Teachers: Are Gove and Cameron listening?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

At least with the 11-plus children and parents had some idea of what was going on (though I certainly do not advocate that system), but with Gove's ill-considered policies, web have been plunged into complete chaos. he has yet to step foot in a LEA controlled school, and he's been Secretary of Chaos for 2 and a half years.

[teamsaint]

more is the pity :sadface:

and Salisbury.
Its a terrible system that does nobody any favours, except that it saves some affluent parents the cost of a private school.

[gurnemanz]

At least with the 11-plus children and parents had some idea of what was going on (though I certainly do not advocate that system), but with Gove's ill-considered policies, web have been plunged into complete chaos. he has yet to step foot in a LEA controlled school, and he's been Secretary of Chaos for 2 and a half years.

Dog's breakfast is a term that comes to mind. Our education "system" seems to be have been allowed to become an incoherent melange.

[DracoM]

And by setting schools in any particular area at each other's throats, and allowing / encouraging them to develop different templates as Gove has, he has set down the blueprint for the kind of fragmentation and incoherence that eventually fragments society. So, ten years down the line we shall reap endemic divisiveness and inherited oddly enough even more privilege, because what is happening will drive frantic middle classes ever further into the arms of the independent sector in an effort to escape the mayhem.

Always used to be said that the private sector flourished better under Labour because people feared state centralisation, but Gove has so transformed the bedrock of the 'system' that any Sec of State for Ed now has unprecedented and far, far more wide-ranging powers to change, institute and drive fragmentation and competition that none can say him / her nay.

I seriously think Cameron / Tories are so fixated on the economy and the PM is so far into Osborne's pocket that he has not truly kept his eyes on where his dangerously messianic Education Man is driving the nation.
I hope this is a jeremiad, but I fear we will reap the whirlwind on this. The flight FROM teaching alone is exceptionally worrying.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Reading this thread (which resembles a teachers' union congress after they've all had a couple of pints) I'm reminded of the truculence and aggression of previous large unions who believed they were in control rather than management or government. Think for example the dockers, car workers, printers, miners (1984) . . .. Didn't they all do well!

The question posed in the thread title asks if Gove/Cameron are listening; of course they're not, but then, are the teachers? DracoM makes some very interesting points (perhaps the first in the whole thread) about where we are now. If he's right, then perhaps we can see how government might remove the aggressive unionisation of teaching?

I wonder if the teachers here think they have the public on-side?

[Serial_Apologist]

Er - were Gove's measures included in the Tories' pre-election manifesto?

If not.....

[Serial_Apologist]

Reading this thread (which resembles a teachers' union congress after they've all had a couple of pints) I'm reminded of the truculence and aggression of previous large unions who believed they were in control rather than management or government. Think for example the dockers, car workers, printers, miners (1984) . . .. Didn't they all do well!

Yes - and as a consequence of "doing so well" we are now where the establishment wants us - completely at the mercy of their terms.

The question posed in the thread title asks if Gove/Cameron are listening; if course they're not, but then, are the teachers? DracoM makes some very interesting points (perhaps the first in the whole thread) about where we are now. If he's right, then perhaps we can see how government might remove the aggressive unionisation of teaching?

I wonder if the teachers here think they have the public on-side?

By "aggressive" I take it you mean standing up effectively to their membership's interests.

[eighthobstruction]

And by setting schools in any particular area at each other's throats, and allowing / encouraging them to develop different templates as Gove has, he has set down the blueprint for the kind of fragmentation and incoherence that eventually fragments society. So, ten years down the line we shall reap endemic divisiveness and inherited oddly enough even more privilege, because what is happening will drive frantic middle classes ever further into the arms of the independent sector in an effort to escape the mayhem.

Always used to be said that the private sector flourished better under Labour because people feared state centralisation, but Gove has so transformed the bedrock of the 'system' that any Sec of State for Ed now has unprecedented and far, far more wide-ranging powers to change, institute and drive fragmentation and competition that none can say him / her nay.

