One constant source of teacher guilt is the photo-copiable worksheet. Although some are worthwhile, many are educational fillers used between bouts of teaching.

These worksheets are no better, but no worse, than many already available. They are part-quiz, part-activity of the “draw a picture” or “name the part” sort. But the artwork is terrible.

The CD-Rom deals with four main topics at several levels of difficulty, with questions, photographs (more than 250), illustrations and lists of useful sources. Operating it poses no problems, but as a historical resource, it is of shaky quality.

The text suffers from compression and simplification and lacks historical rigour. Links to evidence are rarely established and terms such as Dark Ages are used without explanation. With artwork that again is poor, I regret to say this CD-Rom wouldn’t pass muster as a book.

Paul Noble is head of St Andrew’s Primary School, Blunsdon, Wiltshire