Ireland's big school secret: how a year off-curriculum changes teenage lives

Sounds like a great idea.

In England, I've seen education get consistently more rigid and inflexible over the years. All about tests, tests and more tests. Teachers leave the profession, children turn off. And as it consistently fails to produce better results, the answer is always to do more of what has failed.

Bring something like this to England, please!

> tests, tests and more tests

Same in the USA. The old student question "will this be on the test?" is now also asked by teachers and administrators. If the answer is "no" they skip it.

That's not unreasonable if you have good tests that hit the right elements. My experience about 10 years ago with the AP exams were very positive. The tests were good, and even though the classes were taught to the test, they were some of the best classes I ever took.