Free school head without any teaching qualifications plans to ignore curriculum

[mrz]

m.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/mar/10/free-school-head-no-qualification

docs.google.com/presentation/d/16XMijTVS_4xf07qXBNRIhX9hH_cs3gidEk0okK57-X8/edit#slide=id.p28

'I feel now, that I should be more sympathetic of Pimlico going down the Core Knowledge route, as it seems to embrace both knowledge and skills.'

Is this why Annaliese Briggs said she wouldn't be following the curriculum, then? Do you think Gove really did draft it himself?

It still looks like History and D&T are the problem areas from that link, Mrz. And some aspects of PE. I think it is a very male emphasis. I personally hated competitive/team games at school yet I did lots of dance and liked trampolining and running despite not being that good. If they mean competitive in terms of personal best in athletics, that's different!

Dunno mil !
It just looks like things aren't as clear cut as they seemed two days ago!

I don't know why there is an assumption Gove doesn't want children to become skilled. That is simply the media parody of his position: 'pub quiz/ Gradgrind blah blah blah.
The point is that he argues that knowledge is important for comprehension/cultural literacy and that therefore knowledge must come first as skills come from fluency of knowledge. He does not see knowledge as simply a vehicle for the development of 'twentieth century skills'.
Whether the curriculum he proposes is likely to aid these goals is open for debate.
This link is Willingham's take on Gove's most recent big speech setting out his ideas. You can use this link to read Gove's original speech which (whatever one's view) is very readable and interesting...
www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2013/02/the-science-in-goves-speech.html

The draft history curriculum for primary schools is overstuffed though, and even if you are entirely sympathetic to his aims, it is counterproductive if it is unteachable (or taught badly by non-specialists).

It seems extraordinary that criticism by highly respected historians and associations has to be made in public forums rather than as part of the consultation process. As part of that debate there may be misinformation but that's the consequence of rushing the process.

I found this blog interesting -for someone who prides himself on detail and knowledge he quotes example of scientific inventions that are actually wrong:

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100093493/would-you-have-confused-shakespeare-and-dickens-michael-gove/

But I am still interested to know if the NC history draft is not even what the Curriculum Centre advised.

There are no skills mentioned in the history curriculum for KS1/2.

Willingham:
I'm not writing to defend all education policies undertaken by the current British government--I'm not knowledgeable enough about those policies to defend or attack them.

Point made.

Gove:
'Progressive educational theory stressed the importance of children following their own instincts, rather than being taught. It sought to replace an emphasis on acquiring knowledge in traditional subjects with a new stress on children following where their curiosity led them. And that was usually away from outdated practices such as reading, writing and arithmetic.'

This is just not true. Phonics, maths and literacy are taught in a structured way. You only have to look at the maths curriculum posted yesterday by mrz to appreciate this. When we start a term, we generally have a focus (i.e. history/geography/science). We will show a film and get the children to say what they want to learn about. That sounds very progressive, but the truth is, that if the teacher has chosen to show 'How to Train a Dragon' as the basis of a history topic, you can be pretty sure that she knows that the children will want to know about Vikings!
In fact, in the 60s when I was in Y6, we followed 'Nuffield maths' and were given a triangle. We sat looking at that triangle for weeks. I remember wandering around the playground with it. Turned out we were supposed to 'discover for ourselves' that there are 180 degrees in a triangle! Likewise, several years later, I did a Nuffield course for A level chemistry. We had lots of fun, but didn't have sufficient background knowledge to really understand what we were doing. (It was also fun for the teacher who used to sit smoking at the back of the lab - she just 'let us learn for ourselves'.) These examples are of progressive teaching, and are certainly not used today (in primary schools, at least).

Gove:
'Visit the most exclusive pre-prep and prep schools in London - like Wetherby in Notting Hill - where artistic and creative leaders like Stella McCartney send their children - and you will find children learning to read using traditional phonic methods, times tables and poetry learnt by heart, grammar and spelling rigorously policed, the narrative of British history properly taught. And on that foundation those children then move to schools like Eton and Westminster - where the medieval cloisters connect seamlessly to the corridors of power.'

