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Gove versus Reality

Forgive me for going beyond my usual brief, but I have to write this....

There is a growing tide of rejection of Michael Gove's misguided, rushed and bodged transformation of the English education system. He has misled us about the success of academies, written a much criticised knowledge-based curriculum based on his own prejudices and which, for ideological reasons, only half of English secondary schools have to follow, introduced a performance related pay structure which nobody in the world has shown can raise standards, abandoned healthy food standards in half of our secondary schools, taken a risk allowing the creation of free schools, some of which are already failing to do a proper job, paved the way for profit-making schools for which there is no evidence of higher achievement and destroyed a functioning system of support for school sport.

He has knowingly abused data from international comparisons to claim a justification for some fundamental shifts in policy and he is attempting to introduce a poorly conceived reorganisation of GCSE and A-level examinations.

He has alienated almost the entire teaching profession, ignored the advice of some of the most respected educationalists in the country and deliberately sought to create conflict with the teaching unions. He claims he is freeing up teachers from control whilst telling them how to teach maths, English and languages. Finally, he has lowered the status of the profession by allowing non-qualified staff to teach.

This video, although somewhat melodramatic, sums up effectively what is going wrong. Do have a look.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6PRKaNVvUc







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