Older readers of the journal may well remember a classic film, Whatever happened to Baby Jane ? This article asks, and attempts to answer, two parallel questions: "Whatever happened to breadth and balance?" and "Whatever happened to history’s place in the primary curriculum?". The two questions (and their answers) are closely related since history was re-introduced phoenixlike in the late 1980s on the back of a concern for ensuring breadth and balance in the school curriculum.