Former Ofsted chief Sir Jim Rose will present recommendations for revamping the primary curriculum to ministers next month.
His interim report in December said that primary age children need a greater understanding of information technology and it was reported on Wednesday that Sir Jim's proposals will say children should be familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter by the time they go to secondary school.
The Guardian reported that, under the proposals, schools will no longer be required to teach Victorian history or the Second World War but can still opt to include them.
Children will be expected to be able to place historical events which they have studied in date order under the new proposals.
Schools Minister Jim Knight said: "Sir Jim Rose's report has not been completed let alone published yet - but we are already getting stories about dropping this or removing that from the curriculum.
"The bottom line is that we are working with experts to free up the curriculum in a way that teachers have asked us to do but British history has, and always will be, a core part of education in this country.
"Of course pupils in primary school will learn about major periods including the Romans, the Tudors and the Victorians and will be taught to understand a broad chronology of major events in this country and the wider world."
Ministers will formally respond to Sir Jim's proposals when they are published next month.
Sir Jim has said his aim is to create "a primary curriculum which is challenging and constantly enriches children's understanding, where they can apply knowledge and skills learnt in one subject to better understand another". Tweet
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Why not just teach them maths/english and a few other useful bits of information so that when they eventually leave school they can at least read and write and spell.Twitter is just another fashion by the time these kids go to another school there will be another techy fashion.
Even less for the already stressed and overworked teachers (even now little more than self-congratulatory child minders) to research and deliver.
What the heck is wrong with the people in charge of teaching these days? Is this some sort of revolution like the Russians had? Instead of killing intellectuals they will simply make the next generation terminally thick?
They go on about this stuff as if it is a form of IT skill - it isn't; it's useless. People need to be able to program computers, design and manipulate databases and solve problems - I see almost no graduate talent who can do these things. Being able to use the internet, a word processor package, Twitter, Wikipedia or Windows is NOT an IT skill in the same way that being able to drive a car does not make you a mechanic!
"schools will no longer be required to teach Victorian history or the Second World War " so we will have a whole generation of kids brought up on violent computer games etc who will have no conception of the tragedy of war but will be able to tweet away to their hearts' content - something that should be taught in technology or science surely? It's all very well to be able to reel off dates, but what about the truth behind them - the Holocaust, the absolute devastation? Surely this report is wrong, I hope.
This is yet another way of not educating our children how the great thinkers or inventors built the modern world as we know it.And how the working man in britain was enslaved down the mines and in the mills of britain,And how the people of britain lived in dire poverty.Or is it another way of getting rid of the past and how the rich lived off the hard work of the workers.
Pippa: "so we will have a whole generation of kids brought up on violent computer games etc who will have no conception of the tragedy of war but will be able to tweet away to their hearts' content - something that should be taught in technology or science surely?"
There's nothing wrong with violent computer games - I've played them for years and I'm a highly educated company director and I've not killed anyone yet (although reports like this one are making the idea tempting...).
And these things most certainly should NOT be taught in technology or science - they are neither. Wikipedia is a resource for (not always accurate) reference. Nothing more. How about teaching proper skills (not NVQs and the like which are far too low level) to enable people to get real jobs instead of them disappearing to India and China? People are sleepwalking into a future where we will all be low-level unskilled nobodies in this country.
Is there no end to this madness?
give it 10 years and schools will be nothing more than glorified youth clubs.
how does texting your every move to a bunch of saddo's following your every move help you when its time to head out and make your mark in the big wide world?
the future captains of industry won't be capable of captaining anything. but they will be able to inform you what time they will arrive at the dole queue. BY TWITTERING!
Pippa, Manchester, I agree with most of your comment, but its impossible to imagine how we are going to be allowed to forget the Holocaust,
Lizard, I sincerely hope you are right, but I wouldn't bet any of my money on it being common knowledge in 50 years time.
Orb Rochdale, I would guess that your success has been due to a good, rouned education, a very far cry to what is on offer in our schools today. And I quite agree that our standards have fallen dramatically and that our children are leaving school with very little in the way of skills that will help them in their future. As for which lesson they could be taught in, perhaps that should be up to the teachers who use these internet tools for their lessons to impart the knowledge, including your very valid point re Wikipedia which I suspect few are aware of.