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een delayed by personal or school difficulties. The interviewee was about to start work with
one of these teachers. Although conflicting demands on teachers’ time restricted progress, it
was encouraging see that significant developments had been made by the time that some of
them presented evidence of their work at History Teacher Educator (McQueen, Duckworth,
Wright, 2006a) and Midlands History Forum conferences in 2006 (McQueen, Duckworth,
Wright, 2006b). By this time the first of these teachers had completed their pack and
presented it as part of a workshop. At the same time another teacher who had become
involved in the project in the period since March 2005 joined them.
The Foundation Stage Consultant said that work had been undertaken in seven areas of Irish
history and been used to exemplify seven different approaches to thinking skills. However,
they stressed the ways in which their materials impacted on the history curriculum when they
addressed the two conferences. They told the audience that one of their reasons for developing
Irish history was to challenge Anglo-centric notions of the past. This point was made before
any reference was made to thinking skills. Secondly, they said that they had limited the range
of thinking skills exemplified so that priority was given to the requirements of the topic. This
emphasis on history as opposed to generic skills may of course have reflected the nature of
the conferences. However, the fact that the interviewee had been commissioned by the QCA
to develop materials to support the 2008 revision to Key Stage 3 History may have
encouraged them to emphasise the way in which the history curriculum is structured.
Nevertheless, the overall impression given by this interview was that their primary concern
was developing thinking skills and that teaching an Irish dimension supported this.