Where and when does teaching about the Holocaust take place?Teaching about the Holocaust takes place in a wide variety of subject areas within English secondary schools.

Research findings

Where and when does teaching about the Holocaust take place?

Where and when does teaching about the Holocaust take place?---------------Key Stage 3 --------------------------------GCSE------------------------ A Level -----------Teaching about the Holocaust takes place across all seven years of compulsory and post compulsory education.

Considerable variation in the amount of time spent teaching about the Holocaust. Within Key Stage 3 history (ages 11-14), variation between 1 and 20 hours. In Year 9 (ages 13-14), teachers most commonly reported spending 6 hours. One of the most commonly reported challenges was limited curriculum time. As a consequence, some teachers suggested it was difficult to know how to decide what content to include.

Research findings -Teacher Practice

Aims of teachers

Some topics are regularly prioritised while others are seldom included in teaching about the Holocaust.

Most likely to be included: The experiences of individual men, women and children who were persecuted by the Nazis, 88% of respondentsAuschwitz-Birkenau, 87% Propaganda and stereotyping, 78% Kristallnacht, 70%

Least likely to be included: The impact of the Holocaust on the Declaration of Human rights (27%)Jewish social and cultural life before 1933 (26%)The contribution of the Jews to European social and cultural life before 1933 (25%)Operation Reinhard (12%)

Topics taught

Definitions used

Teachers unsolicited responsesThe CPD programme was really informative and gave me some excellent ideas on how to approach the teaching of the Holocaust next year. Thank you

I wanted to take the time to thank you for the wonderful CPD session you delivered in xxxx today. It was incredibly thought-provoking and educational, I learnta great deal and the session has inspired me to research more about the Holocaustandgiven me the impetus and toolsto evaluate my own and the departments teaching of the Holocaust and seek to incorporate the ideas and resources you shared with us.

The programme follows a cycle of research informed practice and evaluation which ensures that the CPDand the teaching and learning resources remain responsive to the needs of teachers and students.

The Holocaust education programme is part of the Institute of Education, University of London. It is jointly funded by Pears Foundation and the Department for Education.

d.jackson@ioe.ac.ukCentre for Holocaust Education.

The Holocaust education programme is part of the Institute of Education, University of London. It is jointly funded by Pears Foundation and the Department for Education.

*WHERE & WHENAs has already been described in Chapter 2, 1,193 of the 2,108 teachers who completed the online survey reported that they were teaching or had taught about the Holocaust now or at some point in their careers (of these, 1,038 said they had done so within the past three years). This group was then asked within which subject this teaching principally took place. 1,084 chose to answer and their responses are shown in Figure 8.55% (n591) of these teachers said that they principally taught about the Holocaust within history classes, 25% (n269) said they taught about the Holocaust principally in religious education, 7% (n72) within English and 3% (n34 and n33) in each of citizenship and PSHE. The only two other subjects named by more than 10 respondents were modern foreign languages and drama with 16 and 12 individual responses (each constituting approximately 1%) respectively.Figure 8: Curriculum areas in which survey respondents principally taught about the Holocaust (n1,084)Teachers were also asked to indicate any additional subjects in which they taught about the Holocaust. Here, 485 teachers reported that they taught about the Holocaust in at least one other subject area. The responses given to both questions can be combined to reflect the total number of times each subject was indicated as an area in which the Holocaust was being taught about in schools (see Figure 9). This is instructive because it reveals that, in aggregate, a total of 176 teachers reported teaching about the Holocaust within citizenship and 167 within PSHE. Given the already extensive scope of the survey instrument, it was not practical to collect detailed information on teachers practice outside of the principal subject that each individual identified. Supplementary research could instructively be conducted to enable a more detailed examination of teachers practice within citizenship and PSHE classrooms than has been possible here.

WHERE & WHEN. Figure 9: All curriculum areas in which survey respondents taught about the Holocaust (n1,084)Of note, by aggregating these figures, citizenship and PSHE appear as the third and fourth subjects in which the Holocaust is most likely to be taught, while English stands fifth. Among the other subjects recorded here, small numbers of teachers reported that they taught about the Holocaust within a variety of different and perhaps unexpected subject areas including philosophy, psychology, science, maths, ICT and business studies as well as general studies and combined humanities. The survey also received responses from a small number of individuals whose teaching about the Holocaust was not subject-based - such as special educational needs co-ordinators or was concentrated in extra-curricular activities, including school assemblies. In addition, 590 teachers completed the survey who had never previously taught about the Holocaust. Of these, most explained that it was not an expected topic for inclusion within their specific subject(s). However, some made the point that outside of their planned schemes of work or programmes of study, unanticipated topics for discussion among students could emerge. As one mathematics teacher explained:Whilst not actually teaching about the Holocaust I will discuss it with students if they should bring the subject up - particularly as I have a Jewish surname. I have enough common sense and background knowledge to be able to allow discussion and challenge 'wrong' ideas in a sensitive manner.Extract from survey responseOther teachers suggested that they were not comfortable venturing into discussion of a topic that they considered would be best handled by subject specialists. Some teachers also made a distinction between referring to the subject as distinct from actually teaching about it.REALISE THAT BEFORE STUDENTS REACH HISTORY YR 9 THEY HAVE ALREADY STARTED TO LEARN ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST*TIME PRESSUREAmong those teachers who saw the Holocaust as a distinctly complex period in history, many suggested that a specific challenge was knowing what content to cover within a limited period of time. These teachers were concerned that their students should reach the end of their work on the Holocaust with an appropriate depth and breadth of understanding but were not always confident in how best to achieve this. Teachers did not want students to leave their classroom thinking that the Holocaust was a story of evil Nazis and helpless Jewish victims but did want to be able to provide some coherence to their units of work. They recognised that in an average of just five or six Key Stage 3 lessons, they could only ever hope to present a partial account. When describing their work with Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 students, teachers explained that the specifications produced by examination boards outlined specific content coverage.

