View - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

ut the topic was generally well received. Indeed, the teaching of an Irish dimension was
praised in the Times Educational Supplement following a positive OFSTED report:
More than 80 percent of pupils have parents or grandparents who are Irish or were born in
Ireland … They also live with Irish politics on the streets. “IRA scum out” has appeared on
walls and bus stops over the past few weeks … Given this cultural background, the
school’s history department took the decision 10 years ago to spend optional time at Key
Stage 3 with 14-15 year olds teaching Irish history around the topic of the potato famine,
an initiative that has recently been praised by inspectors from the Office for Standards in
Education… the school’s head of humanities said, “We felt it was our duty to introduce
some historical background to their cultural identity.” (Williams, 1997)
Nevertheless, the attention given to Irish history had declined since 1997. This was partly
influenced by the Ofsted report, which criticised the fact that it was undertaken as the
department’s European area of study. The department planned to deal with this issue by
integrating an Irish dimension within British history. Although Irish topics had been
developed within aspects of Key Stage 3 there were several key aspects including
Famine/Hunger which had still not been included within their revised course. There were a
number of reasons why this did not take place. Firstly, the interviewee said that the Irish
intake in the school was beginning to decline. Secondly, it is possible that the interviewee was
less committed to an Irish dimension because they were English. However, this is unlikely to
have been particularly significant because of the fact that they raised it as an issue at yearly
reviews, while over half of the department was Irish. It is possible that broader curriculum
issues may have provided more serious constraints. The interviewee was aware of the
flexibility provided by National Curriculum 2000 but still found it difficult to find space
within their curriculum because there were so many topics they considered to be important.
An even greater constraint was the recent emphasis on developing ICT and English across the
curriculum. They supported this development but noted that it had been undertaken within