil (boys’ direct grant 1st year sixth) sees it: ‘the European history course is rather boring, far more attention is put on monarchs and wars etc., rather than social conditions which I find more interesting.’ He does not suffer alone. In 1967 the ‘A’ level history examiners of a large board wrote: ‘Only a tiny minority of candidates have an understanding of economic and social factors.’ Again, this time about a different syllabus: ‘Most candidates seem to ignore the economic and social aspects of history and this is particularly unfortunate, since the shortness of the period in Syllabus X is intended to encourage candidates to move beyond political history and to study in depth.’ Thus a situation has developed where many sixth form historians are emerging from their specialist courses almost entirely ignorant of these fields which they think most important, and in which they are most interested.

The problem that we face is all the more serious because there seems good reason to believe that the interest in social and economic history should be described less as ‘historical’ than as ‘sociological’. ‘The course is interesting enough for the most part though there is not enough connection with other subjects or conditions today.’ (1st year sixth, boys’ direct grant.) ‘There is not enough scope for modern history, more relevant to everyday life.’ (2nd year sixth, girls’ direct grant.) ‘The history course gives an insight into the “raison d’etre” of the existing social and political state of the country.’ (1st year sixth, boys’ maintained.) Many contemporary sixth formers are opting for history because it appears to be ‘socially relevant’ in a way few other alternative subjects are. Many history teachers at all levels would use ‘social relevance’ as one important justification of their subject. If,

396 CON‘I’EMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SIXTH FORM HISI‘ORY

however, history is to be genuinely socially relevant, then obviously the question, ‘in what way are history, social history and sociology related?’ must be answered. As Brian Harrison pointed out in the October 1968 edition of History, the sixth form teacher who looks to university courses for guidance on this issue does not get much help. ‘In its present state, the subject (social history) lacks backbone, unless accompanied by courses in social statistics, social theory, economics or philosophy. . . . Sociology can be combined with history at many universities but seldom is it well-integrated into a composite course. . . . The more extensive combination of sociology with social history would benefit practitioners in both subjects.s The most interesting discussion of this issue in recent years for the teacher of history has been that of S. W. F. Holloway. He argues that ‘academic history is an intellectually invertebrate affair . . . it has no systematic theory, no accepted conceptual apparatus and no accepted canons of inter- pretation . . . history must become scientific both in aim and method. In other words history and sociology must become one. If the prevail- ing separation of the two disciplines is allowed to continue, the result will be . . . marked discontinuities in historical research and . . . sociological theorizing untempered by historical kn~wledge.‘~ His argument is a powerful one and, if correct, of urgent importance. Sociology is now an established ‘A’ level and the Schools Council is about to launch a social science development project. I t would be sad if sixth formers of the future were to spend 7 periods a week reflecting ‘the marked discontinuities’ of academic history and another 7 periods a week enmeshed in the ‘untempered theorizing’ of academic sociology.

We also asked our pupils whether they would prefer a different syllabus to their present one, and, if they did, which. We arbitrarily limited their choice to the alternatives offered by our Board, in order that the questionnaire should not become too unwieldy. Only 5% declared themselves happy with their present syllabuses. Of the 95 who would have preferred an alternative, 69% would have chosen a more modern period, 31% a less modern one. This demand for modernity was only slightly less marked among the boys than among the girls, even though both boys’ schools were using syllabuses which included some twentieth century history, while the girls stopped at 1789. The following are representative answers to our request that they should give reasons for their choice of alternatives. ‘Modern history is essential as it has influenced current events.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ maintained.) ‘Though the period 1648-1715 is interesting, I feel much more personally interested in the period 1870-1939. For the modern world, it gives a more complete picture of the trends that

3 M a n Harrison, in Histo 4 Studies in the Nature an?+eaching of History, ed. W. H. Burston and D. Thomson

liii, 375-6.

(London, 1967), pp, 13-14.

MARTIN ROBERTS 397 are in full swing by 1870.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ direct-grant.) One first year sixth former, dissatisfied with every alternative offered by our Board made this suggestion: ‘I would like to study modern day problems such as the East-West confrontation, Britain’s part in the modern world, the centralization and union of Europe. You could call the syllabus “The World 1945 onwards”. This affects us and is more interesting.’

