to think Gove's ideas on education are hilarious?

[NonnoMum]

So, putting all the kids in blazers and ties is a brilliant idea (why stop there, Mike, how about boaters too?) And training up ex-squaddies to be teachers - that'll instill discipline, won't it now? Who wants James Blunt as their RS teacher (just remember kids, "you're bootiful")
What a load of tosh...
Who voted for these muppets?

Oh, yeah, and they're scrapping school sports too - woopie!

I was taught maths by ex-army officer. He taught us thousands of abortions come after having sex on holiday. He threw board rubbers at the boys, courteously polite to girls and say things like, "If you had a brain cell you'd be dangerous"

However, in response to Gove, nearly all schools have school uniform, some v prescriptive. Most of dh's contemporaries in his subject (maths & physics) who have good class degrees earn mega bucks or are holed up in science labs ...how are the govt going to persuade them to take up a 21k - 34k post?

I can see both sides of the exams/modules debate. Hubby is frighteningly intelligent - can perform mathematical calculations in his head to the point of ridiculousness (a few times he's glanced at DfES or whatever they're called htis week publications I've been looking at and spotted mathematical errors in them)... but he's utterly utterly utterly shit at exams, he just can't cope with the environment of them and goes to pieces. Modules are much better for someone like him.

In contrast - at school I was a bone idle little bugger, but I've got a photographic memory and I'm fucking good at tests - annoyingly so. I walked my exams doing naff all work for them at all - I've got a better grade in Maths GCSE than hubby - but he's by far the more mathematically capable of us.

Some of what Gove says I do have sympathy with. Our uni-based teacher training was mostly appalling (the Maths department were excellent, English were ok) and 90% of what I learnt about actually teaching was learnt on placements and from working in a school previously. Moving that out into schools - as long as it's not being used to provide staffing on the cheap (which the cynic in me suspects it will be) and as long as it's actually adequately monitored - I've got no problems with at all. Likewise - I'd like to see the bar raised for entrance into teacher training - I might be being elitist - but I do think you should need a decent degree to be doing it (quite happy to admit here my degree was a 2:1 - missed a first by one mark hah! just in case people think I'm hiding behind already being in the system on that one).

Sometimes though the guy talks a load of twaddle and smacks of one of those kids who doesn't engage their brain before engaging their mouths and verbalises every single fleeting thought.

I did love the photos of him in schools accompanying all of this stuff though - he's got the usual rabbit trapped in headlights look of thinly veiled terror that most politicians acquire (and try desperately to hide) when visiting schools with children in!

Think he has to accept that at least some parts of being a good teacher are either a "you have it or you don't" type situation though. While I was training, we had a large number of the fast-trackers on our course - previous Govt scheme to pull the leading lights into teaching, get them into school maangement within a few years and... well... you know the drill. Funnily - they, by and large, were the ones who couldn't hack the teaching practices - could plan and spout buzzwords till the cows came home, but couldn't cope with the day-to-day realities of the job and dropped off the course. I think lots of this will go a similar way, or the second the economy picks up, lots of those who jumped onto teaching as a safe option through the recession (hah hah hah) will bail straight out again.

this blazer and tie thing making you learn better and changing schools to better learning establishments - why why doesn't this apply in the rest of eurpoe? European schools don't even have school uniform but this doesn't seem to impead their learning and they get far better resluts in german and Scandinavian schools than we do in England

Maybe it's because I never had to wear a uniform at school but went to a top performing academic school elsewhere in Europe - that I think quality should not relate to being smart or not.

But I think British people are obsessed with uniforms!! :o

I learnt how to make all sorts of creative patterns picking the stripes of different colours out of my ties at school!

I thought there wasn't any money left. I've been teaching maths for 6 years and in that time I've taught linear maths with coursework, linear maths without coursework, modular maths and now modular maths with functional maths as the standard GCSE course. 3 different brand new sets of textbooks. Like the English teacher we only started teaching a new GCSE spec in September and now that'll be out of the window too. The amount of time, money and effort that is expended each time the government decides that they want to tinker with the maths GCSE (every other year at least) is ridiculous.

