The main aims of the study were to obtain data on the relationship of age and sex to children's ability to judge historical narratives with a moral content. Subsidiary aims were to ascertain whether environmental studies facilitated the development of moral judgement, and whether performance in history was related to the level of moral judgement made by pupils.Three hundred and thirty‐four 11‐year‐old and 13‐year‐old comprehensive school pupils were given a historical morality test. The performance of the older pupils was significantly superior to that of the younger pupils and there was a significant association in Band A (higher stream) pupils between history grade and moral level score, although not in Band B. No significant difference occurred between the sexes and environmental studies did not seem to facilitate the development of moral judgement.