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'Schools, please don't ditch rote-learning just because Pisa's boss tells you to'

Pisa says rote-learning is holding back our schools – but memorisation and drilling are key building blocks of learning, writes one educationalist

The OECD, I fear, is not feeling well. I say this because it appears to be asking us to believe several impossible things, and not just before breakfast.

Speaking last week in New York, Andreas Schleicher, the head of education at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Britain "tops the international league table when it comes to the amount of low-value rote-learning in its schools". He also said the UK had 'a lot to learn' from countries like China, which had embraced a skills-based approach to education.

This is both odd, and unsubstantiated. Worst of all, it indicates that the OECD, through its pronouncements, is rapidly becoming a threat to the global educational arena, undermining the ability of countries to develop systems that improve educational outcomes and promote equity.

Tom Bennett was a teacher in the East End of London for 10 years. He is now the government’s behaviour tsar, and the director and founder of ResearchED, a grassroots, teacher-led project that aims to make teachers research-literate