Not everyone was as enthusiastic about today's revised curriculum for England's 11 to 14-year olds as the Leeds history teacher who told me: "I'm thrilled to bits....I'm looking forward to doing new things."
But there has been positive reaction from many teachers to the idea of being allowed more say over what they cover in the classroom.
Headteachers, as you might expect, welcomed more control over what happens on their premises. "A move in the right direction," said John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
The National Science Learning Centre, which provides professional development for teachers, is also positive in a report called Now
Science Works: A new approach to Key Stage 3 Science.
In a country where the scare about an alleged link between the MMR vaccine
and autism led to an increase from 119 cases of mumps per
year in 1998 to 43,000 in 2005, the centre argues that all pupils need to be able to understand science.
The Drugs Education Forum sees a chance to push the issues (rather than banned substances).
But you can't please everyone. The dropping of Sir Winston Churchill from the list of prescribed historical figures was attacked by his grandson Tory MP Nicholas Soames as "madness". He harrumphed: "I expect he wasn't New Labour enough for them."
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) said dropping Britain's wartime prime minister - along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King - from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum did not mean that teachers would stop covering him.
"Of course, good teachers will be teaching the history of Churchill as part of the history of Britain. The two are indivisible," said a spokesman.
