MP Warns ‘Vast Chunks’ of Our Past Will Be Lost If Schools Don’t Teach Medieval History

Children play football while visiting Portchester Castle, near Portsmouth, southern England, on Aug. 5, 2020. Originally built in the late 3rd century, Portchester Castle is the most impressive and best preserved of the Saxon shore forts. For medieval kings it was an important embarkation point for crossing the Channel. Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images

A Conservative MP has urged the teaching of medieval or earlier English history in schools, saying children know more about Martin Luther King Jr. than they do about the UK’s first kings.

Talking to The Telegraph, MP for Rother Valley Alexander Stafford said that the subject was “greatly neglected in schools, with very little taught at GCSE or A-level” and that most students “don’t have the option to study anything pre-1066.”