To think that Gove is correct?

[Trapper]

Despite the consistently good GCSE and A level grades, we have been ranked 22nd out of 24 OECD countries for literacy and numeracy. AIBU to think Gove is correct to be challenging the status quo and shaking up education?

OP, have you noticed that most of these countries with better attainment levels at school leaving age are doing the opposite of what Gove suggests - later school starting age, emphasis on learning through play, more flexibility and choice?

Pansonfire my understanding regarding the speaking and listening element of the English GCSE is that it will be marked and recorded but it will not count towards the final grade - it will be listed separately. So crap, but not quite as crap as scrapping it completely.

Married, I agree that spelling and grammatical errors are inexcusable from people who should know better. Which is why the mistakes in your first post really stuck in my craw

'I agree that spelling and grammatical errors are inexcusable from people who should know better,'

That is another difference between then and now that I notice. You were either literate or not.
You didn't write with accuracy and grammatical awareness in a letter, and then write with poor spelling and no punctuation in your personal diary.
The notes my mother left out for the milkman were as beautifully written as her writing at work. I'm much the same, when I post, I check my spelling, punctuation and grammar before I post.
If you become indifferent to it, it's much harder to produce the necessary quality when required to, hence the number of complaints about younger people who can write extended texts but not form a correct paragraph.
You need to care enough to proof-read and edit your own words. Many don't.

I do make mistakes that I don't spot on occasion, but I do make the effort.

Madamecastafiore
"So what would teachers do to improve where they are obviously failing our children?"

In what areas are teachers failing children? (cite evidence plz)

Boney you are so right. Of course there are some poor teachers around - but teachers only have children for 5-6 hours a day. Should we not be asking why so many parents are failing their children, by not insisting they study and do homework, by not engaging with the school, by not reading to and with their children, by not having a family life?

And no, I am not blaming parents - many have very difficult lives, not just obviously dysfunctional ones involving substance abuse and the like but also caring responsibilities, juggling multiple low-paid jobs involving shifts. Back in Michael Gove's golden age of education it was realistic to expect there to be a parent (usually a mother) at home to run the household, employment was better, life was not a constant stream of media overload. And even then there was an underclass who lived in poverty and were widely ignored.

The failures of many parents are also very much the failings of an increasingly unequal society. It isn't as simple as 'teachers are so bad these days', or 'children are less bright these days' - we are living in the middle of a perfect storm. Very little of what Michael Gove is doing is going to get us out of it.

SilverApples I'm so glad that I'm not the only one who proofreads forum posts. I proofread text messages too.

Because if you do all that you're hot housing and that parent.

There is a culture in eduction,parenting and society as a whole of not pushing kids,not expecting more,not questioning and that kids need to be kids without education impinging on their freedom.

You see it every day on here.

Re spelling etc on here.Expecting everybody to proof read in their spare time will alienate a lot of posters.

I don't text speak but I post freely and litter mistakes with gay abandon.

Any writing that leaves my house/computer in RL is impeccable.

So how do we get the politics out of education?

Retro I never said that I wasn't odd and a little obsessive about proofreading - I am. Part of it is that English is not my native language so I have a feeling I'm 'borrowing' it and have to take care of it more than people it 'belongs' to. Not rational, I know. There's also the fact that 1) My mum used to teach English (as a foreign language in Holland) and that I do a lot of proofreading for a living. I would never, never dream of commenting on a poster's spelling and grammar because that's cheap point scoring.

chicaguapa a good start would be a ten-year moratorium on change to the education system. Let what has been implemented bed in and evaluate it, that will provide evidence. Then make sensible, well-tested changes based on that evidence, not on political whim and voter seduction.

BTW if making my children do their homework and revise for tests then I'm proud to be that parent and will happily start growing peaches in my hothouse.

No.

The report is about differentials between nations. All it tells us is that a lot of countries that had shite education systems have improved.

Seriously folks, I remember the "good old days" when the majority of girls in my school left with very few qualifications, and many left with none, or one CSE or 'O' level.

Sometimes I think U must live in an alternate universe because I seem to be the only person on mn who remembers this.