We use rigorous phonic/spelling methods, times tables, grammar and learn songs, poems and nursery rhymes. We don't learn history chronologically, but we do learn facts - how can you stop a 7 year old wanting to learn about gory stuff that happened in the past?
(As for the last sentence - the £40K a year might have something to do with it....)

I'd read this speech before. It's a load of clever waffle - singing the praise of academies whilst forgetting to acknowledge that most state schools are running similar curricula.

(I did like the bit about unskilled workers growing up in homes with 'substantial libraries'.)

mil But I am still interested to know if the NC history draft is not even what the Curriculum Centre advised.

Short of Annaliese joining this thread, I'm not sure how we're going to find that one out!

" Subjects will be taught discretely, with an emphasis on coherence and specialism. History, for example, is taught chronologically, beginning with Antiquity;"

from the Pimlico curriculum

Pimlico Academy is proud of its unique status as the only school in the country with a discrete specialism in History.

Gove in his speeches often contradicts himself too. He mentions a 'brilliant' academy head Rachel de Souza but does not mention that she is leaving after three years (to manage a trust set up by another DfE board director, although her current school's trust still has three schools in special measures). He then goes on to say only 23% are entered for Ebacc nationally, because they have been 'denied access to qualifications' whereas only 9% were entered at her school in 2012.

Also Holland Park School was 'until quite recently - an academic basket case' but ' in the last ten years' the school has been transformed (i.e. under the last government).

It's hard, therefore, not to think he is cherry picking.

My point is that the speech does not say he does not want children to develop skills. He argues knowledge is necessary for skills. The fact you might want to criticise it for other reasons isn't the point.

The proposed history curriculum does list skills its just then that it procedes to list so much content that its hard to know when you would have time to develop them! As I said before I think the proposed national curriculum in history is more of a negotiating position than a serious proposal. I am not saying I approve of that approach to curriculum development!

Your schools might be 'rigourous' but my dd's was much like the triangle discovery one you describe. In the end I took her out. The Tes early years forum is full of discussions along the lines of 'I would like my class to try and learn to read from digging in the sand tray.' I parody but 'rigourous' would be a very inappropriate description of it all. I agree that there is plenty of good practice out there but I think your teaching is much better than what goes on in plenty of schools.

The CC suggests two chronological cycles. Going into more depth second time around. Its on the website and from what I can see it doesn't seem so ridiculously stuffed. The CC curriculum is based on the same principles regarding cultural literacy and skills coming form fluency of knowledge as Gove's is, but my impression is it is a) much more reasonable and b)being continually refined in the light of what goes on in the classroom.

This is taken from the Gove National Curricullum. Plenty of distinctly Gove polish but clearly outlines key historical skills should be developed and it even says 'understand' not just 'know'!!!

"A high-quality history education equips pupils to think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. A knowledge of Britain's past, and our place in the world, helps us understand the challenges of our own time.

Aims

The National Curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:

know and understand the story of these islands: how the British people shaped this nation and how Britain influenced the world
know and understand British history as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the story of the first settlers in these islands to the development of the institutions which govern our lives today
know and understand the broad outlines of European and world history: the growth and decline of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; the achievements and follies of mankind
gain and deploy a historically-grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ?empire', ?civilisation', ?parliament' and ?peasantry'
*understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
understand how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Attainment targets

By the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study"

But it is very dull and repetitive, isn't it? It reminds me a bit of a badly written set of work objectives by a bored employee told to be 'SMART' and use verbs and suggest outcomes rather just list a series of tasks. Just insert the words 'know and understand' and hey presto, the tasks become 'objectives'. I need to be able to know 'why' and 'how'.

The present primary curriculum just sounds more dynamic:

• recognise why people did things, why events happened and what happened as a result
• identify different ways in which the past is represented.
• ask and answer questions about the past.
• describe and make links between the main events, situations and changes within and across the different periods and societies studied
• recall, select and organise historical information

In my very fact-driven, chronological history education at school I never really knew how else to organise information or ask/answer questions. I do agree that at secondary level (not primary) the curriculum may have drifted too far one way but this curriculum does not improve on what we have now.

