It looks like a battle between Twitter and history. Leaked government plans for the primary school curriculum require children to be familiar with blogging and Wikipedia, while consigning the Victorians and second world war to optional status within “human, social and environmental understanding”. The reality is more complex, but still shows a dismaying preference for the trendy over the traditional.

The draft report envisages six learning areas, within which teachers would have much more freedom to decide where the focus of classes should be. These broader categories replace dozens of detailed directions about what pupils should know by the age of 11. Some familiar aspects of learning remain, but the new emphasis on technology goes well beyond what is needed for children to enter secondary school equipped with computer and web-based skills.