ABSTRACT
Have you been told recently that your children need to learn skills appropriate to the twenty-first century? Perhaps you have also been told that the way they learn has changed? Additionally you may be required to think about the way you teach, and amend it to the dizzy new plateaus of this brave new world. Now this, you hear a lot. One of the contemporary shibboleths (and one that doesn’t look like it’s going away soon) is that students need to be prepared for a dazzling future of uncertainty and change; that the challenges offered by our dizzying century means that schools can no longer teach the things they used to in the ways they are used to. And schools, educators and policy makers are listening to this mantra. The DfE has made it clear: ‘They [parents] also want schools to equip their children for tomorrow, not yesterday, giving them the up-to-date skills and knowledge for success in a rapidly changing world.’ 1
