In a letter to The Independent and The Daily Telegraph this week, a hundred education academics criticised Michael Gove’s controversial new curriculum proposals as an “endless list of spelling, facts and rules” that will prove “miserable for children". Left Foot Forward has looked at some of the changes to the school curriculum proposed by Michael Gove and the criticism they’ve received.
In a letter to The Independent and The Daily Telegraph this week, a hundred education academics criticised Michael Gove’s controversial new curriculum proposals as an “endless list of spelling, facts and rules” that will prove “miserable for children”.
But what was it they were actually criticising?
Left Foot Forward has looked at some of the changes to the school curriculum proposed by Michael Gove and the panning they’ve been subjected to by academics.
MATHS
By the age of seven the education secretary wants pupils to be able interpret simple graphs and know their two, five and ten time’s tables.
At nine students should be able to read years in Roman numerals as well as know their twelve times tables, and by the time pupils leave primary school they should be comfortable with fractions, decimals, multiplication and division.
Criticism
The policy has been criticised for its emphasis on rote learning which, according to leading academics, demands “too much, too soon” of pupils.
ENGLISH
Gove wants more emphasis on spelling, grammar and punctuation which he argues are the “solid foundations” of cognitive skills. From the age of nine he wants children to be able to recite poetry out loud.
Criticism
This “narrow” approach has been attacked by the hundred rebel academics because are worried it will “leave little space for other learning” such as “speaking, listening, drama and modern media”.
SCIENCE
By eleven the curriculum proposes children should fully understand the effects of drugs and gauge the importance of diet and exercise – something at present deemed appropriate only for secondary school pupils.
HISTORY
The teaching of history in the curriculum has been met with almost universal dubiety by academics. Gove wants history to taught as “our islands story” and founded on “how the British people shaped this nation and how Britain influenced the world”.
Pupils would learn the chronology of British history from the stone age right through to the study of influential enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith and John Locke (but it would exclude thinkers such as Voltaire and Rousseau) all the way through the two world wars and the modern era ending with Margaret Thatcher’s election victory in 1979.
Criticism
The idea has been slammed by academics as an Anglo-centric “patriotic stocking filler” that will result in “the dumbing down of teaching”.
LANGUAGES
Gove is reintroducing compulsory languages in schools after the Labour government ditched the policy in 2004. From the age of seven children will begin learning a language, selecting either French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Greek or Latin.
Criticism
There is broad consensus on reintroducing the learning of languages at a young age. Stephen Twigg, the Labour shadow education secretary, has recently backed the initiative.
What do you think? Are the academics right, or is Gove?
50 Responses to “The meaning of Gove”
John Froud
It’s misleading to say that “traditional methods worked in the past” … there has always been a substantial section of the population who are barely functional in numeracy and literacy – and a temptation to think that because you could, so could everyone else
Ash
I need to clear some of this up, as you’re making the *existing* primary school curriculum sound considerably more ‘dumbed down’ than it actually is. My wife is a primary school teacher (and Key Stage leader) and tells me:
“MATHS
By the age of seven the education secretary wants pupils to be able interpret simple graphs and know their two, five and ten time’s tables.”
This is already the case. Data handling (graphs, sets etc.) is a big part of the curriculum from age 5.
“At nine students should be able to read years in Roman numerals as well as know their twelve times tables”
Yes, this is new.
“by the time pupils leave primary school they should be comfortable with fractions, decimals, multiplication and division.”
This is already the case. Multiplication, division, simple fractions – year 2 (age 6/7) onwards. Decimals – Year 4 (8/9) onwards. Look at a year 6 (10/11) SATs paper – it’s surprisingly advanced.
“The policy has been criticised for its emphasis on rote learning which, according to leading academics, demands “too much, too soon” of pupils.”
Yes, it’s the *way* these things are supposed to be taught that’s the real, new issue. Though there are already concerns about the “too much, too soon” issue – whether children are able to consolidate their learning of the building blocks before racing on to the next thing.
“ENGLISH
Gove wants more emphasis on spelling, grammar and punctuation”
True.
“From the age of nine he wants children to be able to recite poetry out loud.”
This isn’t new in itself. It all comes into speaking and listening.
“SCIENCE
By eleven the curriculum proposes children should… gauge the importance of diet and exercise – something at present deemed appropriate only for secondary school pupils.”
Rubbish. There’s already a big emphasis on diet and exercise (in science, PE and PSHCE) right from the start of school.
“HISTORY
The teaching of history in the curriculum has been met with almost universal dubiety by academics. Gove wants history to be taught as “our islands story” and founded on “how the British people shaped this nation and how Britain influenced the world”.”
Yes, this is a significant change.
“LANGUAGES
Gove is reintroducing compulsory languages in schools after the Labour government ditched the policy in 2004. From the age of seven children will begin learning a language, selecting either French, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Greek or Latin.”
There was a big emphasis on teaching languages in primary schools from around 2007, and this was due to become compulsory from 2010. Gove pulled the plug and later claimed the credit for reintroducing this Labour policy.
On all this, the devil is in the detail. There are already high expectations of primary school pupils and I encourage anyone who doubts that to spend fifteen minutes looking at some recent SATs papers online. What’s happening is a shift from treating children as active, engaged learners with an ability to solve problems by applying their skills, to treating them as passive absorbers of facts.
Alex Higgins
A big point is being missed here in this discussion (apart from the History section where Gove is being clearly ridiculous and partisan). There is a reason why creating the top-down imposed re-organisation that Tories sometimes pretend they are against when in opposition is always fraught with argument. The number of genuinely useful skills and the list of knowledge that we consider important is very, very large. The amount of time pupils spend in school – which is a lot – is nonetheless pretty limited.
That means that decisions about what should and what shouldn’t be taught have to made somewhere. Which then brings us to whether Michael Gove and his friends, or any bunch of people working at the Department of Education, can really make those choices on behalf of millions of children. The only way to resolve endless change to the cirriculum is to hand decision-making power to teachers, parents and (oh, let’s go *crazy* here) children, what with them being the ones it is being done to.
Alex Higgins
Yep, and thanks for pointing all this out. The article above does not seem to understand what currently happens in primary schools. I’m a primary teacher and Ash is spot on.
Mr Reasonable
Which “left-wingers” are you referring to? Surely not New Labour?
Were the British so much better at inventing things than everybody else? I suppose Gove’s intention is to convince us that we were.
I simply do not remember going on strike at all when Blunkett was at education and I’m not sure that I know (or wish to know) what a “child sex lesson” is. ‘Sex education’ I have heard of.
I have taught in ‘bog standard comprehensives and found the staff far more committed to excellent teaching than the embittered gentlemen who liked wielding the cane at the grammar school I had the misfortune to attend. Trying to replicate that kind of mediocrity of experience for children through a return to so-called ‘traditional’ values is not only misguided, but cruel. Anyway, schools are not the hotbeds of radical Trotskyist activity that Gove and probably you believe them to be. Teachers rarely talk about politics and do their best to promote the kind of values in children that no-one would find controversial. Staffroom chat is mainly about food, football and house prices.
As for all that kids actually ‘learning stuff again’; Labour’s ‘failure’ (and I speak as no fan of that Labour party) sent more children to university, from a wider variety of backgrounds, than did the previous two Conservative administrations. (Of course, it still remains a moot point whether university is always the right place to send our children.)