Funtbag Flint Euro-Army And Cambridge Nonsense Education

EU army or not EU army? what do you think? - Caroline Flint (Labour MP) or the EU itself? Read Hugo Waterfield in The Times. Clue: Caroline Flint is a funtbag.

Education, education, education...the Cambridge Primary report apparently says that primary education in England concentrates too much on the basics.

Frank Chalk provides an adequate response:

Congratulations to Professor Robin Alexander who has successfully proved Chalk's 5th Law of Teaching; which states that whenever an educational academic speaks, you must immediately stick your fingers in your ears and repeatedly shout "La-La-La...".

When I first heard about it on the early news I was rather confused - the idea that schools under New Labour were concentrating too much on the basics seemed surreal. The government appeared miffed - presumably because they were being ticked off for over-testing, etc. Reading a precis of the Report, however, I began to suspect they were pissed off because they were being out-loonied and out-New-Laboured, thus:

The review suggests the primary curriculum should be "re-conceived" with 12 specific aims, which it arranges in three groups:

* The needs and capacities of the individual: wellbeing; engagement; empowerment; autonomy
* The individual in relation to others and the wider world: encouraging respect and reciprocity; promoting interdependence and sustainability; empowering local, national and global citizenship; celebrating culture and community
* Learning, knowing and doing: knowing, understanding, exploring and making sense; fostering skill; exciting the imagination; enacting dialogue.

These aims would be achieved through eight "domains", rather than a small number of subjects.

The domains would be: arts and creativity; citizenship and ethics; faith and belief; language, oracy and literacy; mathematics; physical and emotional health; place and time (geography and history); science and technology.

That's from the BBC website.

There you have it: 'wellbeing', 'empowerment', 'citizenship', 'celebrating', etc, all the usual vacuous buzz-words of the left; it's like reading the government's New Reich Plan for Children (Every Child Matters).