School in the Past and in the Future

In Britain in the early and mid-nineteenth century, children didn't have to go to school at all. There were schools, of course, but you had to pay to go to them, and often parents couldn't afford the fees. Many people also believed that girls didn't need to go to school, as their future was to get married and have children. Although from 1870 the law said that all children aged 5 to 10 had to go to school, many poor families weren't able to pay. The children of these families needed to have a job in order to pay the fees, and school timetables were organised to make this possible. It wasn't until 1918 that children had to be at least 12 years old to work for a living.
Schools 100 years ago were certainly very different from those today. But what about the future? A national newspaper recently organised a competition for schools called The school I'd like. 'I'm concerned that the pressures of the national curriculum will mean that there won't be time for a project like this,' a reporter said. She needn't have worried, as there were over 15,000 entries full of ideas!
And what great ideas: a school in a giant submarine with waterproof maps of the underwater world, private helicopters to fly students to France for French lessons, and rockets to take children to distant planets to study the solar system. There are also some down-to-earth suggestions: clean toilets with locks that work so that students won't have to wait until they get home, no uniforms so that students will be able to choose what to wear, chill-out rooms to relax in, and enough computers so that students won't need to queue for them. Safety and comfort are clearly important: one student suggests an anti-bullying alarm, and another writes 'We don't want interactive whiteboards, we want comfortable chairs!'

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