Do any teachers on here support Michael Gove's education policies?

[SummerExhibition]

Just wondering. Everything related to curriculum changes, academies, free schools etc gets a bashing on here and just wondering if there's another side to the argument really.

Oh not that Guardian article again, it has made me really cross.

Summer, the questions given in that article as an example of how difficult (or not) GCSE maths is are a terrible sample. For some reason they have seen fit only to print some of the easier questions on the paper, with the hardest question given from the higher tier paper only being a B grade question. Of course GCSEs are going to look easy if you don't actually publish any A or A* questions.

I think that is the problem Rosebud - probably one that you can't get over.
I just think there are too many A* which makes you think it is too easy and there are definitely too many who fail.

Why the focus on GCSEs and A levels? Why are these now viewed as desirable but vocational training is not? There is a complete lack of apprenticeship schemes or interest in apprenticeship schemes. Why is that?

I think there is a misguided belief in government that all children can be 'educated' (verb?) to high levels. The members of the cabinet seem so far up themselves, that they don't understand that a population comprises of a mishmash of people with different backgrounds, intellects, emotions, personalities, etc, etc. Have any of them ever known a person who really struggles academically?

It seems not. Only yesterday, they were suggesting that:
...All staff working in nurseries should be educated to A-level standard, a Government adviser has said, following evidence some child carers are so illiterate they struggle to read stories aloud....

Do they not realise that some people who find reading difficult are absolutely brilliant with little children and should not be denied a chance to succeed in a job they want to do? What is this obsession with bits of bloody paper?

Sorry Noble. I didn't comment on the questions part of the Guardian article, as I haven't the experience to comment either way.

FWIW I also agree that there needs to be more apprenticeships, but (so far as I know) there IS more of a focus on these at the moment (isn't Alan Sugar spearheading?). I work for an engineering-focused multinational and we do LOADS of apprenticeships, including for 16+ and 18+ leavers. I've also had workmen at my house this year who've had apprentices in painting, decorating, building working with them. There have been students on day-release at my son's nursery - these are apprentices are they not? My parents business used to take YTS students and still continues to have junior school leavers working with them. I am no expert, and I expect much more could be done at this level, but it is not my impression that there are no apprenticeships. (Very happy to be corrected on this as my knowledge is limited).

"junior school leavers" does not equal people who left school at junior school level by the way (don't want you to think they have child labourers ). You know what I mean.

flexybex I almost agree with you,although I would like to ensure that my son's nursery teachers can read to him as I think this is a crucial part of pre-school care. However, I absolutely do not think they need to have A Levels, and in a nursery with a large number of staff if one or two couldn't read well I would be ok with that but would hope that the nursery as an employer would be helping that staff member to improve their literacy. Not least because it must be bloody hard work getting through life if you're functionally illiterate, and I want happy people working with my children.

SummerExhibition, the issue is that 18+ is often too late - a swathe of students put through CSEs/GCSEs for 3 years that they aren't going to pass are disenchanted, switched off, possibly causing disruption for others. If the vocational curriculum could genuinely filter down to 14 that would make a vast difference. The problem is always funding and getting the staffing - maybe more of that will have to come direct from industry? Would also give it the status it needs and stop students channelled down the path to university whether or not it suits their needs or not.

summer I think most adults can read a book aimed at nursery children.... I don't think education is in that bad a state!

Then I think we totally agree flexy !

ReportMeNow I sort of want to agree with you, but I don't. What's so magic about the age of 14 that means we should do more vocational training from that age? (I appreciate you could say the same about 16/18 as well though to be fair). I'm a bit of a lilly livered liberal on all this stuff (and this thread has confirmed) but my gut feel is that 14 is too early to drive people down a vocational route and that there are lots of "academic" things that would be done between 14-16 which can have real life benefits. What do others think?

I would argue for 14 from an educationalist's pov but appreciate industry might see it differently.

Pupils start their GCSE options, some even do a 3 year GCSE course, at 14. Yes, there are options to do DT & the like but not really apprenticeship training. To have someone who really wants a practical, hands-on career sitting through 3 years of French & RE (languages and RE still compulsory as are other subjects) when as they don't want to be there is such a waste of their education. If their vocational training/apprenticeship was combined with core GCSEs, or those that particularly pertained to the apprenticeship, that would then give them greater investment completing them and a useful skills-set to any future employer. From what I've read Germany, Switzerland and Austria have a similar system.

14 yrs works fine. You know by then, and are less likely to get driven by parents into something unsuitable for you.
I went to a secondary modern school and the great strength was that it didn't treat us all the same.
At 14 you got the choice and I was in the O'level form, there was also the CSE form, there was the commercial form and the agricultural form. I can't think that anyone was in a place they didn't want to be. You don't want to be in a class where the work isn't suited or you don't understand it. I didn't think that I was better - just that I was getting the qualifications that I needed.
It is important that you choose and don't get pushed. You would have far less trouble if troublesome pupils could see some point in what they were doing and that they could get a qualification. We waste so much talent by trying to get everyone through the same narrow academic hoop when some of them haven't a hope and know it.

