Aibu to hate Michael Gove?

[merrycola]

AIBU to hate Michael Gove for single-handedly creating the “overdiagnosis” crisis he’s now nowhere near enough to answer for?
Because let’s connect the dots.
He made the curriculum harder, narrower, and more rigid. Ofsted built an inspection framework around it that treats children like data points. And now — years later — we’ve got CAMHS referrals through the roof, school avoidance at record levels, exclusion rates climbing, teachers quitting in droves, and a growing media narrative that too many children are being diagnosed and parents are being pushy.
But nobody seems to want to say the obvious thing: we didn’t suddenly produce a generation of broken children. We built a system that broke the environment around them and then pathologised the ones who couldn’t cope.
The strategies that actually help — clear instructions, sensory breaks, mutual respect, not shouting — aren’t special needs strategies. They’re just good teaching. But there’s no time for good teaching when you’re trying to force a curriculum designed by a man who apparently thinks childhood is an inefficiency to be optimised.

And here’s what really gets me. Every education secretary since could have undone it. But none of them have, because reversing course would mean admitting the whole framework was wrong and that it’s been harming children for over a decade. So instead we get headlines about overdiagnosis and parents wanting labels for benefits, while the man who lit the match is off doing whatever Michael Gove does now.

We didn’t get an overdiagnosis crisis. We got a system that can’t admit it failed, so it diagnosed the kids instead.

Oh at last someone on here says it, hallelujah! Look at all the posts on here about the misery it causes. Yet they have totally swallowed the symptoms not the cause, and that their child must be diagnosable rather than the system being wrong and excluding them.

You make some good points but I think you are over-simplifying a complex issue that's been building for 20 years. It can't be solely laid at the feet of MG, it's much more multi-layered than that. It's societal, it's environmental, it's political, it's about social contagion to a degree, it's about how children's lives have been impacted by the internet age to a very large degree, it's about how parenting has changed to a more 'gentle' child-led model, it's about the way our school places are allocated, it's about how the benefits system rewards and incentivises parents financially to seek diagnoses, it's about the hangover from COVID, it's about so many more things than just MG's education reforms.

Every education secretary since could have undone it. But none of them have, because reversing course would mean admitting the whole framework was wrong and that it’s been harming children for over a decade.

This makes no sense to me. If we still had the same government as when MG brought in his reforms then it would be easy to agree. But we don't. We have a Labour government and that would usually mean they'd be only too happy to reverse any course set by a Tory that they patently disagreed with and saw as responsible for failure. If they aren't making a song and dance about wanting to reverse these things then put very simply, they secretly agree with them and are happy to keep them.

That's because it hasn't got up to your level yet. It's working its way up the years.

The whole thing is a disaster. I taught for many years - schools are places of fear for so many children and adults now. There's no joy, no passion and no allowing for individuality.

I ended up teaching primary but when I taught secondary music many moons ago, my area was a haven for some of the children. The same for many other curriculum areas. Now everything is designed to tick boxes. There's no space in the overcrowded curriculum for I wonder... What would happen if... How many ways... Even PE is no fun any more. Children are grey and miserable. Teaching Ancient China or Benin to children who have no cultural context whatsoever is pointless and deadens a love of learning. I'm so pleased my children are long out of the school system.

So on this thread we have:
*people wanting bespoke pathways for all children, a move away from one sized fits all education system, but not happy with selection
*wanting a child-led curriculum whilst in the same breath bemoaning what a disaster the Curriculum for Excellence and Welsh education systems are
*high standards but not acknowledging that Gove reforms have lead to an increase in England's standings in PISA
*complaints about teacher workload whilst also complaining about academies that mandate lessons be delivered in a particular, pre-planned style
*people objecting to data informing parents and the community on whether teachers are actually being effective
*people decrying phonics despite it being far and away evidenced as the best method to teach the vast majority of children to read.

My parents were teacher/headteacher. I think every single education secretary is universally hated. I recall the consternation in the late 1980s when the National Curriculum was introduced under then-bogeyman Kenneth Baker and the massive curriculum files my mother used to bring home.

When ‘real reading’ became a thing (basically a form of reading unschooling), she just rebelled and carried on teaching phonics as she always had - and is amused that phonics is now back in fashion again.

SATS were another cause of great outcry but I don’t see anything inherently wrong with having a standardised national curriculum and a cohesive approach to measuring outcomes.

My father retired in the mid-90s at 50, at the same time I did my GCSEs - at a time when a whole cohort of heads jumped ship (think it was something to do with pension changes). My mother retired a few years later, but continued doing supply/maternity cover for a while. Neither of them could possibly hack teaching under today’s conditions - they found change difficult enough back then.

