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The interviewee also felt that their work went beyond the history curriculum since it enabled
teachers to integrate cross-curricular developments such as thinking skills and literacy into
their planning.
In order to meet its objectives the Ireland in Schools project produced a range of resources.
The interviewee noted that this was important because, apart from two textbook series aimed
at the Northern Ireland market, history textbooks produced in England rarely mentioned
Ireland. The exception to this were texts produced for the School History Project Modern
World Study but these focused on problems associated with the conflict rather than the history
of Ireland a whole. The project had worked with primary and secondary teachers to redress
this issue. Usually this involved small groups of between two and eight teachers, although in
Manchester 30 schools participated in the scheme. The project had engaged with teachers
serving in LEA and church schools in different parts of the country including Blackpool,
Bury, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Sefton and Staffordshire. The chairperson was
unable to give a precise date of when they began working with each cluster but noted that
contacts were ongoing. In response to a recent email request for statistical information the
chairperson provided a list of 101 people who had contributed resources ( kha200@aol.com,
31/05/2007). Clearly the level of involvement has varied, and the perceptions of some of the
main contributors to the project will be considered later in this chapter.
Ireland in Schools has also used its website to promote its work and provide resources for
teachers and this has received an average of 209 visitors per month. During the past seven
years secondary teachers in Nottinghamshire and Blackpool serving LEA, Catholic and