Should children be learning knowledge or skills? People argue as if one is more important than the other. The content camp wants education to go “back to basics”. The skills camp fears returning to an olden-day style of rote learning.

The fear of rote learning may be aroused by bad memories. To picture learning the alphabet by rote, one might imagine a teacher, grey hair pulled back severely into a bun, whacking her pointer against a series of shapes chalked on the blackboard, a class of fear-filled children chorusing the sounds that correspond with each shape.

I learned the alphabet by rote, but contrary to the drill method it seems to conjure up, I learned it through a song. You may be familiar with it. It ends with “next time won’t you sing with me?” There are memories too of pictures paired with letters, like A for a juicy red apple.

For times tables, I have two distinctive memories. One was when the concept of multiplication clicked into place: the teacher drew two circles, each with three dots inside, to explain how 2 x 3 = 6. The other memory is of rote learning with a fun competition where we had to spit out answers as fast as we could.

These examples are used to illustrate three points.

One - rote learning need not be feared. Sometimes, it is the most appropriate way of learning need-to-know information. And teachers nowadays know that using games and songs is much more effective than dry drilling.

Two - rote learning allows the mastery of knowledge required for the next stages of learning. Take the example of an algebraic equation that, to solve, requires the answer to a multiplication problem. Having the rote-learned answer readily accessible (even faster than you can whip out a calculator) frees up cognitive resources to work on the more complex task of algebra.

Three - this doesn’t mean that rote learning precludes having a deeper conceptual understanding or the mastery of skills – both are necessary.

The “back to basics” term used by the content camp is not quite right because it assumes going back to outdated methods. But the skills camp will be happy to know that rote learning can equip children with the basic building blocks needed for the development of those skills. Children can’t read without first knowing their ABCs, or do maths without knowing their 1,2,3s.