Mainstream schooling in Britain was designed to create a compliant, obedient workforce for the factories. It is overly dependent on strict subject delineation and is now over-crowded with subjects.

The scale of student numbers eliminates the possibility for true personalised learning. Students are increasingly disengaged from the learning process as they come to regard it as irrelevant to them. The silent majority get by by keeping a low profile.

Strict adherence to command and control school management and subject areas of teaching has limited opportunities to explore the art and skills of thinking. Students may know but do not understand. The essence of learning – to ask questions and make personal sense of the world – has been taken away.

The national curriculum does not allow for enough local variation. It is import for children to learn the values of things such as local history, accents and dialects. We are not all the same and school should reflect that.

The present problem is that the curriculum is too comprehensive. It tries to squeeze all children into the same mould.
We need a more flexible policy to allow for individual aptitudes and interests. However there should still be a more limited core curriculum. Maths and English are essential to enable us to function in modern society. Schools should be required to ensure the hoghest possible standards in these subjects. Then they should be encouraged to offer any other subjects which the pupils and their parents want. If the school successfully imparts the motivation to learn, the particular subjects they study are much less important.