The "good old days" were crap. I really am in an mn minority because I think the education system has improved massively. No way would the numbers I saw fail as I went through the system be allowed to fail today. Teachers are under enormous pressure - and they put themselves under enormous pressure - to ensure most children come out with a good level of education. This was not the case in the "good old days".

Sorry, I know I hopped in there, in the middle of a conversation ... but this is the third thread I've seen on this report, and I'm a bit crotchety ...

Silver Apples is your name anything to do with Yeats?

"Gove's tactics are a disaster. My oldest son is in year 11. This week everyone in his year sat an English mock - from talking to teachers there my understanding is that those who did well will be allowed to sit their paper in November and benefit from the speaking and listening assessment being included. Those who did less well loose the speaking and listening completely. Of course the school will be careful who they enter early as only the first attempt will now count on their statistics! This is so unfair and would explain why Gove's name is mud in most schools surely."

But the school is gaming the system, and destroying the chance that the not as able students have of passing. That's the schools fault fundamentally. They shouldn't be allowed to game the system with selective entries or multiple resist.

The implementation appears to have been bad, but I agree with the principle of trying to stop schools manipulating the figures.

Why is there anything wrong with multiple resits? Surely it makes sense that children can have an off day and so should have a couple of chances to show what they can do? I can think of very few examples in adult life where, for something genuinely important, you only get one chance to get it right. Thinking about it - it would be daft to live lives like that.

The mania for the supposed "authenticity" of a "one chance only" exam is, frankly, bewildering. And completely artificial, as far as I can see.

"Q98 Chair: One is: if "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible?

Michael Gove: By getting better all the time.

Q99 Chair: So it is possible, is it?

Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time.

Q100 Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State?

Michael Gove: I cannot remember."

From:
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/uc1786-i/uc178601.htm

pointy I mean, how do we actually get it done? Petition, unions, media, how? Because I absolutely agree that education is not ideological and shouldn't be politically motivated. It has to be made to happen, so I was wondering how we do it. How do we get the political parties to agree to this?

It's a tricky question, chicaguapa - petitions would be a start, but what we really need is a change in our electoral system. Until we move away from what is basically a two-party system where no other parties ever get a look in because of first past the post, we stand no chance. We need a situation where politicians don't have an incentive to undo their predecessors' work just for the hell of it.

RustyBear

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this. And people actually believe this man is a good SOS for Education?

I was going to post what RustyBear has posted.

I would like to teach children what they need to know. I can't, because I have to teach them to the syllabus, which in some cases has fuck all relevance. Gove's new plans bear even less resemblance to anything fucking useful.

I could cheerfully punch him. As could most of my Y10s and Y11s

I hate Gove. He's done nothing but rant, blames and hates the very people he is supposed to be working WITH! He has absolutely no experience in education except receiving one during his childhood and he is destroying everything about it.

Thousands of teachers are voters and the Conservatives will have lost thousands of them - me being one.

I voted Conservatives in the last election - mainly because I had had enough of the benefit culture Labour was breading but I will admit, my life was certainly BETTER under Labour. Gove has made my worklife worse which has had a negative effect on my family life. I have very little time for my husband and little boy and if he gets his way, even LESS time!

He distrusts teachers, belittles them, blames them for everything that is wrong with education (despite teachers having no control over education and having goalposts and initiatives changed or moved EVERY year by government policies and OFSTED) and wants to make our working conditions WORSE! Since graduating in 2000, I think I have kept track, but OFSTED have changed their goalposts FOUR TIMES! How the hell can teachers and school keep up with the ever changing policies? If they can't get it right, how the hell can we????????????

Never have I hated a government minister so much.

Yep Rusty spot on. I don't think many people actually realise this.

If things continue as they are, there will be a huge shortage of experienced teachers (who will leave), and anyone with any chance of earning a decent salary elsewhere, will not go into the job. In the future, that will lead to a lack of decent headteachers/SLT also. Many, many teachers who are young enough to do something else, or already have other skills, are already leaving. Not because they're bad teachers, either. Our education system is going to get worse, not better.

And don't even get me started on how bad Gove's maths is regarding the 'all schools must be better than average' thing. Most PRIMARY school pupils (Y5/6) could tell him that's not mathematically possible!