I do wonder whether these changes will actually be implemented, however, as they will lead inevitably to a drop in results. How would the government be able to claim that they are raising standards if the results are actually going down? There was supposed to be a separate functional maths exam that students were supposed to sit and they would only get a C in maths if they passed it. They ran pilots and my class actually sat the exam the year before it was supposed to be made compulsory. Then....it was dropped. I expect that too many kids were failing it and they realised that this would severely affect the numbers getting a C at GCSE so it got binned.

I just can't see the government actually introducing something which will lower results without fudging it somehow.

Gove's a moron

Kangaroo I left behind a six figure salary to take up a teaching post and it was the best decision I have ever made.

I do think teaching needs to have a better image and sometimes teachers don't help themselves. I cannot think of a more enjoyable and rewarding job.

I agree to a point that for teachers you either have it or you don't. But it is also about finding the right school as they vary so much.

so, about this new 'apptitude test' for teachers.

What qualities does Gove think a good teacher should have I wonder [and this is before they have stepped foot into a classroom]?

Clearly it is not on educational attainment as he says anyone can teach in a free school, but on the other hand he says you need at least a 2:2. then he says you can be ex army personnel with a degree, but, oh, hang on, you can be ex army personnel without a degree at all aswell. I guess it's a bit like his view on Academies, on the one hand you can only apply if you are outstanding, but, oh, hang on, if you are in special measures you will be forced into becomming one also.

Am I missing something here? Or does he mean, eventually all schools will be academies [apart from Grammar schools and Private schools and Free schools] and so he is just re-naming secondary schools, taking away local control and parent govenors and replacing them with people from the business world. none of Goves ideas add up despite there being an emphasis on more traditional subjects such as mathematics .

Baronness Billingham on Sky News last night expressed it a lot better than I could...

Her!! Was that the Labour idiot who looked like Jabba the Hut and had one brain cell?

lego in answer to your question about Gove's motives - yes, he does what all schools free or academies.

To be more accurate, he wants schools out of LA control, because so many of them are Labour.

God. I'm tired "he does want" not "he does what".

I've been writing reports all day, so longer sensible.

Stewie, I disagree. Uniform sets the bar for a decent dress code in school. It takes the thinking out of what constitutes smartwear. There can be little room for confusion within the confines of school regulation clothing. The kids know what is and isn't acceptable. They don't have to work out whether this top is smart enough or these trousers are formal enough. They stick to the uniform code and generally they'll look smart.I know there are issues with skirt length, how to wear your tie etc, but generally the school will mop up these issues within tutor groups and where skirts are too revealing or ties too sloppy, the child(ren) in question will be informed and expected to remedy it.
Most jobs require a degree of smart dress. If a 16, 18, 21 year old has never been shown an example of smart dress, then how are they to uunderstand what constitutes smart dress? I think uniform models smart dress codes to youngsters.It stops them competing against each other in terms of trendiness also.

I have never looked as rubbish as when I had to wear school uniform. I wouldn't dream of wearing such badly fitting and poorly made clothes to work. Or anywhere else for that matter. I would not describe my school uniform as smart at all (and it was a private school).

When we lived in New York City (no uniforms at state schools) and where I work now in Canada no one seems to find it difficult to understand what constitutes work appropriate wear. I would worry about a young adult who was totally incapable of looking at their colleagues at a new workplace and figuring out what to wear (apart from the fact that most work places have dress codes).

It's not usually hard to tell the difference between poor kids and wealthy kids, uniform or not.

What nooka said.

I think he's a nob and , on the whole, hasn't got a clue. But, I do think that the fact the pupils are not marked down for spelling and grammatical errors in exams and course work is wrong.

"why do we want to attract applicants from the armed forces in particular? "

Well, why not? These are public servants who have been trained to a high standard by the state, and are let go, often in their 40s/50s, and often struggle to get another job, despite being qualified and excellent at interpersonal skills, because of precisely the sort of bone-headed stereotyping that has permeated this debate.

As the daughter of a retired naval officer who struggled to find work (did in the end!) after retiring at 50ish, I find this "squaddies" mentality really, really irritating. Like Scaryteacher's DH, my dad is educated to Masters level.

This programme has worked in the States. It doesn't necessarily mean that What Our Schools Need Are Troops - it just means that ex service personnel have got a lot to offer schools and it's been shown to work well. And as a bonus, highly qualified people aren't thrown onto the scrapheap.