Education is too important to leave to schools

School-children wouldn’t be at school all the time. They would spend time out of school - with parents, in community learning situations and making excursions in smaller groups that could have more interactive learning experiences than is possible in a large group herded through for a quick look at something.

Family holidays during school time would be encouraged as these open up so many learning opportunities- even time spent on the beach, playing in the sand and water, watching the tides and poking around the rock-pools is valuable.

Kids would also spend time in workplaces - doing informal work experience at a younger age to help them find out what is involved in different careers and in work situations - this would help them gain practical experience and make career choices.

More parents are working from home these days and children could spend time working with them there - gaining work skills in a practical environment and improving family relationships at the same time.

The same goes for those whose parents are in shops or other small businesses. Such work helps children to pick up skills in their proper context. For example a boy of around ten served me in the local milk bar recently and his maths skills were fantastic. This kind of work can and does form part of kids’ education. The modern fear of child exploitation is taking this kind of experience away from more and more kids. To get a paper round kids under 14 now have to obtain a signed letter from their principal stating that the job will not interfere with their studies. This is ridiculous.

We now live in an information age where facts are changing so fast that we need to speak of “known facts” and “current theories” rather than absolute facts. In this new world, textbooks are quickly obsolete (and if the government invests big money in the digital equivalent, these too will quickly become obsolete). Why invest in textbooks and computer programs of such short practical use when there is so much good quality information available through trade books, the community and the Internet?

In this age of information we now live in, it is time for families to take back at least some of their educational role - it can’t be left to schools.