I recall my exchange trips to Germany and the matter of fact approach to the gymnasium/hauptschule/realschule system. Nobody seemed to give a toss about who went to which school and everyone socialised at the same pub. I think it would be great to have a system like that in this country, but there’s enough snobbery about grammar schooling and selectivity as it is - I don’t think our society would cope. It is such a shame as I think children could really do with more clearly defined and respected career paths to aim for and methods of teaching that are geared towards them.

My white child did extensive work on Benin in KS3 history, in a diverse secondary after coming from an all white primary. It was eye opening for her and really expanded her knowledge and cultural frame of reference. It literally gave her the cultural context.

I don't recognise this description of grey children at any of our local schools.

He fucked up everything he touched. This is also the wanker who buried Building Schools for the Future program and who continuously insulted and demonised architects - stupid little prick.

Re schools - I think current behaviour and attendance policy is also a massive fuck up and does not help anyone. I agree kids need to go to school but instead of investigating WHY they are not at school the family are just being fined/ kids excluded. Stupid. Also re: behaviour - how the fuck can you "fail" detention? I know of kids suspended because of "failing" several sanctions in a row (for something stupid like talking or not doing enough work) and ending up suspended when the original punishment was for something like being inattentive in class. In my days suspension was for something serious, like assault, drugs, etc. Not for messing around in maths.

You are absolutely spot on @merrycola. Michael Gove and his then advisors have an awful lot to answer for.

I left teaching in 2015 after 20 years. My own ds was one of the “guinea pig” cohort of year 2s going into year 3 when the new curriculum was implemented. It was shocking how developmentally inappropriate the curriculum had become. Then we get the damage Gove did to the GCSE English curriculum.

What’s even more shocking is that this current Labour govt don’t seem at all prepared to take this on.

Thousands and thousands of children are being failed because our curriculum in primary schools is formed on Gove’s whim rather than pedagogy and robust research. Making children learn concepts that they are not ready for developmentally does not maketh a more academic child. It makes a child switch off.

Phonics can work for many children. However, alternatively, many children, especially those who are dyslexic, would be better being taught whole word recognition but many schools primarily focus on phonics.

And the idea of ‘mixing it up’ in terms of multiple methods for maths is extremely confusing for students for whom maths does not come quickly. Being taught one method until they master it and then adding a different method would be less confusing. Gove’s advisors (curriculum specialists or not?) are also to blame in this sad affair with their assumptions that children can manipulate numbers like an adult does.

Stephen Hawkins’s math teacher had them bake cakes and took them outside to look at leaves and snail shells for weeks using these experiences to talk about how maths worked in nature and in practice before any classroom work at all. But he worked at an independent school and had freedom to vary the curriculum and teaching methods.

As a parent, I just saw relentless pressure and rapid pace going from one day to the next, leaving many children struggling to keep up. Homework became part of school, not in addition to. Driven by an egotistical Head.

Edited to add: our curriculum in primary schools is formed on Gove’s whim rather than pedagogy and robust research - wasn’t it Gove who had "enough of experts"? Did Gove not use any or did he cherry pick them to reflect his own elitist views.

No matter what you think of MGs policies, no one person created the SEND/overdiagnosis crisis. Do you think 2 year olds with iPads is irrelevant?

When I was young it was "do you think kids watching so much TV is irrelevant"???

Any education system that works "for society as a whole" is going to categorize children by achievement and potential. And society as a whole has to buy into it and do their part, not expect schools to fulfill the parents' role.

That's brilliant
Reminds of Tony Blair's "I don't predict things and I never will", or words to that effect

@DeafLeppard KS3 is an appropriate time. It's hard in KS2 in an area where many of the class haven't ever seen more than McDonalds at the local medium sized town. I'm all for expanding minds, just at the right time.

We really seem to have gone backwards, and no one wants to address that.

It’s coming your way, very soon. But perhaps by working in HE, you presumably don’t get the kids who leave school with no GCSEs. Nor the ones who are dropping the curriculum at 15 so that they can concentrate on just Maths and English.

My DS’s cohort were the Year 2s who had the experience of the big changes to the KS2 curriculum just as they were about to enter KS2. 7 year olds who were now expected to do the same work that 9 year olds had been doing previously.

His cohort were then the forgotten Year 7s in the first COVID lockdown. The ones who had just started finding their feet in secondary school for it to be whipped away. The year group that were in no way a priority during the COVID years.

They are now Year 13. It will be interesting to see what you think @RosesAndHelleboresover the next few years.

Why has AI to write your post?

True. But that genie is out of the bag. It would be good if education could be evolved to work with this, but policy makers seem intent on making the same outdated decisions that are serving very few.

