Gove on Question Time

[ipadquietly]

What a disappointment on so many levels:

1. The panel was totally ignorant about the details of the new curriculum, and, because of this, could only play lip service to Gove.
   
2. No-one in the audience made any points to challenge Gove. Indeed the only teacher to make a comment happened to work in an independent school which didn't have to follow the curriculum.
   
3. The challenges from the panel were anecdotal - Horowitz harping on about the parlous state of literacy; one of the women (?) harping on about being a school governor but seemingly knowing nothing about the new curriculum and the labour woman spouting anecdotes about her children (I mean.... politician on Question Time spouting anecdotes about her children ) with zero political argument.
   

It gave the slimy little toad a chance to speak crap and get an almost standing ovation.

I could have screamed.

[muminlondon]

Private schools spend a large budget marketing themselves and positioning themselves in PR terms but bad reports rarely surface. And it's not in the interests of the ad-sales driven local media to publish negative stories on their clients. At the primary level there is no nationally reported testing for prep schools, so we have little idea how 'good' they are.

[muminlondon]

On this topic see the Good Schools Guide, as mentioned in this TES article 'Second-rate independents ?fob off? foreign pupils':

www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6319933

[Xenia]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The 8% of children at fee paying schools secure over half the best university places, are 80% of judges, and well over 60% of most of the best paid jobs. That cannot just be PR articles hiding uselessly educated children, quite the converse.

[ipadquietly]

I heard about a judge who threw out a child abuse case because the social worker had translated the child's testimony into anatomical names. Apparently, because the actual words of the testimony weren't used during the court case, it was dismissed.

Yes, let's just look at that. A child has almost certainly been sexually abused, but the wrong words are used in the court case....

Perhaps this illustrates the lack of creative thinking in fee paying schools as 80% of judges are educated independently?

[rabbitstew]

Interesting to ponder whether, if there were no private schools, the same people would still be getting the top jobs. How many judges were the children of people not already in high ranking positions and jobs?

[Copthallresident]

Xenia It is well documented that an astonishingly small number of schools account for those statistics and some schools account for an astonishingly large proportion of them. The PR articles and "school finding agencies" try to big up the rest on their coat tails.

[ipadquietly]

Networking.

[Xenia]

That is for the market to decide. If parents at a school day placed 100th in the league tables not in the top 5 find there is no advantage through paying fees they may not pay fees. Clearly the private schools do things pretty well hence why 50% of parents would pay if they had made wiser career choices which would have enabled them to afford fees.

[muminlondon]

The PR certainly works on you, Xenia! I'm sure 50% would like a Porsche (if polled unscientifically) but they don't buy one because they don't have the money, it's not practical for a big family, or they can't drive or have no need to drive fast and make a big noise when doing so.

In reality the private school sector is no bigger than it was 50 years ago. It was in decline, then briefly expanded to 7% of pupils when direct grammars were abolished around 1990, but has remained at 7% since then. Very few new private schools have been built in the last couple of decades - a few prep school chains, takeovers funded in the private equity boom, but the clever operators sold up before the credit crunch and started investigating how to make profits from the state sector instead (and have been writing a new curriculum based on their narrow private school experience).

You don't see the bottom falling out of the market because there is always a better option in the state sector - but many of the small privates have quietly closed. The 100 or so independent schools at the top of the tree are very established, very selective and difficult to get into even if you have the money, and mostly in or near London.

[rabbitstew]

Ah yes, but muminlondon, all the people who made wise career choices live in or near London, anyway, so that just proves how brilliantly the market works. Wise career choices, after all, have b*gger all to do with what the world actually needs, they relate only to personal gain and being able to afford private school fees. Everyone should be wise like Xenia and the world would be sorted.

[Copthallresident]

And living in London you can never find anyone to do what you actually need

[Xenia]

It's an interesting issue. Do you feed your children bad foods and sweets all day because you thinkit's only fair they have as bad a time as children whose parents give them that every day? Of course not. There is nothing morally wrong in advantaging your child.

Did you pick a job as a street sweeper because we need one and not become the UK's leading surgeon because we need street sweepers? Ther eis nothing wrong with doing the best for yourself. The UK is full of little girl brought up to be mother martyr on the minimum wage setting herself up for a life washing husband's socks and children's bottoms in ready training for taking on long term care of her and her husband's elderly parents. Girls are pushed into this - you are female therefore the right career is a low paid one. It's a total con. No reason girls cannot aim high. Nothing morally wrong with picking a career which means you can do the best for your children. There is no moral advantage in working in the local call centre because the UK might need call centre workers. Be the owner of the call centre.

I certainly agree that in every recession parents are unable to pay fees and that boarding schools have declined since the Victorian age in terms of numbers from the UK attending. In less well off areas some private schools have moved to the state sector and some have merged and some closed because some parents have less money and the economy goes in cycles.

[rabbitstew]

Oh yes, of course, Xenia, people dream of being street sweepers and call centre workers... Because of course, it is a choice between sweeping streets and being a brain surgeon for most people. . There are absolutely no worthwhile careers in between those two extremes which are challenging, exciting, genuinely worthwhile and which don't pay enough to cover the private school fees. And these people are really missing out not being able to send their children to a school where parents have your attitude - the attitude which appears to think that 95% of careers are not worthwhile, because they don't pay you enough.

[QueenofWhatever]

'In less well off areas some private schools have moved to the state sector and some have merged and some closed because some parents have less money and the economy goes in cycles.'

Not quite Xenia. Where I live (not a less well off area) some private school have done all of the above. But the bit you're missing is that it's not just because of the recession. As state schools in our city have made significant improvements, less parents are choosing private. They recognise that there are many benefits to state education, such as coming into contact with a more representative sample of society.

