Ed Balls,

It was the DfES/DFCS under Labour which took targets to a pseudo-science and issued all sorts of glossy folders on how to teach. OFSTED was tasked with making sure teachers were doing as they were told. There were also directives on what should be included in a 'good' lesson, even if they weren't relevant to the subject/lesson objective. Headteachers were even brainwashed to ensure that lessons followed a plan.

To be fair to Michael Wilshaw, he was prepared to stand up and say that the orthodoxy was rubbish and has been prepared to let teachers use their professional judgment, as long as they get results.

School finances were dictated by specific grants, so that headteachers were forced to work towards specific goals, whether or not they thought they were appropriate. It was a reaction to that approach which was responsible for the initial enthusiasm for academies.

Labour also oversaw the 'de-professionalism' of Ofsted. Many of the inspectors it employed through outsourcing companies weren't qualified teachers and had no experience in the phase of education they inspected. It became a tick box exercise with statistics being all-important. Strangely, for a Conservative government, OFSTED has now been brought back in house. My daughter's first job when she left university was to scrutinise current OFSTED inspectors' CVS. Any with no relevant teaching experience didn't make it to the next step, but it's frightening how many there were, because these people have sometimes caused a great deal of stress.

How did that work daphnedil ? Aren't OFSTED one step removed from ministerial control? I think they were doing their own thing back then - structure of a "good" lesson etc, though shalt have an objective written up at the start of every lesson and a recap at the end etc etc. etc Is that what you are referring to

I don't entirely agree with you, Jess. He didn't interfere with the structure of schools, but he did try to micro-manage classroom methodology via Ofsted.

Actually as education secretary he had a number of virtues. I remember it well as I was a chair of governors, in the front line as it were, the school being "in challenging circumstances" There had previously been a whole string of S of S for Ed who moved on very rapidly. He did not tinker and interfere all the time and schools that were trying to improve were supported. We were able to make steady progress. (He spent rather a lot on the graphics for various folders and things, but that is infinitely better than poking fingers in and tinkering. Then Gove swept in with his forced academisation which was an utter disaster for the school and for the kids.

Also, and this is very much off topic, but may be interesting to some - the abolition of social services departments, and combining of education and child protection came about as a direct result of Lord Laming's report into the death of Victoria Climbie. Sharon Shoesmith was not unique. As education had always been a far larger service than children's social work, it followed that many of the new children's services directors were from an education background, and that is still the case today. It has been a very steep learning curve for them, and some would say was a very dangerous development. Personally I think Lord Laming carried out a very good review but reached the wrong conclusions.

Gosh thatbags I have only just read your response to my post which I wrote in a bit of a hurry on Friday. I'm glad you found me 'comfortingly predictable'. Of course I have made errors of judgement and been wrong about important issues; in both my personal and professional life. Those things are the stuff of nightmares for social workers. That's why I respect senior managers like Sharon Shoesmith who was willing to support her staff and be accountable for the mistakes that were made. Ed Balls on the other hand misused the very great power he had to target individuals I a manner that was later declared unlawful.

Anyway, glad you enjoyed my predictability. Just as I enjoyed your predictably patronising response. And I did read the link by the way. I'm not in the habit of commenting on things I haven't read, believe it or not.

on, not of

dd, your post at 23:35:42 of Friday is good. I hadn't read it thoroughly enough till now.

Ann Widdecombe's post MP life has been interesting and varied and I love Michael Portillo's railway programmes

So politicians and ex politicians are entitled to a life outside of politics

With Seb Coe whatever you think of him as a politician, he was a successful athlete first and before this awful reality/celeb culture took over. He worked hard for his athletic success.

I admired Seb Coe as an athlete, he was a crap politician Daphne and Ed Balls is not a politician

Speak for yourself, rigby. I haven't forgotten Gove's behaviour after the referendum. Commenters are now saying he probably did Boris a favour—saved him from a humiliating leadership defeat. Whatever.... at least the better newspaper journalists (of all stripes) write good prose and if one reads enough of them one gets a fairly rounded picture of current politics.

I find it quite disturbing that people seem to be more influenced by politicians' performance on reality, talent or quiz shows than they are by their performance as politicians.

And I don't believe for one minute that Gove respects Balls ( or probably anyone else either) How quickly people are forgetting his pathetic behaviour after the referendum

Gove wrote it a) for the money and b) to irritate Osborne et al

@Anniebach

She deserved fair treatment, not a witch-hunt.

What exactly did she do that led to Baby P's death?

There are too many people who seem to think that heads must roll, when something like Baby P's murder happens, as though that changes anything. It makes people feel morally righteous, when most of them have never done anything in their lives to stop the suffering of a seriously abused child.

As it is, Cameron goaded Balls by blaming the Labour Party for it happening on their watch. Balls tried to deflect blame by scapegoating Haringey and Shoesmith. Over 50 children were murdered in the same year Baby P died, so why pick on this one murder? Why were the police and Great Ormond Street Hospital let off, when they were just as much to blame? It was an easy story for the Sun to sell papers. Even Rebekah Brooks admitted during the Levenson Enquiry that the Sun went over the top.

With reference to the op, I think Balls and Gove have a lot in common - hence the admiration.

It was started because the OP was amused by Gove's article and actually rather impressed that he wrote it about a serious political opponent (well, someone who had been anyhow). And part of the amusement was because it illustrated very nicely what is rarely seen on Gransnet political threads: respect for one's ideological opponents.

I don't have a telly so I haven't seen Ed Balls's dancing antics but I'll have to, obviously. Sounds like he's a good egg.

And Gove too, in spite of his politics!

PRINTMISS is that why you think this thread was started?

Anya brilliant post and you too dd

I hooe Ed gets to Blackpool

You would not think this thread started as a praise to Ed Balls, would you?

It was that terrible rag The Sun which led a witch hunt.

“BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS”, ran the front page headline of The Sun following the death of 17-month-old Peter Connelly, known as Baby P.

The paper was not only referring to Peter’s mother, Tracey Connelly, her boyfriend Steven Barker, and his brother, Jason Owen, all of whom had just been convicted of “causing or allowing” Peter’s death. It had decided the social workers at Haringey Council, who had been involved in the case, and their boss, Sharon Shoesmith, were also to blame.

Of course the social workers and Ms Shoesmith weren't to 'blame' and the campaign against them was an utter disgrace, typifying the worse kind of journalism. This said Ms Shoesmith did herself no favours by trying to repress the finding of an internal enquiry.

Much of the criticism of her then and since has been about the notion that she did not apologise, or was not apologetic enough; and that she, as the accountable director, should have taken responsibility. She says she apologised many times for the failure of safeguarding staff to prevent the death, but she will never apologise in a way that suggests she was responsible for his death. The judge in her court case, she says, in her book published just 2 months ago, pointed out that “public accountability does not mean that heads should roll”. If every children’s director resigned after a child homicide, there would be no one in post, she says. Accountability has to be realistic: “You cannot expect that social workers can prevent every death of every child. You have to remember that this is happening every week, not all of them known to social care.”

Daphne, the child died a horrific death, she was paid a salary as head of the department who were responsible for the child's safety , what did she deserve ?

@thatbags

I'm not suggesting that it was wrong to sack her. What I am saying is that there are legal procedures for sacking people and nobody is above the law. It's a very dangerous precedent for a politician to override the law.

If the law is to be ignored, who, in your opinion should decide how people should behave? The tabloids? Posters on granny sites? Vigilantes?

I still don't think she deserved the demonising by the press. Unfortunately, the tabloids love their hate figures and people jump on to bandwagons without knowing the facts. I sometimes think real life has become a soap.