We have then a clear request for more contemporary history, a request which is closely related to the ‘sociological’ appeal of history already noted. Many schools, including my own, are meeting it by changing to even more modern periods. While I am sure that we are following the right course, there are obviously serious teaching problems to be faced. These are posed most cogently by W. H. Burston who argues that since the contemporary historian does not have the knowledge of later events which is so vital in the assessment of the significance of past events by the historian of earlier periods, he must use different criteria of significance. Usually they are assumptions about what the future course of events will be. ‘Since these assumptions are hypotheses rather than certainties and since different assumptions lead to different accounts of the present, contemporary history must be regarded as essentially provisional in ~haracter.’~ As long as this provisional character is recognized, it need not be a weak- ness. Nonetheless, contemporary history is a highly sophisticated form of history which is not suitable for pupils below the sixth form. If Burston’s argument is accepted, the sixth form teachers who opt for twentieth century syllabuses have a formidable task. They are not only opting for a period whose foundations are still being laid and for which reliable textbooks are only beginning to be written, but for a subject which in certain ways is methodologically different from and conceptually more sophisticated than earlier periods. These differences need to be stressed. Brian Harrison has drawn attention to some of the dangers of ‘the pressure for contemporaneity’ at university level.6 They are just as real in the sixth form. They are not likely to be recognized, however, if Examining Boards follow the example of one of their number and suggest that within a particular syllabus Alternative N, European history 1198-1 314 and Prescribed Documents on the reign of Henry I11 is genuinely an alternative to Alternative M, European history: Europe and the modern world 1870 to the present day, and Prescribed Documents on British history 1906-1939; that in fact the answer to this ‘pressure for contemporaneity’ is simply to add a more modern alternative to the existing framework of syllabuses.

Many of our pupils were naturally rather vague when we asked them about their future plans, particularly those in the first-year sixth. 83% wanted to go on to university and, of the 17 who did not,

6 Burston and Thornson, ing. 6 Brian Harrison, pp. 365-6.

398 CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SIXTH FORM HISTORY

10 intended to undertake some kind of further education course (College of Education, H.N.D. etc.). 6% of the sample wished to take an Honours degree course in history alone. Another 17y0 expected to study a substantial amount of history as a subordinate part of a composite university degree course and another 38O1, thought that their sixth form historical studies would be of minor but immediate value to their university/further education studies. For the remain- ing 39%, history would not have much obvious utility once the ‘A’ level examination had been taken. Viewed in a slightly different perspective, these figures indicate that a substantial majority, 77%, will not be taught by trained historians after the sixth form and that a majority, 53%, even if they study aspects of history in some detail, will often follow a course narrowly related to their main subject (e.g. Law, English Literature). In the light of these figures, which are to some extent a consequence of the fast changing nature of the sixth form and of the diversification of university courses in the Arts and Social Sciences, sixth form history teachers need to give priority to three particular objectives, Firstly, the sixth form course should clearly indicate the nature of the professional historian’s craft, especially to those who will henceforward be doing little or no academic history. Secondly, it should clarify the relationship between history and other disciplines, particularly the natural and social sciences. This would benefit those who henceforward will be concerned primarily with non-historical academic courses. And thirdly, the course should encourage those cognitive skills which are not only essential to the good historian but are transferable to situations outside academic history. I t has usually been assumed that these objectives should be realized through our traditional syllabuses but in practice this assumption often proves to be sadly unrealistic. How did the two years study in depth of thousands of candidates appear to our 1967 history examiners? ‘As usual, most candidates relied heavily on class notes more or less adapted to the needs of the question, This results in a standardized approach, the difference in the marks of candidates from the same school depending to a considerable extent on style and presentation. Only in a minority of scripts was there evidence that the candidates’ reading had extended beyond their textbooks. There was also little indication that the contents of the more important works, written in the last twenty years, were known, many candidates-perhaps the majority-writing exactly the same answers that might have been expected from their parents.’ Again, this time about work on a prescribed documents syllabus: ‘Some answers to the question on prescribed documents were very good indeed, some other candidates were very badly prepared for this type of work. It calls for careful attention to detail and conscientious study of the con- text of the document. It is a precise discipline and it can reap a rich harvest. Answers to essay-type questions followed the usual pattern.

