[Closed] What is it about Michael Gove...

on AA you don't spoon feed your students do you?

i prefer that they dont write poorly thought out bollocks with no evidence or even suggestions in the way of back up either. Come on can YOU tell me how you would close the private-state gap with no additional investment or will you just keep wriggling?

If you're a motivated teacher - passionate about your subject, passionate about being in the classroom - then you don't need relicensing to force you to update your skills.

i prefer that they dont write poorly thought out bollocks with no evidence or even suggestions in the way of back up either.

Hey, me too! Perhaps there's not such a difference between state and independent schools after all 🙂

I've heard that before on here pondo....

anagallis_arvensis - Member
i prefer that they dont write poorly thought out bollocks with no evidence

+1 fully agree.

Which is why I am ignoring the question that you keep putting into my mouth. It's written poorly with no evidence. I have stated and repeated that [u]money does not guarantee academic success[/u], and that there are [u]more important factors involved.[/u] This has been agreed by other posters and outside evidence (OECD, PISA tests, the NUT etc). That is different from the point that you seem to suggesting that I am making. So I will keep wriggling with these august bodies quoted above in the meantime. 😉

One of my favourite reminders is - read the question. Answer it, not the one you would like it to be, or think that it is.

pondo - Member
I've heard that before on here pondo....

And what was your answer then?

Avoid those who think that is the answer. The overriding message given at 6th form parents evening this Saturday (shucks) was that the key factor determining the ability to achieve the top grades was the amount of [u]independent reading. [/u]

What are these more important factors and how do we improve on them?

The overriding message given at 6th form parents evening this Saturday (shucks) was that the key factor determining the ability to achieve the top grades was the amount of independent reading.

That's all the problems solved, then. Somebody needs to tell state schools about this, because it's probably never occurred to them before.

I am sure it has. That's why there are many very good ones. Any good teacher knows that whatever sector they teach in. And it's essentially free and available to all.

Jesus you really are floundering now. So I spread the word to parents that sixth formers should read a bit and it'll all be good. What about the parents who dont come to parents evenings or cant speak english of which I have loads?

it's essentially free and available to all

[url= http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/12/library-campaigners-1000-closures-2016 ]It's a shame libraries are closing.[/url]

The overriding message given at [i]independent school's[/i] 6th form parents evening this Saturday (shucks) was that the key factor determining the ability [i]of students at an independent school with small class sizes[/i] to achieve the top grades was the amount of independent reading.

You missed out some detail, so I added it back in.

Floundering me? 😀

Several problems - reading does not make "it all good" but equally....

A [u]little bit [u] doesn't count. To hit the highest marks and achieve entry to the top Unis you need to read A LOT. There is little getting away from that. If nothing else that is the best prep for when you are there.

Yes, if parents show no interest, that is a major problem. Indeed as we have mostly agreed this, not money, is probably the single biggest issue.

It is a great shame that libraries are closing indeed.

Plenty of pupils in small classes who don't work hard and don't read do not succeed so the edit didn't really help. But thanks anyway.

Which is why I am ignoring the question that you keep putting into my mouth. It's written poorly with no evidence. I have stated and repeated that money does not guarantee academic success, and that there are more important factors involved.

Err correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that it was the answer to a question that required the evidence, not the question.

You should spend a day at my school and then go and spend a day at a tough school, then maybe you would stop posting such laughable drivel. So how do we improve outcomes for those from difficult homes?

I will then. You are wrong. 😉 or at least talking at cross purposes. As for evidence I have suggested the sources but prefer not to spoon feed. 😉

AA was attempting to pick me up on something that I didn't say, Since the repeated question was based on a false premise, I chose to ignore it.

Anyway lunch and football match now.....

anagallis_arvensis - Member
You should spend a day at my school and then go and spend a day at a tough school, then maybe you would stop posting such laughable drivel.

A very good idea for everyone. Thanks. Perhaps even the Secretary of State and his shadow?

It is a great shame that libraries are closing indeed.

We seem to get on OK without a town crier too.

[img] [/img]

5thElefant - Member
It is a great shame that libraries are closing indeed.

Why? They're obsolete.

Ill explain this to my son on Saturday - we cant go down to the library this weekend to get some more books and see whats new on their discovery wall instead we will be staying at home and watching TV

and tell all the people there using the computers to get off and leave

in fact your comment gets bonus ignorance points as its National Library Day this weekend and we were planning to go and meet the Gruffalo
http://www.hounslow.info/libraries/promotions/national-libraries-day/

Really? So how about making it much easier for heads to sack poor performing teachers and introducing rigorous and regular testing to teachers.

Would that encourage employers to take some responsibility in training their staff to do the job instead of offloading all costs and responsibility to the state? Like I said right wingers whinge about state spending and entitlement, but by god do they expect all their needs to be met.

Why? They're obsolete.

We seem to get on OK without a town crier too.

MSP. - these are proposals from the Labour Party. Originally from Ed Balls and more recently from Tristram Hunt. These are expectations from two of the most senior Labour Party politicians and from two people who have their eyes on the top job. So not just RW then is it?

Apparently the Labour Party would argue yes to your first question and indeed Hunt argues that those who disagree shouldn't be in the profession at all.

I never mentioned those proposals, or anything about them when describing right wing entitlement, I don't know why you think they had any relevance in replying to my post on page 4, someone else might describe them as a straw man.

5thElefant - Member

It is a great shame that libraries are closing indeed.

Why? They're obsolete.

