Justine Greening/ Continuity Gove

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's even worse than that, Robert Peal's behind it. Do you know him, Bored?

Here's a good indication of Peal's standards. A very sympathetic review of his book from another "teacher blogger". Look at the history of education that emerges from it.

http://www.learningspy.co.uk/feature...-worse-review/

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hahey!

Political Scrapbook have run with my tip, and done a good job.

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2018/...es/#more-70491

[johnr]

Hahey!

Political Scrapbook have run with my tip, and done a good job.

https://politicalscrapbook.net/2018/...es/#more-70491

Congrats. I've also used it in a tweet, fwiw.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Cheers, John.

Thinking about it now, if you were making so much of teacher training being poor, like Gove did, wouldn't you have launched something like this as a priority, with full government backing?

Having a pal launch a course with BPP starting 7 years after you came to power is pretty laughable really.

[johnr]

Indeed. It's still astonishing how it got this far though.

I must work with hundreds of teachers a year; it's remarkable how a) many of the older ones are getting out (inc. Ms johnr), exhausted, and b) how many of the younger ones know they'll only be in it for a few years.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Wales has some problems with retention and recruitment too. Most people would agree that Welsh policy is better than England, but diverging from England brings its own problems. In terms of career opportunities, it makes sense to get yourself into the much larger system.

Anybody telling you Welsh MPs shouldn't vote on "English" matters is talking rubbish. I don't know how far Welsh MPs keep up on these English matters but they need to.

[Bored Of Education]

Congrats. I've also used it in a tweet, fwiw.

Hey, what am I, chopped liver? Where are my congrats from my Secret Teacher piece? I didn't even get paid for that

[Gerontophile]

And, it's now not exactly secret.

[johnr]

Hey, what am I, chopped liver? Where are my congrats from my Secret Teacher piece? I didn't even get paid for that

Having not had the best education in logic and deduction, I didn't even get that that was you from the clue.

Congrats.

Though they should pay you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Bored, I never knew! It's a great column.

[Bored Of Education]

Thank you. Typically, I tried to be modest but got pissed off with lack of recognition. I did not particularly want to be secret either

[Moonlight Shadow]

Blimey, another media star on WSC!!

[johnr]

Bored, I never knew! It's a great column.

Actually, it's not a great column; it appears to advocate playing Status Quo to young people. This is not acceptable.

Forget the boring rigidity of the times tables and the Quo's 4/4, get them into fractions by playing Apocalypse in 9/8...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha.


I gather Nick Gibb had a problem with times tables on Good Morning Britain today.

https://twitter.com/GMB/status/963670232886804480

[Bored Of Education]

That's all bullshit, isn't it? On the one hand, you have people complaining that we shouldn't be teaching our children times tables by rote. Children need to know their multiplication facts just as much as their number bonds. Perhaps not to 12 - that’s a Govian throwback. Unfortunately, it usually involves learning by rote as well as learning patterns of times tables. I have seen people saying that children don’t need to know their times tables facts because they have calculators which is like saying they don’t need to learn their spellings because they have access to dictionaries. It slows down the mastery of the foundation skills on which they will progress much much further.

However, where this move is wrong is that we already test kids on their times tables (as well as their spellings) every week. It takes 5 minutes to do and 5 minutes to mark. There is no stress for teachers and very little for children- most don’t mind it, a fair few actively enjoy it and there are measures in place for children that don’t do well in tests or who are anxious. What we don’t need is - like the phonics screening - another central database of testing. Once more, this is a case of mistrust of teachers’ professional judgement

[ChrisJ]

That's all bullshit, isn't it? On the one hand, you have people complaining that we shouldn't be teaching our children times tables by rote. Children need to know their multiplication facts just as much as their number bonds. Perhaps not to 12 - that’s a Govian throwback. Unfortunately, it usually involves learning by rote as well as learning patterns of times tables. I have seen people saying that children don’t need to know their times tables facts because they have calculators which is like saying they don’t need to learn their spellings because they have access to dictionaries. It slows down the mastery of the foundation skills on which they will progress much much further.

However, where this move is wrong is that we already test kids on their times tables (as well as their spellings) every week. It takes 5 minutes to do and 5 minutes to mark. There is no stress for teachers and very little for children- most don’t mind it, a fair few actively enjoy it and there are measures in place for children that don’t do well in tests or who are anxious. What we don’t need is - like the phonics screening - another central database of testing. Once more, this is a case of mistrust of teachers’ professional judgement

Nicely put.

I've lost count of the conversations which go like this:

Parent - Of course you teachers don't agree with the SATs tests do you?

Me - I've no problem with testing that's standardised at a national level. It's the way the cunts at the DfE abuse the data that boils my piss.*

*Rough paraphrase.

[Bored Of Education]

I'm the same with the National Curriculum. I have no problem with a national curriculum. Any teacher should be able to add their own personal touches to it and it cuts down hugely on planning. What I would like is a National Curriculum that is evidence-based, planned by teacher and education academics and that stays the same for longer then four years.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Labour came up with something fairly teacher-friendly for History, I think. Fairly brief, with big themes for teachers to work on with some freedom. Cue a tirade of bullshit about how it was "hostile to knowledge".

You might think that you need knowledge to deal with these themes properly. And you'd be right.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Believe it or not, one of the people who called out the bullshit most eloquently was a history teacher working at Toby Young's school.

God only knows what curriculum Young came up with. Wonder if it was very similar to the one Gove produced?

[Bored Of Education]

I don't mind very specific plans scheduled into specific weeks with all the appropriate resources mapped out at national level. As I say, as long as it is evidence-based, researched and planned by teachers and, preferably, education academics, I don't feel like I want to reinvent the wheel and I have studied other education systems both in the UK and internationally more than most UK teachers. Any teacher would be able to bring their own personality into the pedagogical and pastoral elements of the classroom.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's a fascinating debate, when people like Gove aren't involved in it.

[Bored Of Education]

What is the country where the curriculum is followed so slavishly (possibly too negative a word) that, in any school across the country, the same lesson is being taught at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if Cuba does it but I think it may be France. It's really not a bad idea - especially for kids that move schools mid-year.

[Tubby Isaacs]

France used to be the one that was said about, certainly. Don't know if people or places that like uniformity ever manage it, mind.

[Fussbudget]

I don't know what it's like these days but certainly when I was a pupil/student the French curriculum was super prescriptive and detailed. I've never had a problem with that as it makes a fair bit of sense to teach the same thing to all students nationwide if you're going to have national exams/benchmarks, and as Bored says it makes it easy for kids (or teachers) who switch schools.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's interesting.

As a non-parent, I've noticed parents can be very cautious about changing schools over here.

The French system would require a great deal of confidence in the people setting the curriculum, which we don't always have. I think I'd want to avoid it because of the aforementioned Mr Gove's likely influence. He actually produced a mysterious curriculum for history once, maybe written by the Campaign for Real Education on the quiet, which was quite a hoot. It disappeared without trace.