MARTIN ROBERTS 399 A few were very good indeed; many seemed reproductions of pre- vious essays (or even dictated notes) topped and tailed with a little ingenuity in order to make them appear to answer the question set. Too many candidates seem unable to depart from the narrative form. They fail to discuss the problem which is presented and even if it is given in the form of a quotation, they sometimes write lengthy answers without any reference to it whatever.’ Is there much evidence here of an awareness of the historian’s craft, of the rigours of the historical discipline or of a mastering of useful and transferable cognitive skills?

The fourth major problem is the pressure of the ‘A’ level examination. It is hard to exaggerate this pressure. The final question that we asked our pupils was: ‘What aspects of the course have you found (a) most satisfactory, (b) least satisfactory.’ Here are some typical answers. ‘The masters have tried to make the course as interesting as they could with regard to the fact that we have to concentrate primarily on passing “A” levels.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ maintained.) ‘The present history course is directed too much at the “A” level exam. It is a matter of learning facts and writing essays to a great extent. However, this is not attributable to the staff but to the course itself. There is a tremendous amount to be done in the two years, leaving little time for real discussion on the meaning of history, and, unless one proceeds to scholarship level in the subject, I feel that one does not learn, in a sixth form career, all that history can teach us.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ maintained.) ‘The course does not allow time for discussion and is too much aimed at the exam, but the exam requirements are at fault here. It does not allow time to study an aspect like literature and follow it through the period either in one country or in Europe as a whole. A shorter course would be prefer- able.’ (2nd year sixth, girls’ direct-grant.) ‘There is not sufficient time either to cover the syllabus adequately or deal with specific topics in which one is especially interested, e.g. the arts, literature, philosophy.’ (2nd year sixth, girls’ direct-grant.) ‘I never seem to have enough time!’ (1st year sixth, girls’ direct-grant.) ‘A general criticism of the “A” level course is that, while obviously intended to give a general idea of history over a certain period, because of the over-long period attempted, it falls down completely by virtue of its superficial nature.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ direct-grant.) Finally and perhaps most eloquently-‘To be useful in life, that is to be a responsible member of society, one must learn from history-and to learn the lessons of history, we must be captivated by, indeed steeped in the subject. Unfortunately, the demands of the examination prevent the student from devoting enough time to profound study.’ (2nd year sixth, boys’ maintained.) These are not the murmurings of an idle, potentially anarchic generation. They are merely saying in their own way what the Crowther report said nearly a decade ago. ‘We doubt whether


three semi-detached Arts subjects can really be studied in depth. . . . If the teaching is good enough a smaller field will better serve the purposes of a liberal education.’T

This is not the place to enter into any general discussion of the role of external examinations in the sixth form curriculum. All I wish to do is to indicate how sixth form history is being particularly affected. Since Crowther, competition for university entrance has dramatically increased, on the Arts side especially. Three ‘A’ levels rather than two have become the selectors’ norm and, of course, conditional offers are made not in terms of passes but in terms of grades. Over the last two academic years my school has records of conditional offers made to 23 sixth formers studying history in the second year sixth. With the exception of one freak 2 E’s, all the offers were combinations of B’s and C’s, 62% of the grades in fact being B’s and 38’7, C’s. Very few of our pupils will decide against trying for university during their course, however remote their chances of success may seem. Our mini- mum target for our weakest academic pupils then is a grade C, for our strongest (to ensure them some range of choice of university) a Grade A. Grades are defined by our Board in the following numerical terms: Grades A-B 95~0-600/,, Grade A 95% to somewhat below ?ox , Grade B 7oyo to somewhat below 60%~ Grade C approximately 55%, Grade D approximately 50y0, Grade E approximately 45y0. The difference between grades may be as little as 1% and the crucial B-D range may be no more than 7%-8%. The margin of error is small, the stakes in career terms, as both staff and pupils know only too well, are high. Sixth form history teachers are surely justified in asking, along with many examiners of examinations from Hartog and Rhodes to Wiseman, whether such margins can fairly be measured in such a subject as history using the conventional ‘stand and deliver’ mode of examining, however conscientious the examiners and sophisticated their techniques. It would be helpful, and doubtless reassuring, if examining boards would make more accessible their investigations not only into the ‘reliability’ of their current examination procedures but also into their ‘validity’.

