Does Michael Gove have the support of the public?

[Machadaynu]

Michael Gove, Minister for Education, seems to me to be a liability.

If he isn't selling off playing fields and accidentally telling people he has sold much fewer than he actually has, he is introducing a dead number system into the maths syllabus, allowing private firms to run schools promoting their beliefs, allowing unqualified people to teach and making a string of other controversial decisions.

I am now at the point where the more I learn about him and his decisions, the less respect I have for him. He seems to me to be entirely out of his depth, and unable to take advice - admittedly this isn't a trait unique to him in this government.

Am I the only one? If he didn't have power he'd be funny.

maud - why on earth should he object to people being members of trade unions? But it is true that very many Tories are against public sector strikes and seek to reduce opportunities for collective action. Collective bargaining is different.

But he didn't 'suggest' teaching Roman numerals, it is part of his new primary maths curriculum. Which would mean that it must be taught, despite it no doubt causing confusion for a lot of kids and little to no benefit for others.

I can't help but suspect that it comes from his all-consuming obsession with Latin.

That's my point, overthemill. He isn't, and there's no reason why he should be, but MS took it for granted that he knew MG's views on that particular issue and was very wide of the mark. I can understand why some teachers are wary of him and his policies, but some of this "he hates teachers, doesn't he?" stuff seems to have something similar about it.

Of course he hates teachers. State ones anyway. pesky public servants that cost too much. He wouldn't be trying to pull their pay and Conditions apart if he had any respect for them.

Don't forget allowing schools to replace proper qualified teachers with anyone who fancies giving it go.

i dont think he hates teachers i think he has mild contempt for them and thinks he knows how to do their job better than them. Guessing that if he was MoS for Health he would waste no time telling GPs how to do theirs either! that is kind of what ministers do really.

noble minister suggests and lowly paid civil servants make it so in the shape of new curricula or health guidelines etc etc Minister =God (and of course, sometimes ministers have the suggestion made to them first by highly paid special advisers...or think tanks...or lobby groups...)

Surely it isnt the job of the minister to be so closely involved in the detail of what is being taught?

It is this particularly which strikes me as similar to my experience of training where (especially senior management) say 'you should explain X like this then everyone will understand'. Of course what works for one person doesnt work for another. The problem is that the minister (or senior management) cannot be simply ignored. These pronouncements become a distraction. Papers have to be written, evidence has to be produced.

In the mean time poor schools continue to produce poor results.

GdeP i'm still reeling from the suggestion that from next term I have to teach my Year 6s grammar! I'd never have thought of that by myself

He doesn't have my support, he's an odious twat.

Has anyone read The Number Devil by Enzensberger? It's an utterly brilliant book for children, written to give them a love of numbers and mathematics in a way that doesn't always happen at school. My DC read it and loved it, and I have used it at school too. Well the first chapter is about roman numerals - fascinating stuff. Of course you're not going to spend a term on it, and its just a tiny thing that everyone seems to have seized on to make the 'out of touch' point, but as education, in its broadest sense, its really interesting.

overthemill - he doesn't just support union membership, he was a member of the NUJ and went on strike himself for several weeks when he was a journalist.

yes, I know adeucalione and din't mean to imply that he was not in favour that is one good thing in his CV. But I doubt h is very supportive of striking teachers etc. His NUJ days are a long time gone and in a different world really

I was thinking about this last night after I couldn't sleep.

You know, I have no problems with anyone disagreeing with Gove, and no problem disagreeing with some of it myself. I think I was initially prejudiced towards him for the synthetic phonics push which I wholeheartedly support. I am more right wing than most on here (can I clarify that I am not racist, homophobic or a reader of the Daily Main either ) and I rather liked him when I have read his articles or heard him speak.

But I really dislike the tone used by many people on here when speaking about him. I simply do not believe he wakes up every day and works out how he can ruin education for poor people. Disagree all you want, and in many places I do, but such immoderate attitudes stifle debate rather than promoting it.

FWIW, I also believe that most ministers, even those who belong to the party I am not a supporter of, want to do the right thing. We all differ as to what that is.

I've read The Number Devil and while it does touch on Roman numerals I don't remember the Number Devil spending ages teaching the kid how to do then up to 1000, and read dates, then giving him a test on it which contributed to his position in the league tables.

I have nothing against Roman numerals as a 'nice to know', something to teach as part of a project on the Romans in history or as a point of interest in maths when you've got a spare bit of teaching time because all the important stuff is covered. I do object to it taking maths time for all students, a lot who could do with more time on stuff like telling the time and arithmetic.

I agree Humphrey, but suspect that you are spitting in the wind.

