ABSTRACT
This chapter reports on oral history interviews with 13 veteran history teachers. This chapter builds on the work of Ball et al. (2012) in exploring ‘how schools do policy’, focusing specifically on the experience of history teachers. It looks at policy beyond the National Curriculum, specifically the government focus on ‘raising standards’ and how a culture of accountability and performativity came to dominate the culture in schools. It considers the impact of league tables on history teaching, exploring the status of history on the curriculum and access to history teaching across the period. Data are presented on the impact of the target-setting culture on history teachers and how, for some, assessment came to dominate the experience of teaching history. The power of examination boards is explored, specifically the impact of GCSE specifications and mark schemes on the teaching of history to younger age groups. One section considers surveillance, the associated imposition of pedagogical approaches experienced by many of the history teachers in the sample, and how such experiences changed over 25 years from relative autonomy to prescription. A final section, on the impact of the National Strategies, compares the responses of different teachers to senior leaders imposition of certain pedagogical approaches considering why some teachers were able to show more agency in their response to such policies.