In my experience, the pressure of external examinations has two particularly unfortunate effects. One of these, which has already been referred to in passing, is the strait jacket which it tightens round the sixth form course. The majority of ‘A’ level examinations are of the syllabus-sampling type, and defined in terms of content to be covered rather than of skills to be mastered. In practice, this content can be broken down into a certain number of topics which are more or less likely to appear in the examination paper. The best short-term service that the sixth form teacher can do for his pupils is to cover in depth enough of those topics (and no more) that will ensure that they can write the required number of questions (usually four or five) in the

T 15-18: Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education, i (1959), p. ~ 6 7 .

MARTIN ROBERTS 40’ three hour paper and, better still, to indicate accurately the possible wordings of these four or five questions. Political and foreign policy questions turn up more often and their wording is easier to anticipate than other aspects of our periods. T h e temptation to avoid more than a rudimentary treatment of social, economic, philosophic and artistic aspects of the period is thus hard to resist.

The second unfortunate effect of examination pressure is the way that it manages to discourage genuine study in depth. This was brought home forcibly to me last October. I was working with my second year sixth on a programme of fortnightly assignments which would complete the syllabus in time for adequate revision of the two- year course before the ‘A’ level examinations took place. The assign- ment was an essay on Imperialism in the 1870s and 1880s. At the end of the fortnight, three of my ablest pupils had failed to produce the essay and, when pressed for it, they asked for another week. They wanted in fact to follow up my references to Robinson, Gallagher and Denny’s Africa and the Victorians and D. K. Fieldhouse’s Theory of Capitalist Imperialism and felt that, with the demands of other subjects to be met, they would need a week to digest such interesting and difficult books. I could have, they said, a second-rate essay which they wouId not enjoy writing tomorrow, or first-rate essays which they would really like to write in a week’s time. I must admit that with great reluctance I opted for the first alternative since all the evidence suggests that they will be more likely to get their A/B grades if they can cover a wider range of topics in semi-depth and have time to revise systematically than if they cover a narrower range in depth with time only for partial revision. We are back to Crowther again. Genuine study in depth is virtually impossible in the present situation.

Since examiners, teachers and pupils are at one in condemning both the strait-jacket effect and the difficulty in finding time to read in depth, these problems seem unlikely to be the fault of any one group. It might be worth investigating whether the mechanics of the examination system itself, in particular the method of syllabus sampling with the ‘universe’ to be sampled being defined, often very broadly, in terms of content, is the method most appropriate to the present situation.

Sixth form history, therefore, is not without its problems, some of which are serious. Their root lies in the paradox that historians, though meticulously precise about the content of their subject, remain obstinately imprecise about its nature and its place in the curriculum. We lack a precise definition of the term ‘history’ itself. Thus we have been unable to chart the boundaries between sociology and history. We have not yet clarified the methodological differences between contemporary history and the history of more ancient eras.

n-iin


We have not asked ourselves intensively enough what aims a sixth form history course should achieve and how it should best be presented at a time when sixth forms are rapidly increasing in size and range of ability and when important curricular changes are imminent. Finally as long as we fail to define the distinctive character either of our subject or of our method and the specific aims of our sixth form courses, our examinations must remain crude and unsatis- factory tests of what we are trying to teach.