We should look at Germany as an example.

We should look to Germany as an example of how not to do education. People banging on about Germany seem to be completely unaware of how criticised their education system is for perpetuating social inequality.

Summarised in this newspaper article, which explains:

"It's bad enough that Germany's schoolchildren turn in only mediocre scores on the triennial Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development study which compares school achievements among developed countries. The disappointing results regularly spark off national debates about the state of the German school system. Now, though, the issue has graduated to the international stage.
Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, the Special Rapporteur on education issues for the Commission on Human Rights, presented his assessment of education in Germany on Wednesday in Geneva. And it wasn't favorable. He was very critical of the country's three-tier school system calling it discriminatory against immigrant children, those from poor families and the disabled.

"I believe that the three-tier system and the type of student selection foster social inequalities," he said. His findings were based on a visit to the country last year."

....and further on
""Germany should reform its education system in such a way that it keeps its advantages like the high degree of school attendance while overcoming its inequality and the lack of equal opportunities," the UN representative said. He also referred to the PISA study which found the relation between social class and school achievement that in Germany is stronger than anywhere else in the developed world."

The relationship between parental socio-economic status and children's educational achievement has been getting stronger in many developed countries, not just Germany.

You cannot prevent intelligent and wealthy parents from investing heavily in their DCs' education. And, what's more, why would you want to?

But would you agree, Bonsoir, that the children of wealthy parents should not be given a further boost by a socially divisive state-sponsored school system which inevitably funnels children of poor parents into a different education stream of lower social standing and outcomes?

That is the reason we should look at it. It keeps getting put forward as an example but who actually knows exactly how it works? I don't.

I don't think it's that simple, noblegiraffe.

In France, where school is fully comprehensive until 15, outcomes for children from poorer families are getting worse and worse.

Having looked at the table, Bonsoir, (the one on page 11 of this document is interesting), France does seem to have a problem with school environment being linked with lack of social mobility. Germany and the Netherlands are the worst on the chart - with both having selective school systems at secondary level.
Saying that the French school system is fully comprehensive doesn't mean that there isn't social selection (e.g. in Britain houses in the catchment for the best schools are more expensive). I found this document about social inequalities in the French school system - which appear to start with the requirement to repeat school years. The data appear to be quite old and I'm not familiar with the school system so it would be interesting to see if you could read it and see if you agree that schooling in France isn't as equal for the different social strata as you might hope.

noblegiraffe - all schools in France must teach the same curriculum. There are jokes (hollow jokes) about all children in eg the second year of primary learning the 3x table not just in the same year but on the same day at the same time, right through France. It is pretty much like that, sadly.

A massive shadow education industry has developed to enable children to be stretched and developed beyond the confines of the "bare bones" national curriculum. That is where the social inequalities stem from.

Is it not true about repeating years for failure in France then?

Or this bit from the document I linked to
"We have seen that there is a high degree of social selection operating throughout the collège. Once the children arrive in the lycée, the importance of the 'conseil de classe' continues, but now its role is to determine which of the baccalauréats the child will take.

Almost half of the children of 'cadres sup' pass a scientific bac - C or D, as against only 20% of the children of working class fathers. 48% of the latter end up with a Bac G or F, as against 13% of the former. It is interesting to note that the development of the 'Bac de technicien' has not only permitted the lycées to absorb the newcomers from the lower social classes, but has also meant that some children from these social classes, who in the past managed to go on to take and pass one of the 'classic' Bacs, now find themselves in the G & F sections. "

Like I said, I don't understand the school system and this document seems quite old. Do they still have these different 'Bac' routes?

That is a very old and outdated document so it is hard to comment (there hasn't been a bac called C or D for a long while! Would you ask me to comment on a old document talking about O-levels?).

Repeating a year is a fundamental part of French schooling in a system where there is a state-determined body of knowledge to be delivered to pupils hour-by-hour, day-by-day, year-by-year. If pupils are deemed not to have learned the "programme" for the year they must repeat the year in order to meet the nationally determined standard.

I did say it was old and that I wasn't familiar with the school system which is why I asked for your input.

This document Ten Steps to Equity in Education lists "5. Identify and provide systematic help to those who fall behind at school and reduce year repetition." as one of its major recommendations.

So if France improved its intervention system for underachievers instead of simply making them repeat the year, it might improve social mobility.

The French primary school week was reduced from 26 to 24 whole-class contact years in 2008 in order to allow for two hours of personalised support from the class teacher for pupils in difficulty.

While I don't agree with repeating a year, the concept of repeating is so fundamental to the French system that without a complete overhaul of the system itself it remains the least bad solution for pupils in difficulty. Just as skipping a year remains the least bad solution for very advanced pupils. The French are many light years away from concepts such as differentiated teaching, extension work or even streaming/setting.

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