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.

Medically retired Assistant Head here.....you've reminded me of the secret santa year when 4 of us got that book- absolutely brilliant 😂

Pushing only phonics and soley using the phonics test as a yardstick is terrible.
We even had a poster on here whose child could read (when she dropped phonics ) wondering whether her child still needed phonics !phonics is an over complication. and barrier to many child learning to read !

The maths curriculum needs a massive over haul as well.

I’m someone who should hate Michaela style schools, but I don’t. If they work then there’s a place for them.

My objection is that whilst that style of education obviously works for some it doesn’t work for all, and actively damages many children.

We’ve lost sight of the fact that children are all different and do not all flourish in one type of environment. Once out of school children have more options that suit their needs, but sadly so many are hurt by the system that they come out of education and have to have prolonged periods of recovery.

I'm sure change will come...eventually. Change always does come. The question is, will anybody change it for the better?
I've heard murmurings about tailored learning, where each pupil works at their own speed and achieves each stage marker when they are ready. Is this possible with current staffing levels? Would you need more teachers per 30 children to keep everyone on track? It would certainly be revolutionary.

@Sooose there isn't any point doing that without using different teaching techniques !
And would be impossible for one teacher per 30.

As we have an elite university system, the current education system feeds that very well for the higher achievers (up to the top 45 per cent), leaving aside the controversial uni debt issue.
It‘s forging pathway for the other 55 per cent which is urgent. If AI requires more practical skills, then the education system needs to start offering more of that from the start too.

The trouble is nobody wants to be labelling kids early into pathways so how to get around that. I think if everyone were able to chose a suitable pathway by year 9 that would help. Including the option to only take compulsory maths and literacy GCSEs but all sorts of other stuff too and not all „examined“ at the end. But schools can only offer this in one setting if there is funding to cover all „streams“/pathways.
In primary, a lot more focus on social emotional sport creative but accelerated academics for those who can during set lessons in small groups, as well as small group for SEND. But this would all cost a lot and they aren’t going to fund it so Gove decided to make his principle aim to feed the elite uni system and the likely tax take from those graduates, who are then funding most of the system.

I would agree with this, memorisation is often just luck rather than skill.

Some schools around the world are doing this, but it’s relying on AI. In person teachers are becoming facilitators, AI tailors itself to the individual. Unfortunately trials look promising and I suspect that teaching will probably largely be taken over by AI in the coming years, which is very worrying.

My education in the 80s and 90s was dire. Embarrassingly bad. Apparently reforms were made around this time to dumb everything down and GCSEs over O-levels dumbed it down further. If Gove is responsible for the frankly brilliant education both my kids get now, then I’m grateful. I bet it’s harder for the teachers to deliver - I can see that, but my kids are thriving.

I think the german system and ethos is superior in this regard, I think though in the UK theres a lot of snobbery around being a non degree holder which is entirely unwarranted.

But we aren’t prepared to fund bespoke education and the education community is actively opposed to anything other than comprehensive education. We used to have a system that hat grammars and secondary moderns but society decided that was detrimental, so we got rid of it. Ignoring the fact that Northern Ireland, which still has post primary selection, has consistently strong education results.

‘Fronted adverbials’ did it for me.

Time to go back to basics - including teaching children the difference between your and you’re, it’s and its, there/their/theyre - and FFS where to put an apostrophe - and where NOT to put one!

And yet the German system “writes off” kids far earlier on through selection to Gymnasium. If we did that here there would be a riot.

Why do people post this AI-generated nonsense on threads? What does this achieve?

@Mengo done properly it sounds promising.

That would be fine if it didn’t result in a dumbing down for all, but here in Scotland it’s the brightest that suffer with ‘individualised learning’. You’re alright, you’re clever enough. We need to work on those struggling. Meaning bright kids are bored and not at all stretched.

School shouldn’t just be fun, it should also equip bright kids with a stretching education that makes the most of their talents and drives them on to successful, high paying careers as that’s what raises a good tax take in the future and helps fund the public services of tomorrow. I think the Government reforms recognise this, but neglect to provide an alternative education for those who aren’t high achieving.

Didn’t our pisa scores improve due to changes, I would think thats proof that the approach works even if people find it hard.

I filled in the consultation for that review of the curriculum. It covered everything from nursery up to university and had 30+ pages many with free text boxes.

The social scientist in me winced. What on earth useful analysis can they do with that?

100% agree. He took the joy out of learning for kids. It ruined all three of my kids’ education.

But there was worse. My friend’s DS’s (oversubscribed) secondary suggested he should be tested for SEND because he wasn’t hitting their average grades in league tables, when he was way ahead of my DS (regular secondary). Needless to say she didn’t listen to them, he’s not ND and has since done just fine in life.

So many kids now think they’re failures or SEND when actually they were being set up to fail. Kids should leave school with a lifelong love of learning and the confidence to innovate, rather than being able to regurgitate via a set formula. That’s automation not education.

@EdithBond many DC who fail the phonics test so have send /dyslexia and are phonics blind.

I think some of the things that China does are amazing. In particular the notion of exercise eg 20 minute exercise before lesson even begin would be great for those who struggle to focus.

We need to take what other countries do well and improve education eg Italy finishes school at aged 19 this could be good.

Also the education provided now in the UK is amazing and kids are leaving primary schools with far better knowledge than 40 years ago.

If you think the British curriculum is hard, you should see what school is like in China.

It is unreasonable to expect every child to succeed at the same level. Half of all children are less than averagely intelligent.

As change plods it's way towards us whole cohorts of children will have been ground down by this nonsense.
Academically able children sail their way through just about anything, but those for whom learning is a challenge are the victims .... as well as the teachers.

Proof that it works well for the able kids.

I think theres a culture of thinking you must enjoy everything. No you don’t, you don’t have to enjoy every subject you just need to know what you need to know. I didn’t particularly enjoy school. I didn’t even particularly like the subjects I got A’s in at gcse and a-level, I had to make more effort on some subjects than others, thats life.

I fucking hate exercising, I still do it because I have a sedentary life and a lazy nature and if i do zero exercise I’m pretty sure I would eventually stop moving completely. It is not a requirement that we should all enjoy and feel fulfilled by everything we do. Do we take the same attitude towards working? Oh you don’t enjoy working, thats fine stay at home then, don’t earn any money?