The way out of the morass is to look outside our own subject to the experience of other disciplines both in this country and on the other side of the Atlantic. One of the more influential writers in curriculum theory is Professor J. S. Bruner of Harvard University. His researches as an educational psychologist have convinced him of the fundamental importance of the structure of a subject in the learning process. The best intellectual development at any age, he argues, will only be achieved if subjects are taught in terms of structure rather than of the mastery of certain facts and techniques. By grasping the structure of a subject, a pupil is in fact understanding it in a way that permits many other things to be related to it mean- ingfully. ‘Structure’ and ‘the transfer of training’ are closely related. ‘Evidence of the last two decades in the psychology of learning has indicated that, while the original theory of formal discipline was poorly stated in terms of the training of the faculties, it is indeed a fact that massive general transfer can be achieved by appropriate learning, even to the degree that learning properly under optimum conditions leads one “to learn how to learn”.’O The creation of an effective course of study in any subject is a complex process demand- ing expert knowledge of the subject itself, of teaching method and of the taught. ‘It should be prepared jointly by the subject matter expert, the teacher and the p~ychologist.’~ Though Bruner is writing primarily for American teachers of science in a post-Sputnik era, his writings might be helpful to us in three ways. Firstly, he focuses attention on the ‘structure’ of a subject. What distinctive structure has history as a teaching discipline? Secondly, he stresses the importance of ‘transfer’. In the contemporary English sixth form, history is the only subject widely studied which attempts to provide rigorous explanation of human behaviour both individually and in groups. It is also a subject which only a small minority continue in any depth after the sixth form. How can we organize our courses not only so that we lay a good foundation upon which our small minority can build but that our great majority who will be moving into other fields may benefit from a massive general transfer for interpreting human behaviour in non-historical settings? Thirdly, he regards the psychologist as an integral member of any curriculum planning team.

* J . S. Bruner, The Process of Education (1965). p. 6. @ J. S . Bruner, Toward a Theory of Instruction (1966), p. 10.

MARTIN ROBERTS 403 The importance of educational psychology to secondary school history has recently been underlined by the work of R, N. Hallam. He has confirmed the hunches of many psychologists of learning that logical thinking in history develops comparatively late. He tentatively suggests a Chronological Age of 16.2-16.6 (Mental Age of 16.5-18.2) as the time when ‘formal operational thinking’ as defined by the Genevan School really begins, and concludes: ‘The large number of pre-operational answers (to his tests), often directly reflecting Piaget’s criteria formed with younger subjects in different fields of thought and the relative absence of formal operational answers indicate the difficulties faced by many secondary school pupils in the study of history if it is to be a more mature discipline than the mere repetition of learnt facts.”O As more and more pupils stay on at the age of 16 + and sixth forms cater for a wider range of ability, we shall increasingly need psychologists to help us devise courses, particularly for the first year sixth, to encourage consistent formal operational thinking in history.

Another influential figure in American curriculum development is B. S. Bloom through his editing in 1956 of the first volume of the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives on behalf of a committee of College and University Examiners. The aim of the Taxonomy is to provide a classification of desirable cognitive skills in order that the objectives or aims of any school course may be precisely defined and tested in terms of these skills. T h e first volume, ‘the Cognitive Domain’, is divided into six main branches-Knowledge, Compre- hension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation-which in turn have their sub-branches. Each division has its appropriate form of testing, Knowledge being best tested by the multiple-choice method, Synthesis by the essay method. Though the categories within the Taxonomy may need refining for English sixth form courses, we might do well to adopt its approach.

A number of curriculum projects, almost entirely in scientific and mathematical fields, also deserve our attention. T h e most famous in the USA. are the C.B.A. (chemistry), the P.S.S.C. (physics) and the B.S.C.S. (biology), in this country the S.M.P. (mathematics) and the various Nuffield science projects. These projects have the following characteristics in common. Firstly, they are determined to provide a deeper insight into the nature and method of their subject than was achieved by traditional syllabuses. Secondly, they lay much greater emphasis on skills to be mastered than on facts to be learnt. Thirdly, they attempt to define very specifically the objectives of the course and to devise tests appropriate to each of these objectives. Clearly, the ideas of Bruner, Bloom and various curriculum planning teams are interrelated in many important ways.

PP. ‘97-8. 10 R. N. Hallam, ‘Logical Thinking in History.’ Educational Review, 19 (1967).


