ABSTRACT
The current state of history teaching in secondary schools in England is an uneasy mixture of positive elements and worrying developments and challenges.
In a presentation to the 2009 Schools History Project Conference, Ofsted’s (Office for Standards in Education) specialist advisor for history, Michael Maddison, summarized the findings of recent Ofsted inspections, noting good teaching, good teacher subject knowledge, effective leadership and management of departments and good standards of pupil achievement as some of the strengths of history teaching which had emerged from inspection (Maddison, 2009). History teaching continues to attract large numbers of high-quality graduates and competition for places on courses of initial teacher education courses in history remains fierce. A recent study of pupil perceptions of history revealed that approximately half of them are actively interested in history outside the classroom, and there is some evidence to suggest that a smaller proportion of students are disaffected and disengaged from the study of history than was the case in previous decades (QCA, 2005; Harris and Haydn, 2006).
