British National Curricula For History 1989-2011, Principles and Practices

Please note: this article pre-dates the 2014 National Curriculum and some content may be outdated.

The national history curricula for Northern Ireland, England and Wales have passed through various stages since working groups were set up in England and Wales in 1989. Developments have been distinct, with Northern Ireland having quite a different set of principles since 2007. This has given four thematic sub-headings under which history and corresponding sets of thinking skills are to be taught, learnt and developed - interdependence, place, movement and energy, change over time - with citizenship for the future being the driving force.

England has gone through three implemented phases,1991, 1995 and 2000 and one aborted phase (the Rose Review, 2009, abandoned by the coalition government in May 2010). Developments in Wales have been in four phases: 1991, 1994, 2000 and 2008. The 1991 Welsh curriculum in terms of content was a clear, powerful, counter master-narrative to that of England, Curricular concerns, England, Wales and Northern Ireland...