ABSTRACT
History proved what the critics of the legal status of the national curriculum had always feared: a Secretary of State could change it to suit his own preferences which would not necessarily always be as benign as Kenneth Baker's insistence that primary school children should learn poetry by heart. History was already riven by the argument over empathy, a concept which required children to imagine what it would have been like to live through a particular event or be alive at a particular time. With the publication of the interim report it was decided that the time was now right for the council and the working group to have official contact, which became the convention for subsequent subjects. By the time of the final report it was clear that history – which was still to be finalised – and geography were going to be far too large to be accommodated in the school timetable.
