Here is a round up of some of the more obvious news of the last few days. Right now I'm actually likely to be in a hot air balloon for a work social, so if they feel a bit old then sorry...it's likely I'm just a bit high (*groans*?)

First up... Testing students narrows learning. Ofsted has been saying for years that strict curriculum's lead to schools teaching to test. Anyone that's gone through our educational system in the last decade or so knows this is the case as teachers work through a curriculum book to get us to learn what is most likely to be in the exam with only the few going so far as to actually inspire and help us become learning individuals.

Dave Hill, over at his blog, has written a very insightful piece that delves into the heart of the ambiguity over what we define as "patriotism". Stemming from the news that academics suggest we start taking a critical approach to the subject when taught in History lessons. The idea is, simply, that you have to show that Britains past is at times morally corrupt and therefore why simply teaching kids to "love Britain" is wrong. Dave ends his very personal thoughts by suggesting that because there is a complexity in the debate that it should be discussed at schools. I don't disagree, but I don't think that is where the academics are really coming from.

Once upon a time I was in secondary school and had to do cookery lessons with everyone else as part of a revolving door scheme of design and technology work. This meant that cooking was only taught for a fraction of the year but it was potentially valuable experience. I say potentially because my cookery lessons did nothing to teach me the very basics of what I needed to get along with ingredients in my own home. A few years later I went to university and had a trial by fire in truly learning how to cook. I feel that this is the reality for many going through "food technology" lessons, so I have to welcome the news today about cookery being made compulsory with mixed emotions

The move is a great start, and I'm happy that we're moving in the right direction, but it's not enough and it's coming about too late in the day to do this in any half measures (excuse the pun). We need independently devised menu's that are flexible to the cultural needs of individual schools, we need the funding to let those menu's, independently assessed to be the best broad learning for a child, be taught properly, and we need to stop perpetuating myths about the cost of food because of a standard line on "means testing". More importantly, with a lack of teachers trained to deliver this course, we need this kind of thinking realised quicker.