Policy Exchange Reports Schools Teach Stonehenge Built by Black People

A report by the think tank Policy Exchange has revealed that some UK schools are teaching controversial and contested historical narratives as fact, such as claims that black people built Stonehenge and that the Roman Emperor Nero married a transgender woman. These narratives appear in resources like the book Brilliant Black British History, which states that Britain was predominantly black for thousands of years before white people arrived, a claim outside mainstream historical consensus. The push to "decolonise" school history curriculums, which 83 percent of secondary schools have adopted, has led to the removal or reduction of traditional topics considered "too white," such as significant British military victories like Waterloo and Trafalgar, which fewer than one in ten pupils learn about. While some changes have positively broadened students' exposure to diverse histories, the report warns that in many cases this has resulted in biased and politicized content replacing factual teaching. Additional criticisms include teaching pro-transgender content that controversially describes genital mutilation of slaves as "gender transition." Former history teacher Chris McGovern expressed concern that history education has been captured by left-wing agendas, risking a loss of balanced and rigorous historical understanding.