Muminlndon. Those aims are pretty much the same and with the same sort of wording as now - all very familiar to a history teacher and the point is it clearly shows Gove DOES want students to develop skills. Thre is nothing more fun than laying into a Bogeyman but do they really exist? I think there is plenty to criticise Gove for but the level of debate is so puerile and ill informed that I find myself endlessly defending him.

Because it is not age-appropriate and is over-extended, David Cannadine wrote of this draft:

'The only way to deliver such a curriculum would be to abandon any pretence that history is about understanding as well as about knowing, and to teach it in just the patchy, simplistic, superficial and disconnected ways that the Secretary of State deplores about the present arrangements. His proposal does not solve that problem: instead it intensifies and exacerbates it.'
...
'There are two further problems, one of commission, the other of omission. The first is the serious disconnect between the broad ranging aims outlined in the preamble to the proposed curriculum, and the introverted insularity of the syllabus itself ... The second problem is that this draft curriculum merely highlights the central longstanding issue, that there is insufficient time in the classroom to teach history seriously, for it is impossible to cram in all that is prescribed to children between the ages of five and fourteen'

I think the sheer volume of content will mean that schools cannot cover any period in detail resulting in children having a superficial knowledge of history.

'the level of debate is so puerile and ill informed '

I have followed the debate over the last two days with interest respecting your experience as teachers. The curriculum is in draft and as been judged by better qualified by people than me. But I find that comment disrespectful.

'has been judged'

you seem to be the only person who regards this as personal criticism of Michael Gove beezmum

who incidentally made some ill informed, puerile criticism of schools and teachers in my area without ever setting foot in a single school or speaking to a single teacher

I don't think the 'aims' at the start of the draft history curriculum relate to the objectives (?introduction?) at the start of the KS1 and KS2 sections, and their content.

The aims at the beginning mention skills that are ignored until KS3.

It doesn't quite make sense to me.

Ah yes. The age-old trick of converting a syllabus into learning outcomes by putting the word "understand" at the beginning of each bullet point. The question one should ask oneself is "how will this be demonstrated?" To some extent this seems to be what this debate is about. Gove's position seems to be dangerously close to one that says understanding can be demonstrated by reciting what someone else has told you about something. I say "seems" because he's not very good at defining his terms (q.v. rigour).

"you seem to be the only person who regards this as personal criticism of Michael Gove beezmum"
Er what????? You mean he has not been heavily criticised on this thread? I think Gove is quite puerile at times - I said so regarding the way I suspect he has published a history curriculum that is purely a bargaining position. That's no excuse to descend to his level and all that and say things about his goals that are just untrue e.g. he does not want children to learn skills which is just parody of his position.

Ipad and Eeee.... whether the curriculum in general and the history curriculum in particular are coherent and workable documents is a good debate to have. However, in the interests of intellectual honesty it is right to point out that the 'pub quiz'/Gradgrind etc etc position is NOT a fair representation of Gove's views or the principles behind the curriculum.

Regards the history curriculum I really think the amount of content makes it ridiculous. I agree entirely with MRZ and her comments. However, it is just one (sadly minor) subject on the curriculum so we can't judge the whole curriculum from it. EEeee it is a challenge for this curriculum because it must move away from purely skills based criteria as these are flawed (as I explained up thread). However, the history curriculumdoes much more than expect understanding. There are many more skills listed than that and we don't yet know what assessment criteria might look like so lets wait and see.

actually I think he has got off very lightly on this thread and the focus once it moved from the OP has been on the curriculum content not the man.

TBH it appears that Gove is just spouting a collection of soundbites (once a journalist, and all that...) He rails about 'progressive' education (that doesn't (IME) go on), and praises the free schools and academies for rigour in phonics and times tables, which most schools do anyway. Empty words.

From where I stand now, Hirsch's model as used in the US Core Knowledge Schools looks quite sensible, particularly if the core state standards are used in tandem with the Core Knowledge curriculum.

I also think Willingham endorses what many primary schools are doing now in the UK, building skills on a knowledge base. (I reckon his arguments against using learning styles to plan the curriculum are specific to the USA - they were never embraced with much fervour here.)

So, apart from the rather awful draft history and DT curricula - it doesn't look so bad to me.

However, I think they have made a BIG mistake employing a 27 year old non-teacher to run a school!