Do you want what Gove wants for your grandchildren?

It is wearying, even though I am retired. I was, like many teachers, subjected to many changes and innovations in my career. It finally got to the stage where I realised "I did this x years ago under y government" and that meant I just went back to what I used to do with a few frills and a lot more paperwork. Until the next time.

(Nearly always very good results, though, whatever the fashionable curriculum of the time)

Hey ho!

But eggs still come in dozens, and bottles in boxes and a host of other items, even in metric countries. Then there are months in the year. So the 12 times table is universally useful still.

On history, Gove is re-introducing the 1950s syllabus, prehistory to Saxons in primary school, Normans onwards in secondary. If you opted for science O levels you never got past the Stuarts, if you only did O level it stopped in 1815 and you only got to relatively recent times if you did A level history. Personally I think the concept of prehistory and the imagination required to understand the concept of life 5 - 10,000 years ago is very difficult for 5 - 7 year olds.

DGC (aged 3 & 6) adore the Horrible Histories and have grasped a real sense of the chronology of history since the Normans with that. DGD comes home from school and looks online for more information on Florence Nightingale and Grace Darling and uses her grasp of the sweep of British History gained from the HH's to understand when they lived.

I find knowing to within 5 years when a monarch was reigning is very useful in pinning down many aspects of the past. When we bought our current home we were told it was late 16th century, I could place this as late Tudor as I knew Queen Elizabeth died in the early years of the 17th century. It gave me a context for the house. When later scientific dating discovered it was built in 1467 I knew it dated to the War of the Roses and Edward IV and I adjusted the context of our house accordingly. The same thing applies when visiting any historic site, whether a house, castle or any other historic site.

Thinking about plans for the History curriculum, I tried to remember what I was taught in my 4 Primary schools in the 1950s. Apart from a trip to the Tower of London in the top class all I can remember is learning about Abel Tasman & Ozzie history in my first 3 years at school in Sydney. I do remember however knowing my 13x table so perhaps we were into Baker's dozens Nanaej!

I know nanaej, it is unbelievable cheek. They were also talking about "Labour's dumbed-down curriculum". They were the ones who wanted knitting and flower-arranging in the new DT curriculum until James Dyson and the Engineering Council had a go at them. I think the Labour government had a pretty good set of reforms to the original over-full 1988 national curriculum, but still, why let facts get in the way of party politics.

j08 I listened to the Today programme and nearly had to take aothe blood pressure tablet.
Can I just let anyone who does not already know that Local Area Study in History has been on the KS1 curriculum for ages..it is not new!

Also in reception classes teachers have been teaching children about halve, quarters etc for years.

Trouble is interviewers never ask the right questions...

Also whilst there is no harm in knowing your 12 x the reason it was dropped was because we went metric and we only went to 12 x before so we could measure things and get the right change! It is so sad that the headlines focus o these aspects when teachers are teaching kids so much more than you or I were ever taught in infant schools!!

Jingle, unless you are taking part in a quiz, when would you need to know the exact dates of a reign? Knowing multiplication tables is probably still useful - saves you getting out your calculator/iphone/whatever in the supermarket.

The other person in the interview was saying there would be plenty of scope for the teacher to develop the curriculum in his/her own way. And to expore local history with the children.

Perhaps it's not all bad. (Though I feel sorry for the teachers - more changes!)

Someone on the Today programme was saying there is too much learning by rote involved, ie learning dates of historical events and reigns of kings and queens. You know, I don't think that is a bad thing. It's quite good to know when a particular king reigned without having to resort to google!

Iam64- I don't think all posts arise from genuine beliefs - sometimes they are just knee jerk responses of hostility to other posters. This is why, when challenged, they cannot respond logically to points made.

Good question Maniac - how did the awful Gove get elevated? The few comments in support of his ideologically based attack on our education system seem to me to come from a world I don't recognise. Gove's plans are not based on evidence, but on his own unpleasant view of the world. Most of our children and young people benefit from and enjoy the existing curriculum. Any changes or developments within the education system should be led by people who actually have the experience and knowledge to evaluate and discuss improvements. That rules Gove out then. Having the tories in power is like the 80's all over again, always winter and never christmas

Just caught up with this thread- very amused by your descriptions of Michael Gove and comments on his policies.
Like Maggiemay 'I do not want Michael Gove full stop! I am definitely not a member of the GAS in fact have long thought that he is a liability to his partyand find him devoid of any charm or appeal.
As well as his recommendations in Education it seems he is in charge of Family Justice which may be the reason that there is so little progress in 'Shared Parenting' law.
How on earth did he get to this elevated position?
Thanks again Mamie for the resume of Gove's policies

Sorry gadabout but schools have been working on this for years now. It is down to the governors to have their own anti bullying policies and staff to implement. The school I was governor of had an gay childcare teacher and he got on fine there. Children a lot more tolerant than they were when i was a teacher.

Surely that is up to the school? How is he planning to deal with it?

Praise where praise is due. Gove has pledged to clampdown on homophobic bullying in schools.

Yes Thanks for that Lilygran and Anno. I do think there is a lot to do in sorting out the 14-19 curriculum and it is a shame that Tomlinson's proposals got shelved.
We used to do a lot of business link work in our secondary schools, where people from businesses came and worked with the pupils, who then went out for work experience. This meant that everyone understood more about reasonable expectations on both sides, what training businesses would need to put in, what schools could do better to prepare the pupils etc. It was so much more useful than the kind of blanket whining about school leavers that sometimes seems to be the speciality of the CBI, though I am sure that is not really the case.

