‘Bite-sized’ history textbooks used in the UK accused of ‘dumbing down’ the subject: should we be worried?

Writing in the TES, Robert Peal, a history teacher at the West London Free School, said today’s textbooks rely too heavily on magazine-style bite-sized chunks of text, and deprive students of the serious historical storytelling that was prevalent from the 1950s through to the 1970s.

Peal wrote: “An ongoing issue I have with the key stage 3 history textbooks is their lack of extended narrative. You would be hard pushed to find a stretch of more than 200 words that is not broken by a cartoon, a snippet of ‘source material’ or a ‘funny fact’.”

Is Peal correct in his assertions, and if so, should we be concerned? Two teachers share their views…