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Rose Report

No, they should not be moved. It is hard to deny young people the delights of seeing how previous civilisations operated. I do not say that we should be going into Mayan temples and all that stuff, but the children at George White junior school in Norfolk go out to see the broads and learn what they are and how they were formed. That can be explained to them. It is difficult to talk to children—or, indeed, adults—in deep technological terms about such things, but they should know about the countryside that they inhabit. They should know about the history of their street and about the wall around the city, and the city gates. Many young people are now doing those things. I have seen projects recently in which young people have studied a part of the city of Norwich by going to look at it and then going back centuries to how it used to be. There is great interest in such subjects, and some teaching on them is absolutely necessary. I do not say that there should be a 20-lecture course on them, but a few hours can be spent discussing them and looking at pictures. There have been many great, technological advances, which can be used to show on screen the different things that happened years ago in the parts of the world where young people live. Foreign languages are another area of discussion, but I do not want to say too much about that area because we talk about it often. It is important to learn foreign languages. Not enough people can speak another language, and that is not only hypocritical and arrogant, but also a shambles. I confess that although I passed higher Latin I failed lower French. I think it was the first time that French had ever been taken in Scottish highers. I knew things like ““Toto ouvre la porte”” from the books, but we learned by rote. We were told, ““Here's the book—read that,”” and then we got some questions on them. Being Scottish, I found it difficult to speak French sometimes, but I was red hot at Latin, not that it has done me much good except to get me into university. My experience reflects that of many people nowadays. They do not see the value of languages, and they still want to speak English everywhere they go. We have to get away from that situation. We have all said that many times, and it is beginning to happen in schools—I acknowledge that there has been a move in that direction—but there has to be a push. The Rose report gives us an opportunity to do more. On play-related teaching, there are now computer suites in schools for young people to play on. That will be a real advantage, because that is their world, with the internet and so on. Technological advances should be utilised at primary school, and not left until secondary school, as they once were.