"Test teaching ideas before imposing them on children"

That is the heading today's Times

"A senior scientist has said education should learn from medicine and use rigorous experiments to determine the best teaching techniques."

For instance, class size. "Little good research exists on the optimum size of the groups in which pupils are taught."

Seems Hirst would be well pleased ...

And, in the same issue is the proposal to change the time-table for 11 to 14 year old school children, mixing subjects and introducing frequent 10 minute slots e.g. for language teaching. That must be based on hugely important and rigorously tested research - but I seem to have missed the memo.