Mr Gove would do well to consider this quotation:

Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

Rabindranath Tagore

And many more here, by some great thinkers and even some politicians. Not one of them cites the purpose of education as being to gain the qualifications to earn a living.

Thanks for that reminder, Lilygran. I spent the better part of my career in further and adult education - from teaching 'general studies' to stroppy day-release motor mechanics to access courses for university entry: quite a contrast! I learnt a lot and hope that some of them did too. A plug for adult ed: it has been squeezed by spending cuts over many years by governments of different persuasions. The access courses for mature students who missed out on school were a lifeline for many of them but also gave them the opportunity to become more 'productive' members of society as well as more fulfilled individuals. There are reasons why people don't succeed in school - undiagnosed dyslexia is quite common; some have been confused about their sexuality and sometimes been bullied at school; others come from unsatisfactory home backgrounds. All were highly motivated to succeed and I'm glad to say that most of them did. There will always be those who fall through the net of school and adult education has provided and should continue to provide a safety net from which they can bounce up again. I could go on and tell you about the personal fulfilment that adult students gain from evening classes (which have also been squeezed), but I should think that a lot of you know about these from personal experience.

You are right, Lilygran. Somehow the idea that "A" Levels and university are a "must have" for everyone permeates secondary schools, and then students who can't make the standard are disillusioned. At an FE college, they would have the opportunity to combine academic and vocational (sorry!) subjects and succeed.

At my last school, which is an OFsTED "outstanding" comprehensive, albeit in a leafy lanes suburb, parents and students would have nothing to do with anything, post 16, that wasn't an "A" Level. In my time there, I saw many good ideas introduced and then fail through lack of support, and lots of students struggling with subjects they really didn't want to do. So a change of attitude and understanding is needed too.

Most of the political tinkering and interference is at secondary level. This is what gets the headlines - 16+ results. Trouble is, for the politicians, that it takes about 5 years for the changes to feed through to the results stage.
Primary relatively ignored and can you imagine if they tried to interfere with universities like they do with secondaries?
I was explaining to my 13 yr old friend last week that in uni there are no big exams at the end any more - it is all modular. But Gove wants to go back to the big exam at the end model. (she was wondering whether GCSEs would be 'stressful" - i begged to disagree )

In all the discussions about education policy in this country, FE colleges hardly ever get a mention! They are the genuinely comprehensive institutions, providing education and training from elementary to degree level and covering the whole range of academic and vocational ( yes, you're right Mice but it's a kind of shorthand) education. Schools get the headlines. I once attended a national conference where the then minister admitted total ignorance of FE. I suspect Govey is in the same position. All our policy makers think in terms of school, university. There is an educational system much wider than that!

I have always thought that education helped someone be prepared for life, not merely for that part of life which provided them with a living (useful though that is).

My eldest grandson read anthropology at Durham - not an obviously utilitarian subject, but at 29 he is a director of a large company of conference organisers. Some of my other grandchildren are taking/have taken/will take degrees in nursing, biomedical sciences, marine biology, law, computer studies and clinical psychology. Two others will enter the navies of Britain and New Zealand. (Big families are such a drag on the economy!)They all attended 'bog standard' comprehensive schools in Kent and Yorkshire. They enjoyed their time at school and have nothing but praise for the huge majority of their teachers. They took part in many creative and sporting activities and most of them also did voluntary work and took part-time jobs.

Historical and philosophical studies are amongst the top ten subjects with the highest rate of graduate employment. It appears some employers take a broader view of education.
However, if anybody wants a guaranteed job, they should attend The school of Pharmacy, which has a 100% graduate employment record. Universities specialising in teacher training also have a high rate of success in placing graduates in work.
Scottish universities come out very well from the statistics.
Of course, many people believe that attending university is not just about fitting yourself for employment but I am sure there are some people who would not agree!

In Germany vocational training in areas like engineering has had a much higher status.
I think it is a huge pity that Gove's education has not prepared him to evaluate data and evidence. His one source reference seems to be his own schooling which he obviously thinks was excellent.

I find the notion that vocational training should be for 'the less academically able' truly ridiculous.

Of course it all depends what is meant by vocation. Is it medicine, the law, engineering or horticulture?

It's this sheep and goats attitude which had bedevilled education in this country for generations. I can see no point in making the sort of sweeping generalisations that have been made up thread, but Gove's nonsense of a prescriptive and restrictive curriculum and structure imposed on schools, seems designed to return to the attitudes of a mythical yesteryear where a fact heavy diet and emphasis on competion rather than cooperation was designed to exclude rather than include, and siphon off the 'less academically able' to poorly paid work with poor prospects.

Just a few suggestions, Sel. How about learning to evaluate data, to come to decisions based on evidence, to be introduced to poetry, art and music and literature, to work in co-operation with others, to be able to their own research, to find their own creative talents or to see how politics works? I am sure others can suggest even more 'uses' for education. Do you not think these things could be worth teaching?

Some children will be lucky enough to have this kind of stimulation at home, but many will not. I am sure you are familiar with Hard Times and the utilitarian view of education. Most enlightened people have rejected the view that all school is for is to turn out 'drawers of water and hewers of wood'.
Of course it is necessary for children to have the necessary numeracy and literacy skills, not just for earning a living but for making the most of their personal development. Nobody is arguing against that - we are saying only that there are other purposes of education.

Perhaps you could tell us if you think employers have a responsibility to train their staff in the skills pertinent to their particular area?