Another classic piece of moronic IDS-esque, utterly disjointed thinking so beloved of this administration. Appropriate when this thread was originally started about idiotically ideological tory ministers with an inflated idea of their own place, yet a fragile grasp of their actual brief

So at the same time as you've got the bald, god-bothering, military reject half-wit saying that from now on the new Universal Credit will be done entirely online (and it seems to going as brilliantly well as we've come to expect from big government IT projects), then what else should we do….?

Hmmmmmm … oh, oh, oh… I know…. We'll close down all the places where people, say from poorer backgrounds, or the elderly, who won't have internet connections at home, might be able to go for this valuable public access. We'll shut all the libraries

Genius!!!! 🙄

these are proposals from the Labour Party. Originally from Ed Balls and more recently from Tristram Hunt. These are expectations from two of the most senior Labour Party politicians and from two people who have their eyes on the top job. So not just RW then is it?

You're assuming Tristram Hunt and Ed Balls aren't right wing...

miketually - Member
You're assuming Tristram Hunt and Ed Balls aren't right wing...

😀 but behind that is a serious point, which a lot of the arguments that like to portray a kind of RW/ideological bias towards all this are (IMO) unhelpful.

There is a strong central ground that has been calling for reforms and improvements in education for some period. This is nothing to do with ideology, it is pragmatism based on need. MSP can suggest that it's RW who argue for this, I prefer to see it "as most sensible people." Step away from Gove for one minute and look at where much of the current ideas started eg academies, free schools etc.

One of the central players was Andrew Adonis, the guy who put the flesh in labour'a education, education, education idea. Gove and possibly Hunt in time will merely be continuing a theme that started under Blair after the catastrophe of the late 20c education policies. So what is behind all of this? To quote Adonis:

As soon as I started in No. 10, I focused on one objective above all: how to reinvent the comprehensive school. Across much of England comprehensives were palpably and seriously failing. I regarded this not only as an educational crisis, but a social and economic crisis too, since the poor standard of education and socialisation among school leavers was so obviously at the heart of England’s problems at large. I saw failing comprehensive schools, many hundreds of them, as a cancer at the heart of English society. Looking back, this wasn’t an exaggeration. The typical sixteen-year-old in the 1990s was leaving a comprehensive with two or three GCSEs, and likely as not these didn’t include English and maths.

He continues...

The first half of this book tells the story of my efforts at education reform in the decade after 1998. It is largely about the evolution of academies, the new type of all-ability independent state school, with dynamic independent sponsors taking charge of their management, which the Blair government introduced to replace failing comprehensives, and which are continuing to develop under David Cameron’s coalition government.

And for the future....

England today has a part-reformed education system. It is urgent that all underperforming schools, primary as well as secondary, become academies, and I set out the case and a plan for this in Chapter 10. I support free schools, which are simply academies without a predecessor state school, and which have been central to the academy policy from the outset, and I make the case for these too as a means of tackling disadvantage, providing choice and boosting innovation.

Academies and free schools are only part of the further reform needed to build world-class schools nationwide. Education in England is still far too weak an engine of social mobility, skills and citizenship. In order to build a genuine one-nation society without the entrenched class divisions and poverty of the past, the chasm between private and state education – the elite and the mass – must be bridged....

....England needs to be up there with the leading nations of Europe and Asia in developing a ‘90 per cent’ education system: schools where at least 90 per cent of sixteen-year-olds reach a basic GCSE standard, wherever they live, whatever their background, in place of the ‘60 per cent’ education system of today. All secondary schools should have sixth forms and make academic and technical education beyond GCSE a core part of their mission. I suggest a new A-level Baccalaureate (A-Bacc), embracing the best of the International Baccalaureate (IB) and assessing a wider range of subjects and skills than existing A-levels for those on track to higher education. I also suggest a new ‘Technical Baccalaureate’ (Tech Bacc) for those not proposing to go – or go straight – to university, combining essential literacy and numeracy standards with technical qualifications, and assessed work experience, leading directly into work or apprenticeships, or to higher technical education.

So not much of what Gove preaches is new nor is it confined to the Tories. In fact, you might want to accuse him of plagiarism. So MSP both major parties "expect their needs to be met." And frankly, whether the specific policies are right or wrong, they should be applauded for it. Education is to important to be left as it is.

Thats a lot of words just to say sixth formers should read more. WTF does any of it mean and how does it help? Its all just pissing in the wind unless more good teachers can be trained and crucially retained.

It is the background to what is going on now. And it doesn't mention "reading more" anywhere. What is shows is a period of almost 15 years where there has been x-party consensus on the need for change and similar policies advocated to achieve the outcomes. So to isolate what is going on today from this and pretend that it is a one-party process or confined to RWers, while funny, is simple inaccurate.

Agree on the training 100%. And the NUTs response to Hunts proposals if labour get into power? "Objection".

NUT aare a trade union. You get that, right?

Really? No missed that obviously. So safe to assume that they would want to work in the interests of their members then?

Given that Hunt is pretty unequivocal in his views (as much as Gove) we can foresee similar fights between the NUT and labour in the future.

( are they not a Trades Union - you seem to be a stickler for accuracy?)

There is a strong central ground that has been calling for reforms and improvements in education for some period. This is nothing to do with ideology, it is pragmatism based on need. MSP can suggest that it's RW who argue for this, I prefer to see it "as most sensible people." Step away from Gove for one minute and look at where much of the current ideas started eg academies, free schools etc.

No that's not what I suggested at all, even though I have corrected you twice you still try to claim the same thing, I can only assume your education was blighted by a particularly bad English teacher.

I would however argue that there is a strong central ground that think education is being reformed to death, and that more ideological reforms being piled on top of the already mountainous reforms already overloading education is the last thing it needs.