I think that Gove is wrong to;
i) dismiss qualifications that aren't 'English, Maths, Science, foreign language' as 'Mickey Mouse qualifications'. A GCSE in child care for example, may not fit his 'rigorous' definition', but for some children, they are a way into further education at college, leading to a job. Without such qualifications, many children will leave with no qualifications. That being said, I think it is important that schools adequately represent their results, so parents can see whether the emphasis is on academic subjects or practical subjects

ii) the English Bacc - why does it not include Religious Studies as a 'humanity' (only History or Geography count). Why does it not include an arts subject (music, art etc are not counted, which is it at odds with the European Baccalaureate).

iii) The idea of 'grading' a child after each and every year of school, with children as young as Y1 being told they have 'failed' the year.

iv) The way he perpetually talks down the schools - if you listened to him you would believe that no child learned anything in primary school, under the current National Curriculum - whereas my kids have a VERY rigorous education in their very normal, very mixed primary school. Times Tables up to 20? They've done them!

v) The most sinister thing I think is the push towards free schools and academies. Gove would like EVERY school to be either a free school or an academy. In these institutions, the national curriculum does not have to be observed. Fields can be sold off WITHOUT APPROVAL. Teachers do not have to be qualified. Admissions are much more complicated. Personal agendas can be followed (how long till we have schools teaching creationism?). And every school that becomes an academy is a state school being removed from state control. In many cases that may be good. But in many cases that could be disastrous. And as yet there isn't (to my knowledge) a mechanism for recalling academies if they are out of control.

Thing is, even if his ideas DO change education for the better, there is going to be inevitable upheaval during the changeover period, and if your own DC's are caught up in that (as two of mine are), then you are, understandably, going to have a dislike of him and his plans.

My DD has SEN, and is in Y9. The change for HER year group was rushed, ill thought out, and us going to drop her GCSE results from C/D grades to G/U grades as she will not manage linear exams at all. She has had massive amounts of SEN help over her three years in Secondary, ALL geared towards her hopefully passing MODULAR exams. And at the last minute, Gove changes them for linear exams without a thought on the future impact on both mine and my DD's lives.

This may wreck everything we have been working towards since she was 7yo, as without the C/D grades, she will be unable to do the course she wants at college. Who have confirmed that they won't be changing admission criteria until the year AFTER DD's year, so that they have a year to 'see what happens'.

And I DON'T have the money to support DD if she can't get into college, and without decent GCSE's, she won't even get a cleaning job here, as there is so much competition for jobs. And I'm unable to move for the next 17 years.

DS1 has lost out on two months of prep for his 11+ due to the change to September exam rather than November. We only knew about this at Easter. And as I can't afford a private tutor, he was already at a disadvantage anyway.

And as for his plans to do away with School Action and School Action+, that will hurt my DD AND my DS2, due to my LA's already proven illegal blanket policies on even ASSESSING for a statement...

I can't stop myself from thinking of him as an odious twat, unfortunately!

And what is wrong with a Catering GCSE, anyway? It is (or should have been) her route into further education, with much improved job prospects for someone with SEN, at the end of it.

CouthyMow - what's wrong with it is that it wasn't offered at his grammar school in the 1950s.

I think Lily pretty much covered for me.

He lost my respect when he insisted to a Parliamentary Select Committee that he wanted all schools to be above average

Linked to this article on another thread.

On the main point, I'm a teacher but also a SLE (specialist leader of education) which sounds wanky, I know, but is very interesting as it gets me into lots of other schools, advising and supporting teachers & middle leaders. I see lots and lots of good practice and enthusiastic, motivated teachers who do a brilliant job. I also see poor management that frustrates classroom teachers, and poor teaching that results from a lack of rigorous support or a lack of care in standards. Good managers are like gold dust and should be encouraged. Some of the systems Gove has set up: schools supporting one another, sharing good practice and making it easier to uphold high teaching standards are all good ideas...

But then he does things like the removal of QTS for academies which is utter madness I think and makes a mockery of teaching as a profession.

He cherry-picks ideas from other countries and holds them up as examples for us to aspire to but refuses to acknowledge massive differences in culture, teacher-training and other crucial influencing factors.

He ignores advice from panels he has set up himself when the findings don't suit; choosing popularity with right-wing over common sense and years of actual teaching experience from his panels.

But worst of all, he persists in wholesale criticism of teachers as a whole; he has personally been responsible for some terrible attacks on the profession that undermine classroom teachers and reduce the respect that many people once had. In this way, he is worse than many of his predecessors.

itchy he's also removing the need for FE/HE teachers to be qualified after a huge push a few years ago to get everyone qualified (which is how I came into the profession)! Its just a lack of joined up holistic focus on education and what it means to children, schools, families and employers. At the moment I mainly teach SEN kids in yr 5 & 6 (though have done from yr 5 - Yr 13) and the change from SA and SA+ is a nightmare for us - and the changes in exams will be nightmarish for my own children.

He's someone who has been through school, is a parent and an interested Minister but it doesn't make him either an expert or right. Badly done, Mr Gove

He's bonkers. He appears to be paid by the amount of publicity he generates; hence ridiculous pronouncements on teaching every five minutes.

He's bad for my blood pressure. I get The Rage every time he appears on telly, or I hear the word 'Gove'.

He's hell bent on ruining my profession and I can't see how we can stop him.