What do students know and understand about the Holocaust?

Considerations and recommendations
215
Additional exposure to the Holocaust
in schools
Notwithstanding the obstacles and challenges
outlined above, three further issues demand serious
attention and provide both barriers and opportunities
for meaningful study of the Holocaust in English
secondary schools:
1. the Holocaust, exam specifications and study
beyond age 14
2. progression in students’ learning and the ‘spiral
curriculum’
3. SMS, Oftsed and the Holocaust.
1. The Holocaust, exam specifications
and study beyond age 14
International observers of the English educational
system are often surprised to learn that the study
of history is not compulsory for students beyond 14
years of age. Indeed, this particular feature of the
educational system in England is very much at odds
with practice across the world and contrasts sharply
with curriculum frameworks in Europe and North
America where the study of history often forms a
staple of students’ education until age 18
(Fracapane and Heyl 2014).
By comparison, just over a third of secondaryschool
students go on to study history beyond age
14 in England, and typically only about 6 per cent will
go on to study history after age 16. The introduction
of government initiatives such as the English
Baccalaureate (EBacc) – which encourages schools
to direct their students towards studying the core
subjects of English, maths and science; a modern
foreign language; and either history or geography –
may lead to a slight growth in students who study
history in the future. However, by international
comparisons the numbers will be small and it is likely
that a majority of students in England will continue
not to study history beyond aged 14.
In England, what history students learn in
schools from ages 14 to 16 is determined by the
exam specifications of major national awarding
organisations, of which there are three principal
bodies: OCR, Pearson/Edexcel and AQA. Typically,
students follow a two-year course in chosen subject
areas and receive a final grade under the assessment
framework of the GCSE (General Certificate in
Secondary Education).
In recent years a review of GCSE courses (or
specifications) has been undertaken and new draft
specifications are available which clearly detail what
students must study across a range of subject areas
(for teaching about the modern world, these are OCR
2015; Pearson/Edexcel 2015; AQA 2015). These
new courses will be taught from 2016 with the first
awards made in 2018. In history, new specifications
have to include five elements:
■■
a thematic study covering a long period that
spans medieval, early modern and modern history
■■
a period of study covering at least 50 years
■■
a British depth study
■■
a non-British depth study from different eras
(modern, early modern and medieval)
■■
a study of the historic environment.
Under the new mandates, at least 40 per cent of
the GCSE history curriculum must focus on British
history.
In relation to teaching about the Holocaust,
analysis of the new GCSE specifications for students
aged 14 to 16 reveal three key issues. First, the
increased emphasis on British history (which does
not include reference to the Holocaust) means that
less attention will be paid to European history than in
previous iterations of the GCSE.
Second, if it features at all, the Holocaust is only
included as an optional element within the non-
British depth study. In other words, it forms part of a
course that only accounts for 20 per cent of the time
allocated to study.
Third, in most specifications the study of the
Holocaust is very much an optional feature within a
broader framework. For example, the OCR national
specification offers seven possible depth studies.
Of these, ‘Germany 1925–1955: The People and
the State’ is one option, but six other possibilities
exist (OCR 2015: 8, 16). Within that option, students
are required to study a raft of topics, of which ‘the
persecution of the Jews and other groups’ and ‘the
escalation of racial persecution leading to the final
solution’ feature as a relatively small element. In the
Pearson/Edexcel specification, the Holocaust does
not explicitly feature at all. Indeed, the optional depth
study offered to students and teachers focuses on
Weimar and Nazi Germany, 1918–39. Within this vast
topic, ‘the persecution of the Jews, including the
boycott of Jewish shops and businesses (1933), the
Nuremberg Laws and Kristallnacht’ are mentioned
among an extensive list of other topics (Pearson/
Edexcel 2015: 41). However, because the time frame
of the study ends in 1939, the mass killing of Jews
during the Holocaust is entirely absent.
So, the persecution and murder of the Jews
and other groups typically appears as a very small
element of an optional topic worth, at best, only 20
per cent of students’ final GCSE grade. In some
specifications the Holocaust does not feature at all
and, given the distinct possibility that many schools
will elect not to focus on Germany as an in-depth
study, it is possible that only a small percentage
of GCSE students will leave school having studied
www.ioe.ac.uk/holocaust