The Future of Education

Student teachers often experience anxiety about teaching ‘difficult histories’ (Haward, Hale & Richardson, 2022) such as the Holocaust.  In the UK context, approaches to genocide education in the history classroom have been the focus of considerable discussion in recent years. Although teaching the Holocaust has been compulsory in British schools since 1991, the lack of guidance from the Department for Education has been problematic and has been ‘arguably one of the most longstanding issues in Holocaust education’ (Pearce: 2020). Many student teachers are therefore uncertain about suitable approaches to Holocaust education. Recent research with teachers finds that although knowledge levels have improved over the last ten years, significant gaps and common confusions remain (Pettigrew & Hale: 2022). This paper aims to assess the impact of a longstanding project between the University of Manchester’s postgraduate teacher training programme [PGCE History] and University College London’s [UCL] Centre for Holocaust Education’s Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme. The longitudinal study focused on student teachers’ changing perceptions of their ability and confidence in teaching about the Holocaust, and how these developed over a three-year period, as trainee, then novice, and finally fully qualified teachers. Surveys, focus groups and interviews were used to capture how their perceptions shifted over time as a result of their training with UCL, and later on how teaching experiences impacted on their perceptions. Surveys, focus groups and interviews were used to capture how their perceptions shifted over time as a result of their specific training and later on their teaching experiences. This research is started in September 2022 and ended in July 2025 and consisted of five data-capture moments. Findings indicated that at the start of their PGCE course, student teachers expressed significantly more confidence in their own knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust than in the pedagogical approaches they should adopt to teaching it. The more students learned [through training and school experience] the more they began to doubt the extent of their knowledge, appropriate pedagogical approaches, and how they might teach the topic sensitively. [335 words]