Past updated Teachers encouraged to enter into conflict

Half a million students studied GCSE or A-Level history in the UK last year, but only 2,000 of them tackled the origins of the conflict raging in the Middle East. Why?

- Emma Graham-Harrison

Half a million students studied GCSE or A-Level history in the UK last year, but only 2,000 of them tackled the origins of the conflict raging in the Middle East. Why? According to the history teacher Meredith Cann, it is because schools fear parental criticism.

Cann, programme manager at the education charity Parallel Histories, said other ideologically sensitive subjects often avoided by schools include the impact of the British Empire and conflict in Northern Ireland. Children were eager to study controversial and topical periods, but most schools restricted their history curriculum to periods that were distant in time or geography.

"I was terrified about parental backlash," Cann recalled of her own time as a teacher in London.

Parallel Histories promotes new ways to study conflict, helping teachers to explore the roots of contemporary wars with their students, and assess the legacy of leaders such as Winston Churchill. It seeks to reach across community divides and provide an antidote to populism and extremism.

It is one of the three charities supported by this year's Guardian and Observer charity appeal in aid of people affected by war and conflict, along with Médecins Sans Frontières and War Child. As it enters its final weekend today, more than £1.5m has been raised.