Obviously, children need to be taught stuff – reading and writing, English grammar and literature, biology, physics and chemistry, history and geography, technology, modern languages. They also need to be taught about art and music and drama. And, of course about themselves as human beings, by learning about wellbeing and human psychology.

But children also need to be helped to acquire skills. All the facts in the world are useless unless you also know how to research, question, evaluate, collaborate, and problem solve. So schools need to teach facts and skills through all the subjects on their timetables.

“In today’s internet age, does it make sense to use classroom time teaching facts and figures children can look up on their smart phone in a trice?”

That’s a big ask in itself, but schools are also now expected to address the ills of society. They must teach children about avoiding obesity and self-harm. About not carrying a knife and spotting fake news, handling their screen time and taking care of their mental health. 

It’s easy to see that it’s impossible for schools to teach everything and how we choose to cut the curriculum cloth will always prompt arguments. Traditionalists want children to come out of schools knowing tons of hard facts. They are advocates of a ‘knowledge-rich’ curriculum, emphasising memory, instruction and practice.

But in today’s internet age, does it make sense to use valuable classroom time teaching the kinds of facts and figures that children can look up on their smart phone in a trice? Wouldn’t it be better to spend more time teaching them how to do research on the internet, what sources they can trust and how to spot fakery and bias?

The so-called ‘skills-led curriculum’ does exactly that, encouraging children to actively discover what they need to know, to work collaboratively to learn it and to reflect afterwards on what they have learned. In this skills-led approach, what children learn is not considered nearly as important as how they learn it. Because, so the thinking goes, if they have learned how to learn about one thing, they can use all those same skills to learn about another.

A while back, a lot of money was put into training teachers to deliver lessons based on engagement, collaboration and reflection, and this approach has led to plenty of active and interesting classroom education.

But it has also led to a sorry amount of content-light lessons in which pupils faff about making posters or playing games. Now, though, the curriculum pendulum, having gone quite far one way, is swinging back towards more teacher-led lessons with lots of factual content. 

Of course, the elusive sweet spot will always be somewhere in the middle. Obviously, it’s good for children to have core literacy and numeracy, to understand the sweep of human development and to have a good grasp of science and technology. But it’s no good if they have simply been fed these things in order to regurgitate them in exams.

It’s just as important that they leave school knowing how to apply knowledge, make connections, evaluate information, and find out things for themselves.