"We share the widespread alarm at the way history has been allowed to decline in our schools, with increasing numbers of children receiving less history teaching than their predecessors, or even none at all. However, in contrast with others in the profession, we do not think this is entirely the result of outside factors; we identify serious weaknesses in the philosophy currently underpinning school history.

"Our central concern is that the importance of historical knowledge has been steadily downgraded. In particular, we believe that the teaching of British history has been allowed to deteriorate, to such an extent that substantial numbers of young people do not have that basic grasp of this country's history that they need in order to function as informed and active adult citizens.

"Our submission contains important proposals on how these problems can be addressed. We take great encouragement from the Secretary of State's announcement of the introduction of a baccalaureate of major subjects to form the core of education at GCSE level. We have developed this idea further and our proposals include recommendations for how such a baccalaureate might replace the current Options system, which does so much to undermine the crucial importance of subject disciplines. In particular, we recommend the adoption of a continuous course of study in history from 11-16, with end-of-course assessment drawing on the candidates' knowledge of history drawn from the whole length of the course."

"Two successive reports from the Historical Association have confirmed what we have long feared would happen: that history is being progressively marginalised in our schools. The proportion of students taking history beyond 14 is now well below a third, and in increasing numbers of schools history is being confined to the first two years of secondary schooling only.

"We believe history is an essential part of the education of all citizens and is far too important to be dropped at 14, often for the most trivial of reasons. We therefore call for it to form part of a broad baccalaureate of major subjects which all students should take to 16.

"In theory history teachers would say that knowledge and skills are both important. In reality, many believe their role is to teach skills rather than knowledge. The Better History Group believes that, as a result, young people's historical knowledge, particularly of the history of Britain, has suffered. Skills matter, but knowledge matters more."

"We want students to know more, not less. This is a declaration of war on historical ignorance and on all those who would defend, justify and even extend it."