Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Gove - school's out
Gove has been moved out of the education portfolio and replaced with Nicky Morgan.
Yet to see what Ms Morgan will be like but one hopes there will be less turmoil for schools with so many systems currently being changed beyond recognition. Cameron really is wielding that axe ...
Goodbye Gove ... won't be missing you at all 
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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So are you or aren't you the same Neil O'Shea who was Tory candidate for Noel Park? If so please add this information to your HoL personal page. Don't be embarrassed.
Out of interest, have you read the Henry Stewart's piece I linked to? When Claire Kober and her chums distort facts to pretend something is true which they'd like to be true, wouldn't you strongly object? I do.
Why shouldn't the same test be applied to Mr Gove?
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Permalink Reply by dawnage on
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"Mr Gove had a good record of improving results for pupils."
Evidence, please. As someone who works in education and therefore analyses this sort of thing day-in, day-out, I would like to see such a vague assertion supported with quantifiable evidence.
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Permalink Reply by Neil on
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You work in education but have not seen evidence from Ofsted that results have improved thanks to Mr Gove's policies?
Have you heard of league tables and rising pass rates for English and Maths? Have you heard of many schools being turned around from failure to success?
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that results have improved thanks to Mr Gove's policies
Prove a correlation. In my experience, absolutely everything that has led to improvements has resulted from things in place when he took office. The changes that he has implemented (the new GCSE curriculum, for example) have yet to have any meaningful results attributed.
Additionally, I would be sceptical of Ofsted's 'evidence'. That organisation has been implicated in some very rum inspections where previously successful schools are suddenly found to have such serious weaknesses that they can only be saved by private companies (usually those with close links to the Conservative Party, by huge coincidence) taking them over.
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Coursework has been replaced by controlled assessments for quite a few years: these do produce honest results. Of course, there was some plagiarism with the old coursework but, frankly, it was pretty easy to spot this: inevitably, I would find versions of the suspect essays on the internet or I would be able to question offending students about why the essay they had submitted bore only a shaky connection to the question I had designed for them to answer.
However, that only presents the most negative views of coursework and its integrity. Over the years, GCSE students I taught were able to present me with absolutely fantastic pieces that stretched far beyond what could be produced during the limited time of a classroom controlled assessment. I was delighted by individual research and the crafting of analysis - more akin to work produced by undergraduates than 15 year olds. Coursework gave that scope to intelligent, committed students and helped to prepare them for university dissertations brilliantly.
The greatest problem with examination-only assessment is that it bears little relation to the working life for which we are meant to prepare students. Performance is not managed in pressurised, examined environments. Any tasks workers have to produce are done on computers, with the easy ability to edit: assessing people on how they handwrite analysis over a stretch of two hours is artificial and antiquated.
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Coursework and continuous assessments are exactly the same
No. No, they're not. I am surprised that someone of the tremendous experience you claim does not know the difference. Maybe you left teaching quite a while ago. Or maybe you have forgotten details from the job - understandable if you're not doing it.
As for the rest of what you say, your denial that poor background children do not produce outstanding assessments demonstrates a very limited view of students: my 'poor' students do, often. Possibly you were not a very good teacher and therefore could not actually elicit the excellence you claim from your students.
Yes, writing by hand for two hours at a stretch is antiquated: I am struggling to think of a single job where it is required and is a measure of success. And, yes, I am very, very glad that I do not have to share a staffroom with someone of your views - happily, such limited perspectives (and negative views of persecuting teachers and failing students) have pretty much died out in the Outstanding comprehensive in which I teach. I am unsurprised that you left teaching if you think that of your colleagues and students - and think that it's for the best.
Anyway, while your good wishes are something of a kind gesture, they are really not needed: my job is going very successfully, thank you, whether you believe me to be illusioned or not.
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Mr O'Shea, haven't you heard about schools turned round from failure to success long before Mr Gove became Minister?
I was appointed as a Governor of a primary school put in "special measures" when Gillian Shephard was the (Tory) Education Secretary in John Major's Government. The same happened with another Haringey school. Bernie Grant MP arranged for a meeting with me and a governor from the other school with David Blunkett when he was Shadow Education Secretary.
Mr Blunkett welcomed us with a smile ("It's nice to see you") but told told us very bluntly that he was not going to condone failing schools. Nor did he do so when Labour won the election two years later. (Both schools were "turned round", and became and still are successful.)
OFSTED demanded an Action Plan. Which they monitored. We received regular visits from Department for Education (DfE) Inspectors (HMI). Both OFSTED and the HMI made it clear that they were there to monitor and support and - above all - ensure that the headteacher and staff; governors; and Haringey Education Service did the job of raising educational standards.
It is a monstrous lie to say that people working hard as governors, parents, heads and other staff, to improve local community (State) schools are all "Marxists" or "siding with the Marxists". That they are "Enemies of Promise" if they question or challenge the notion of Academies and Free Schools as panaceas. How that makes them: "a set of politically motivated individuals who have been actively trying to prevent millions of our poorest children getting the education they need." ( Michael Gove)
One of the really sickening things about Mr Gove and his tenure as Minister is how this vital debate has become simply propaganda and insult. How statistics have become "damn lies". And how a Government inspired culture of fear and bullying has eaten into the soul of people working in schools.
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There was this Chancellor many decades ago who decided that all other auto models should be replaced by his People's Car. Six years later only a handful had reached production, not even 4,000. None of the ordinary Volk whom he had persuaded to save up and commit to his ZANIness ever got their hands on one of his wagens. But The Times and most papers praised him in those early years. He was one of the few Leaders of the era to leave a legacy. Standards in heavy industry rose because his people were instructed to hit demanding targets. He got the trains to run on time. When he cried, little children died in the streets. His ungrateful people failed to reappoint him to his old job though he led his party to the end.
[Shut up, Godwin!]
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The man and his friends are remembered.
On 18 July 2014 Mr Gerard Kelly posted on Twitter his opinion that "Julie Davies has probably been the biggest impediment to ed[ucation] in Haringey since Herman Goering". He explained that this referred to the bombs dropped on Haringey by the German airforce during the Second World War. To which in a further tweet, Mr Kelly added that Goerring: "Bombed quite a few of the schs, tho arguably did less damage than Julie". In case this wasn't clear, in another tweet he added: "Approx 500 bombs were dropped on Haringey in Blitz and I reckon 5 schs were badly affected. Do you think JD disrupted more or fewer?".
Julie Davies, is elected by NUT teachers as Secretary of Haringey National Union of Teachers.(N.U.T.)
Hermann Goering was a founder of the Nazi Gestapo and Head of the Luftwaffe. Nazi airforce.)
Mr Kelly, a journalist, was one of the members of Claire Kober's Education Commission. He also defended his remarks by referring to his right of free speech.
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Has anyone read 'Everything I know about Teaching' by the man himself. It's got lots of reviews on Amazon
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