Ethos: Chartism

ETHOS (Enquiry into Teaching History to Over-Sixteens) is a research and development project into the teaching of history to 16-19 year olds, set up to develop a new approach to the teaching and assessment of history post-16. ETHOS has conducted consultations with teachers and students both in schools and in higher education and has established the following general aims: active student participation - they learn to construct their own viewpoints, based on familiarity with the material; allowance for length, breadth and depth of study; accurate assessment of what has been learnt; a variety of forms of assessment; more autonomy for teachers in design of courses; and less uncertainty for candidates in examination requirements. The ETHOS packs are designed to provide an unusually wide and varied amount of source material for teachers and students - both written and pictorial. Intended for study over half a term, the approach is one which introduces students in a personal and individual way to the work of the historian.
Each pack includes: a) a guide for teachers and students - this introduces the ETHOS programme, notes how the material in the pack is arranged and provides an account of the teaching pilot study in a school; b) documents and comments - compiled by the historian, it explains how and why the historical sources have been selected. This is followed by the sources themselves, both primary (documents) and secondary. Where appropriate most of the primary sources are reproduced from the originals; c) appendices - these provide extra material to help the student use and understand the source material - eg historiography, glossary, bibliography, biography. In this book the material on Chartism has been chosen by the author to show its contemporary importance. He then compares that with the later judgement of historians and explains why particular documents have influenced his own work and encourges students to argue and debate their own interpretations.