I remember that quote and saying he clearly wasn’t “above average” at maths himself 😉

Yes curriculum is too
narrow. It also punishes people who cannot pass faces maths and English by forcing consistent retakes which also adds to poor MH. I don’t disagree a basic level of English and maths is desirable but there are other routes and other ways that aren’t gcse.

I agree that the German system is so much better. But I’m unsure if parents in the UK would want the same thing. People in the UK hate the idea of any sort of academic selection (unless their child is top set). I think it’s the primary school teachers in Germany who suggest a pathway rather than students sitting an exam. Gesamtschule mean they can move around but mixed ability seems popular in the UK. Personally a good decent vocational system would be a big improvement & some students would thrive that are currently sat rigidly in classrooms & being told off every day & sent to reset room for more sitting quietly. They would learn so much more if they could access subjects they enjoy.

Hmm, not sure. There are so many reasons people dislike MG that there's perhaps a tendency to blame him for things that aren't his fault whilst overlooking his successes.
I'm not an Education professional so bow to the expertise of those who are. But MG was EdSec 15 years ago and during those 15 intervening years so many other factors have been at play, many of which have been harmful to children and childhood.
Gove's drive to improve standards was egalitarian at heart. There are young people in really hard-pressed urban areas receiving an education that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago- the 62 Oxbridge places won at London Academy of Excellence for example. Breaking the grip of Local Authorities over schools, introduction of Free Schools etc created opportunities to do Education differently, and clearly some good has come from that. And wasn't it Gove who created Teach First? Getting brilliant new graduates to consider teaching and putting them in the most challenged inner city schools was impactful, wasn't it?

As an adopted child himself, he did great work improving the adoption system so more children would benefit from loving and supportive adoptive families, as he had.

MG had a keen sense that he had benefitted from certain opportunities that some of his more traditionally-privileged Cabinet colleagues took for granted. He wanted to make these available to all children, and central to this was the idea that the better outcomes achieved by independent and grammar schools are created by rigour. He saw the mainstream state provision as lacking rigour and essentially being lazy and complacent, so that educational attainment was determined by chance rather than policy. Mathematics is probably the prime example of this, but another would be his enthusiasm for Latin as an academic subject.

I don't have experience of SEND and can't claim any expertise on this. But I do think there's a general trend towards diagnosis for any problems in life, and I don't think Gove can be responsible for that. Social media and digital tech has shortened attention spans and I can see that this could be an uncomfortable fit with Goveian rigour.

I've always been conflicted about Michael Gove. I worked for him in a different Govt department and found him receptive to advice and respectful of expertise. He was immensely courteous (which made a nice change). He exhibited levels of liberalism in penal policy that only a Tory right-winger could get away with and stands out in my mind as one of the most humane Justice Secretaries I've known. He also had some attitudes that were alarming and within the course of a single day I could think both 'I would walk over hot coals for you' and 'I hope the PM sacks you today'. He had a hatred of Theresa May when she was Home Sec, that played out in the politics of the two Departments, which was both childish and destructive. What I really can't forgive him for is providing the political and intellectual veneer of respectability for the Brexit campaign, without which I don't believe Leave would have won the Referendum.

Michael Gove was a conviction politician of the Right with a genuine drive to change public services for what he believed would be better. We currently have a conviction politician of the Left with what I have to assume is a genuine drive to change public services for what she believes will be better. Unfortunately politics are a pendulum whereas professonal policy development generally inhabits centre ground. I've yet to see a determined reform programme in any Government department that is welcomed and supported by its practitioners. Dept of Health over decades illustrates this. Actually, in Justice, Gove came closer than most.

He has acquired a sort of pantomime villain persona in the public consciousness that underplays what a consequential figure he has been. If the Brexit Referendum hadn't come along, with all that followed, we might have seen Gove become a great Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary and today he'd be Chancellor of Oxford University instead of William Hague.

There's no small irony in including phrases like "And here’s what really gets me" in a post entirely generated by ChatGPT.

I understand people find it useful for feedback/refining, but please don't just generate the whole thing with ChatGPT and pass it off as your own thoughts. It's weird.

Well neither are/were irrelevant. But old school TV was only broadcast in real time,not all content was available 24 hours a day and we only had a handful of channels. Things obviously changed a bit with videos and DVDs and SKY channels, but even then it was pretty anodyne and harmless compared to now.

By comparison, in terms of the enormous potential for damage to young children's brain development, sensory overload, anxiety, ability to concentrate, communicate, socialise and behave normally and the lieklihood of addiction developing, the ipad is to TV what an unlimited supply of heroin and crack is, to a sneaky cigarette behind the bike sheds twice a week.

Gove isn't responsible for the fact that a large chunk of secondary schools students have tiny attention spans and can't concentrate on reading a book for more than two minutes.