Online survey Teachers were presented [a list of] 13 suggestions and instructed to indicate the three that most closely matched the aims they considered especially important when teaching about the HolocaustInteresting that across subjects regardless of discipline moral lessons (would have expected history teachers to have focussed more on historical understanding and significance) and more citienship?Care needed to manage understanding and emphasis on possible universal lessons on one hand and understandings of specific context and contingency on the other. Attraction to inclusive definitions/understandings needs to be recognised

What does history contribute to social literacy? What ways of thinking, writing and questioning would be lost if we eliminated history from the curriculum?Gaea Lienhardt, quoted in Wineburg, S. (2001: ix) Historical Thinking and other unnatural acts, Philadelphia, Temple Press on http://www.uea.ac.uk/~m242/historypgce/purposes/purposesquotesintro.htmTerry Hadyn website.

NC for Key stage 3 Importance of Historyhttp://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/secondary/b00199545/history/programmeHistory fires pupils' curiosity and imagination, moving and inspiring them with the dilemmas, choices and beliefs of people in the past. It helps pupils develop their own identities through an understanding of history at personal, local, national and international levels. It helps them to ask and answer questions of the present by engaging with the past.Pupils find out about the history of their community, Britain, Europe and the world. They develop a chronological overview that enables them to make connections within and across different periods and societies. They investigate Britain's relationships with the wider world, and relate past events to the present day.As they develop their understanding of the nature of historical study, pupils ask and answer important questions, evaluate evidence, identify and analyse different interpretations of the past, and learn to substantiate any arguments and judgements they make. They appreciate why they are learning what they are learning and can debate its significance.History prepares pupils for the future, equipping them with knowledge and skills that are prized in adult life, enhancing employability and developing an ability to take part in a democratic society. It encourages mutual understanding of the historic origins of our ethnic and cultural diversity, and helps pupils become confident and questioning individuals.Key Concepts: chronological understanding; cultural, ethnic and religious diversity; change & continuity; cause & consequence; significance; interpretation. Key processes: historical enquiry, using evidence, communicating about the past.

We presented teachers with a list of 35 topics for possible inclusion.

UNPACK THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS Dont really know what is meant by individual experiences... Perpetrator led narrative, Auschwitz centric, unwittingly teaching the propaganda of the Nazis

NB dont speak too much about pre-war Jewish life as this will be looked at in next session. E.G, PRE-WAR JEWISH LIFE AND SIGNIFICIANCE OF HOLOCAUST. OR JEWISH RESISTANCE (WHICH CAME IN AT 18, 20, 26)* Definitions

Survey asked respondents to choose from list of 7 (as understandings) Whether or not the Holocaust should refer to a specific period in history and geographical location, or should be used more broadly with reference to other events that have happened (or are currently happening) elsewhere in the world.Research revealed that there are a number of ways in which teachers choose to define the term the Holocaust. Perhaps teachers who prioritise the moral lessons over historical understanding are more likely to work with a very broad, so-called inclusive definition of the Holocaust.Significantly, most teachers define the Holocaust very broadly, to include all victims of Nazi persecution, counter to current scholarship, the definition in the Stockholm Declaration, and definitions used by leading memorials and museums such as Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, USHMM in Washington, and the Imperial War Museum in London. In all of these cases, which focus first on historical understanding and then consider what might be learned from this complex past, the term Holocaust is used to refer specifically to the genocide of the Jewish people, by the Nazis and their collaborators.Possibly this tendency to use a broad definition reflects inclusive and liberal educational aims, but can the pursuit of these aims, while good in themselves, do harm to a clearer understanding of a complex past? Is it important that the distinctions in Nazi policies towards different groups are made as explicit as the similarities in these persecutions? Again, we look to Professor Bauer for his views on this central question.

Bringing research and scholarship into the classroom: The only programme globally that brings together research, scholarship and classroom practice. Richly informed by landmark national research that ensures it responds to genuine classroom needs, the programme acts as a bridge between the Academy and the secondary school: addressing common myths and misconceptions, updating teachers substantive knowledge and making the latest historical scholarship accessible to young people across the country.

The CPDresponds directly to thechallengesraised by more than 2000 teachers across England in the HEDP's landmark research into Holocaust education, which surveyedteacher attitudes, perceptions and practices in schools across the country.Significantly, this is the only research of its kind directly connected to a national teacher professional development programme. The HEDP is therefore one of the most far-reaching and ambitious programmes of teacher professional development in Holocaust education existing in the world today.The development of the programme follows a cycle of research informed practice and evaluation which ensures that the CPDand the teaching and learning resources remain responsive to the needs of teachers and students.