Schools needed for Centre’s impact study

Be a part of our vital work:

We would like to invite you to play an important role in helping us improve Holocaust education. In a nutshell we would like some of your Year 9 students to take part in two surveys designed by the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. The findings will help us to know more about the impact of teaching about the Holocaust. To take part we do not require you to have any specialist knowledge or expertise. We also do not expect your students to have any in-depth knowledge. To the contrary, we want to know more about the impact of teaching on Key Stage 3 students in general. Certainly, the specific responses of individual students and participating schools will be anonymous and no aspect of the study is intended to make judgements about individual students, teachers or schools. Most importantly, to make this national impact study meaningful we need volunteers and we really hope you and your class would be willing to give us a few moments of your precious time.

Who we are and why our work is important:

The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education is the only institution of its kind where pioneering empirical research is placed at the heart of work to support teachers and their students encountering this profoundly important yet complex and challenging subject in schools. We recently published the world’s largest study to explore students’ knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust, and are now embarking on another significant piece of research to explore the impact of Holocaust education.

On 24th January, the Parliamentary Education Committee published its report on Holocaust education, citing a number of findings from the Centre’s national study with students. When making recommendations for further improvements in Holocaust education, the report (page 47) stated: The curriculum should enable teachers to plan lessons and outcomes for each stage with an understanding of progression and a framework for teachers to assess impact.

The UCL Centre for Holocaust Education agrees that it is essential to examine the impact that Holocaust education has on students’ knowledge and attitudes. We are also committed to exploring the impact of our CPD programmes and education resources on students’ learning.

How you can help

As a consequence of the need to address the concerns of the Education Select Committee and to help improve current practice, the Centre is now embarking on a new project to look at the impact of Holocaust education and we are looking for control schools to take part in this research. That is, schools whose teachers have not attended the UCL (IOE) Centre for Holocaust Education CPD programmes. The research would involve students in Key Stage 3 completing two surveys: one before and one after they have learned about the Holocaust in their history lessons. We will then look at how their knowledge of the Holocaust has changed from before to after these lessons. We will also compare their answers to students whose teachers have attended the Centre’s CPD programmes.

This is an excellent opportunity for schools to be part of the Centre’s world class research, respond to some of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Education Committee and be at the forefront of impact research in Holocaust education. All participating schools will get a bespoke report of findings for their school that could be used as evidence for self-evaluation processes and or to demonstrate engagement with research. Participating schools are also very welcome to take part in the Centre’s free CPD courses later in the year.

If you are interested in being a control school or would like further information, please contact Dr Becky Hale: r.hale@ioe.ac.uk