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”
scousefrog
I would agree with Gove on some of the basics, but frankly there is nothing very new there. I agree very much with learning some poetry by heart as it can provide a child with pleasure and sometimes solace for life. The problem is not what basics you would aim for a child to acquire, but how you get there is it by rote learning or by understanding how you get there. It is also what else is a child expose to and learns to appreciate and criticise (music, art, sports, understanding of the environment, geography etc.)
As for languages: big yes to languages at 7. But HOW is the key. it must be fun, and it must be taught by people who know the language and the culture. (please no more “French days” with berets, stripy jumpers and onions!”) The language choice surely must include Arabic. Are Greek and Latin a joke? Great as an option for linguists or historians in secondary schools. As a primary school introduction to languages ? LOL!
But of course the most contentious is history. Yes to compulsory history until 16 and yes to a linear approach at some stage (earlier rather than later(?) which allows the learner to “peg” their knowledge somewhere on a time line and make relevant comparaisons but history is about far more than the British Isles and our “influence” on the world. Children need to know about great civilisations past and present and what they gave the world.
scousefrog
LOL!
OurSeaBea
The history section is ridiculous, partly because the chronology of the stone age is something that is constantly changing – the earliest human activity in Britain just keeps getting earlier, and the chronology of ‘periods’ isn’t really fixed, partly because learning a chronology does absolutely nothing to help somebody understand, and mainly because it just looks biased – where are the Tolpuddle Martyrs, for example?
OurSeaBee
That’s not actually an ad hominem attack because it doesn’t attempt to draw a logical conclusion from the point made about the person. It’s just an attack on the person. If he’d said “Gove looks like a right prick, so his ideas must be wrong,” it would have been an ad hominem attack.
Anthony Masters
I will focus on the Mathematics section. As Ash has pointed out below, Gove’s proposals are broadly what happens currently. Knowledge in mathematics is built as an inverted pyramid, so firm foundations are required for pupils before they progress to the new level. Concerns over the method of teaching has loud echoes of the ‘Math Wars’ in the United States, particularly with the denigration of rote learning. As an example, a lack of confidence with arithmetic will seriously harm a pupil’s ability to perform algebraic manipulations.
I remember that an algebraic theorist lecturer of mine pointed out that certain sections of advanced mathematics, such as Group Theory, could easily be taught to pupils of the age of 7, as it resembles a foreign language far more than arithmetic.