In recent months, there have been signs that the time is ripe for a similar approach to English sixth form courses. The Headmasters Association argues ‘that examinations judgements are rather crude assessments because in fact a number of different qualities affect the result, which does not distinguish between them. It would be better if syllabuses were to consist not only of a definition of subject content but also of an analysis of the abilities and skills which are to be fostered. . . . We would then need to devise methods of examining which would be capable of assessing these abilities and skills as well as the factual knowledge . . . which the subject is expected to possess.’” The Schools Council Working Paper No. 20, ‘Sixth Form Examining Methods’ was also published last year. T h e first part of this Working Paper is a powerfully written memorandum from the Welsh Committee of the Council which advocates sixth form examinations based on the aims rather than on the factual content of the course. T h e second part of the paper is the summarized comments of the subject committees of the Council on the proposals of the Welsh Committee. Bearing in mind the present problems of history in the sixth form (and at other levels) and the climate of informed opinion in favour of objectives-based examining, the summarized comments of the History Committee are thoroughly disappointing. ‘The historians express a substantial measure of support for the existing system, explaining that, it is, after all, possible for schools to present syllabuses of their own in which, for example, an ability to use primary sources is required. . . . The History Committee is not wholeheartedly in support of so much departure from custom. . . . Within the present system there are many options and oppor- tunities. , . . The existing system can be polished and improved and the growing experience gained from the C.S.E. mode 3 examinations will be increasingly relevant. . . . The steady change and experimenta- tion that is going on is a more hopeful approach to the problems stated in the paper than sudden drastic changes.’la Perhaps the sum- mary does less than justice to the History Committee’s comments but, as they stand, they imply that the objectives-based approach (and indeed the main developments of curriculum theory in recent years) are not relevant to English sixth form history. If I understand them correctly, progress lies in more options and a more flexible system reinforced perhaps by teachers’ assessments. Presumably the answer to the ‘social relevance’ problem is to offer more options in Social History or to set questions in existing alternatives which encourage a more sociological approach, while the answer to the problem of contemporary history is to extend existing syllabuses by the addition of more modern alternatives. Doubtless ‘polishing’ will take care of the problem of the definition of the cognitive skills best

11 H.M.A. , The Sixth Form of the Future (1968), p. zg. 1z S i x t h \ o m rxumining methods (Schools Council Working Paper No. PO), pp. 12-14.

MARTIN ROBERTS 405 encouraged in a sixth form history course and ‘steady experimenta- tion’ on the traditional lines with the problem of examination pressure. There is no suggestion that an experiment with an objectives-based syllabus is worth serious consideration.

These, however, are less answers than evasions. They evade the prickly problems of subject boundaries and methodology of what really makes a good historian and of how, with a syllabus-sampling examination which is also strenuously competitive, the scope for genuine study in depth can be significantly extended.

An alternative approach which faces more constructively the problem of history in the sixth forms of the present and of the future, is to follow the course already pioneered in part by the scientific subjects. Could not the Historical Association or the History committee of the Schools Council call a conference of leading scholars and schoolteachers, sociologists and economists with an interest in history, educational psychologists and representatives of the examining boards? The aim of such a conference and of a subsequent working party might be fivefold: (i) to hammer out a working definition of history (including contemporary history) as a subject in relation to Sociology and Economics; (ii) to define as precisely as possible those cognitive skills which in combination make a good sixth form historian differentiating between those which are specifically historical and those which are not; (iii) to define the objectives of a sixth form course in terms of the fostering of these skills; (iv) to construct a syllabus and an examination in terms of these objectives and (v) to persuade a number of schools and an examining board to co-operate in a pilot project to evaluate such a syllabus. The costs of such a project need not necessarily be very high to start off with and it is worth noting that what became Nuffield Science in 1962 began in 1957 as a project of the Science Masters Association.

If such an approach is not forthcoming and the existing system merely ‘polished’ and ‘improved’, then all we may expect is a plethora of content defined syllabuses at the fashionable growth points of academic history and some modifications of the inessentials of the syllabus-sampling examinations. These developments will obscure rather than clarify the nature of history and of the historian’s craft and will diminish rather than enhance the value of history as a subject of sixth iorm study.

CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS OF SIXTH FORM HISTORY

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