The school curriculum is so centred around children passing exams, it’s lost touch with what school should be about: another step in helping children be prepared for the ‘real’ world, or the world of work that is almost inevitable in our society. The curriculum needs to be a well-rounded set of skills that are taught to children in order for them to be able to live independently after moving on in their education, rather than just knowing how to answer 4 essays in 2 hours. There is an argument that school prepares you for exams and your parents prepare you for later life, but this is classist in assuming that children’s parents have both those skills to begin with, and the time to properly teach their children these skills. State schools should provide lessons in more useful life skills, as well as having less exam focussed work, and more subjects that are compulsory for students to learn about society and politics. It’s clear that schools should teach English and Maths, and ...
The UK electoral system is named first past the post, where in the election the person with the highest number of votes wins the seat, no matter the percentage of votes they got, or how close the other candidates were to the winning candidate in number of votes. Then, the party with the most seats forms the government. A key issue with first past the post as a voting system is that it tends to favour a two-party system, where two parties are fairly equally matched in terms of competing in the election, and there is a rotation of the two of them forming the government. This is clear in that since 1922 only the Conservative and Labour party have formed the government in the UK. This could be argued as being a coincidence, or because they are simply the most popular parties, however, first past the post favours the larger parties meaning they are the main parties who have representation. This creates a less legitimate government, as those who vote for a minor party are le...