The reason higher earners are over-represented by people with a private education is because of the old boys' and girls' networks that are so prevalent. Funnily enough it's nowhere near as marked in engineering and IT as it is in law or medicine.

[ipadquietly]

Some of the parents must be laughing all the way to the bank. Suddenly, the fee guzzling school becomes a Free School! The curriculum remains the same (i.e. do whatever they like) and the funding gushes in from central government! I sincerely hope that class sizes in these converting schools rises and rises.... oh no, I forgot - silly me. They can set their own admissions criteria as well...and pay teachers whatever they like.... and employ unqualified 'experts in their field' to teach the little darlings.

Michael Gove is a twat of the highest order. He is arrogant and egotistical, endorsing policies that worked for him (an intelligent nerd) 30 years ago, and forgetting today's diverse, multicultural, inclusive school population. In free schools/academies, he is creating a system that will only be accountable by end of key stage testing - it will be totally data driven, with no regard to the way each school adjusts its curriculum to suit its pupils (the school's USP).

The new humanities curriculum is just an extra snub to the teaching profession and all of the children in maintained schools in England.

[Xenia]

The schools in the North East I was reading about did report 30 parents immediately moved the children to other private schools when it became clear the school was going into the state sector. However they got a surge of parents happy to pay fees for 12 months from the state sector who knew that when it turned a state school there would be a huge number of parents applying so best to get in whilst still private as an investment in your future school place.

Private schools are not in general decline in the UK at all. They are some of the best schools in the country. Most parents using them are very happy with them.

[Copthallresident]

One of those schools in the Northeast chose the Free School route rather than merge with another school, as several have done in that area, because it felt it was more in keeping with it's original ethos and values, providing an education to girls regardless of means. It was a former Direct Grant school, and at the time the direct grant was withdrawn it was a close decision whether to opt for the LA route or go private but raise money for bursaries . The governing body were far from pursuing a cynical project to access government funds. I wonder how a highly academic school is going to cope with a mixed ability intake but speaking from a part of the country where excellent new school proposals are having to move into disused churches and office buildings it would seem that the city will be well served by gaining a new purpose built school with amazing facilities.

[muminlondon]

Private schools were brought into the state sector under Labour to become Catholic and Muslim VA schools under the justification of 'choice and diversity'. The very few ex-direct grant grammars converting to free schools are, at least, bringing facilities with them and not (all) religious but they are a minuscule drop in the ocean in terms of overall provision.

If you are paying £15-20k per year you know the rules - you're paying for exclusivity and privilege and if you don't get a place, it's par for the course. There"s always state grammars or the Oratory for the middle class to monopolise. But you cannot apply private school exclusivity and admissions policies or the extremely narrow curriculum, proposed by your Tory donor mate's rich wife and associates, to the state sector. It's absurd and so is Gove.

[ipadquietly]

mil But you can apply an extremely narrow curriculum!

[muminlondon]

Yes, although it is inappropriate and unworkable and criticised by academics and experienced well qualified teachers from both state and private sector, Gove will impose it anyway. It's hard to know whether he is trying to drive primaries into the arms of academy chains just to be free of the national curriculum - because it is unteachable and head teachers are pragmatic - or it is just his desire for absolute control.

[ipadquietly]

The cynic in me says that he is trying to force academies! I know that we had that very conversation in a meeting last week.......

Isn't it about time teachers stood up and said that it really is a load of crap and they're not going to do it?

[muminlondon]

Academics are called Marxists for disagreeing with Gove. Teaching union leaders are 'enemies of promise'. I'm just a parent and all I can do is vote the twat out before he damages my DC's education but until/unless the LibDems take a position my vote will be wasted where I live. It is interesting to hear criticism also coming from private school head teachers (over the English GCSE regrading for example) because they are more likely to be heard by those in power and the media. At some point Ofsted inspectors or academy chain directors will also find their voice - if it's unworkable it will be quickly apparent.

[ipadquietly]

Ofsted inspectors have it easy at the moment. Reports are quite obviously SEF/data driven. Academy chain directors have bigger fish to fry - their medical/healthcare/retirement subsidiaries; their hedge funds; their property investments.

This fight is for teachers and they MUST have parents on their side. That is why it is SO short-sighted to bang on about pensions and pay. The educational establishment is crumbling and the unions are doing nothing.

(I'm really cross about this - I have written to the union and received no reply. I went to a union meeting about a year ago and suggested we look at what's happening to the pupils rather than ourselves - didn't get a good response! The worst thing I have heard recently is that government is cutting devolved capital, usually used for toilet repairs, etc. The bulk of these expenses have now got to come from the school's budget. This is where children's education is at risk. £10K for a roof/toilet repair = 1 TA for a year.)

[muminlondon]

I have a lot of sympathy for teachers over pay and pensions. I don't blame teachers at all for putting up a fight over pensions. But I do agree parents have to be on side - working parents find strike days inconvenient. I do not want to see teachers so demoralised that they leave the profession in droves. Ultimately all this crap about unqualified teachers, schools set up in garden sheds and a curriculum written by 22-year old politicos won't work because parents don't want it, and it's too much of a risk for headteachers if standards slip and staff turnover is high. I think heads will ultimately back their staff, reassure parents and resist the loppier ideas. Gove has powerful friends but his ideas are short-term, contradictory, counter-productive and economcally wasteful and do not have support outside his little coterie of cronies. If not Ofsted, then we will see more criticism from the select committee, or perhaps Tory council leaders furious at being starved of funds or having planning decisions imposed on them.

[muminlondon]

Great 6 minute video here:

www.goveversusreality.com/