ABSTRACT
Teaching is a deeply personal activity, peculiarly so in the humanities. Sixth form history teaching is an intimate and subjective exercise, partly from the very nature of all sixth form work, yet especially perhaps through the central role of interpretation in this subject. The structure and organization of sixth form work, with its implications for the grouping of subjects and size of classes, is customarily outside the control of the teacher of history, however strong the personal pressures he can – and must – exert. The sixth form history teacher of the 1970s faces a situation at once novel and fast changing. Many history teachers are likely to see it as very much their duty to maintain what they regard as traditional standards of approach and of work in the subject.