I seriously think Cameron / Tories are so fixated on the economy and the PM is so far into Osborne's pocket that he has not truly kept his eyes on where his dangerously messianic Education Man is driving the nation.
I hope this is a jeremiad, but I fear we will reap the whirlwind on this. The flight FROM teaching alone is exceptionally worrying.

I think what you say is likely to happen in the NHS and Social Services as regards fragmentation , divisiveness, and incoherence....Big Society was a myth (and then an Olympic myth)....all part of the dialectic....

AICalls....>>> for example the dockers, car workers, printers, miners (1984) <<<<....the teachers are in a completely different situation, they are not being attacked by foriegn coal, other energy sources, computerisation, foriegn competition etc .... though they are being attacked by IDEOLOGY....

[jean]

And by setting schools in any particular area at each other's throats, and allowing / encouraging them to develop different templates as Gove has, he has set down the blueprint for the kind of fragmentation and incoherence that eventually fragments society...

And by the lack of transparency in what's actually going on, it's that much more difficult for schools that come off worst to avoid the usual charge that it's all the fault of the teachers.

[MrGongGong]

I spoke with the head of music at a large secondary school in East Anglia this morning who tells me that when he leaves at the end of this academic year the school will stop having a music department all together as it's not a "priority" ........... I don't know whether to laugh, cry or to rage ? There's no point at all in expecting any of our politicians to do anything about this either :sadface:

[amateur51]

Reading this thread (which resembles a teachers' union congress after they've all had a couple of pints) I'm reminded of the truculence and aggression of previous large unions who believed they were in control rather than management or government. Think for example the dockers, car workers, printers, miners (1984) . . .. Didn't they all do well!

The question posed in the thread title asks if Gove/Cameron are listening; of course they're not, but then, are the teachers? DracoM makes some very interesting points (perhaps the first in the whole thread) about where we are now. If he's right, then perhaps we can see how government might remove the aggressive unionisation of teaching?

I wonder if the teachers here think they have the public on-side?

Do you ever talk with teachers and listen AIC?

[jean]

Its a terrible system that does nobody any favours, except that it saves some affluent parents the cost of a private school.

I taught for a long time in one of the surviving grammar schools listed in the wiki article linked to above, in an authority otherwise non-selective.

(I'm not proud of that, but opportunities for teaching Latin in comprehensive schools are sadly limited.)

Not only did many girls have brothers at public school, but sometimes the parents, having saved all that money, would send them off to Westminster for the Sixth form.

Which used to infuriate the headmistress.

[teamsaint]

Odd how the union bashers, those people who wish to destroy the terms and conditions of ordinary people, tend to be very quiet about the power of the BMA. No doubt their turn will come when everybody else has been reduced to fighting for the least bad wages.

Divide and rule is very powerful.

What is aggressive unionisation? A once in a blue moon strike when pay and pensions are under threat?
Aggressive? A term more appropriately saved for the wreckers in Whitehall .
Most teachers work extremely hard under often very difficult conditions.

[teamsaint]

I taught for a long time in one of the surviving grammar schools listed in the wiki article linked to above, in an authority otherwise non-selective.

(I'm not proud of that, but opportunities for teaching Latin in comprehensive schools are sadly limited.)

Not only did many girls have brothers at public school, but sometimes the parents, having saved all that money, would send them off to Westminster for the Sixth form.

Which used to infuriate the headmistress.

some interesting thoughts there.
On the other side of the coin there is a school of thought that some affluent parents have, quite wrong in my mind, that they have more chance of getting their kids into "elite" universities if they are at a state 6th form. Hence in places like Winchester there is a bit of a post 16 drift towards State 6th forms.


You have to do what you have to do, Jean. We all have to take pragmatic decisions I guess. I don't approve of the content of a lot of the books I sell....

[MrGongGong]

There is so much "received wisdom" about education that I have found that people believe all sorts of nonsense (and some even become secretary of state :yikes:)
The problem is that most people have one experience , as a pupil and seem to base everything on that OR what a friend of a friend says etc

I have found many people (in here sometimes) who will be utterly convinced that (for example) "there is no classical music on the A level music syllabus" and even when you show them where it is will STILL believe that it's not there.

Most teachers work extremely hard under often very difficult conditions

:ok: