David Davis
Christina Speight, an old mate from eurorealist, comments on her own place:
“The trouble with education in Britain is that we have now gone full circle. The youngsters who were not taught properly 20 years ago are now the teachers of today, knowing nothing, but high on waffle and vague theories. They therefore find themselves unable to teach history, geography, literature, languages, art and music because they don’t know these subjects themselves.
So they campaign to institutionalise their ignorance.
At a time when 9 out of 10 young men who want to join the army are rejected by the recruiters as incapable of fighting a modern war (some admittedly from general unfitness or drug use) we should be grateful that at least 10% have been educated properly enough to do a man’s job. TEN PERCENT - and “education, education, education” was to be top priority.”
Head teachers want to drop National Curriculum in schools
By Julie Henry
A range of school subjects could be swept away under new teaching proposals.
The attack on the National Curriculum, which has dictated school timetables for 20 years, could spell the end of separate classes in history, geography, literature, languages, art and music.
Instead, schools would be allowed to decide how they teach big themes such as global warming, conflict and healthy living.
The present list of subjects would be reduced to little more than English, mathematics and computing. The National Association of Head Teachers, responding to a select committee inquiry into whether the National Curriculum is “fit for purpose”, said its structure of 14 compulsory subjects should be replaced by a “minimum framework” that would be “skills and competence-based, rather than prescriptive and knowledge-based”.
Growing calls for flexibility, coupled with a series of curriculum reviews ordered by ministers, represent a serious threat to the future of the traditional timetable.
Academics defended the National Curriculum, saying it was the best guarantee that children were exposed to vital areas of study.
“We haven’t arrived at these subjects by accident,” said Prof Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University. “We have discovered a number of ways of making sense of the world which have been formulated as the sciences, humanities, social sciences and expressive art. It is reasonable to require young people to engage in these vital subjects for a spell of time.”
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