The Michael Gove File

[spanglechick]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but we only have the independent article to go on so far...?

The ebacc six have been part of league tables for a couple of years now, but are roundly ignored. Parents don't ask about the stats, universities and sixth form colleges don't care, RAISE doesn't focus on them... The only game in town is the five including eng and maths stats. Perhaps with a fluctuating trend to and from cva.

Had gove succeeded, these new qualifications would've been here to stay, and arts education would never have recovered. This way, the bizarre cluster of six deserving special attention will continue to be irrelevant, and when he goes, can disappear altogether.

 

[elbows]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but we only have the independent article to go on so far...?

You were quite possibly right when you wrote that but not any more...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/feb/07/government-denies-u-turn-gcse-replacement

The government insists its sudden abandonment of plans to scrap the GCSE, described by Labour as a humiliating U-turn, amounts to little more than a "tweak" to its programme and that the bulk of changes to post-16 exams will still be delivered.

Michael Gove is to formally announce to the Commons on Thursday morning that he has dropped the idea of replacing GCSEs with an English Baccalaureate Certificate (EBC), a scheme announced only in September as one of the education secretary's flagship policies for schools.

The reversal is understood to have been prompted by opposition from the Liberal Democrats and concerns raised by both the exams watchdog, Ofqual, and the influential education select committee, as well as fears that a plan to allow only one exam board per subject in the EBC could bring legal challenges.

 

[ayatollah]

All Gramsci's fault, obviously.

I so much want Gove to take over from Dave as leader of the Tories. His combination of boundless egotism, profound nerkishness, in-the-back-pocket-of-Murdoch corruption, and fundamental insane incompetence could only serve to bring that lovely day of Madame Guillotine MUCH closer. Anything other than being in charge of Education would be an improvement for teachers and pupils obviously. I think Gove should be in charge of Defence - a department so fundamentally corrupt and fucked up that Gove's madness would make no difference at all! (He could change the plans for those ludicrously expensive white elephant aircraft carriers and their equally ludicrous jet fighters yet AGAIN - and cost us all yet more £billions - with no chance whatsoever of any UK operational carrier force available until about 2030. Fortunately that wouldn't matter a jot to our national security - unless we decide to take part in a naval battle with China ....whereas fucking up our children's educations to please his ignorant foibles really does matter.)

 

[Balbi]

A tweak that jeopardises the future of a generation. Jesus fucking christ.

 

[Balbi]

he doesn't want to make 'the best the enemy of the good'...eh? Implying the idea is right, but everyone else is wrong.

 

[yardbird]

Is it me or is all this wordy gobbledy goop?

 

[ViolentPanda]

All Gramsci's fault, obviously.

I so much want Gove to take over from Dave as leader of the Tories. His combination of boundless egotism, profound nerkishness, in-the-back-pocket-of-Murdoch corruption, and fundamental insane incompetence could only serve to bring that lovely day of Madame Guillotine MUCH closer. Anything other than being in charge of Education would be an improvement for teachers and pupils obviously. I think Gove should be in charge of Defence - a department so fundamentally corrupt and fucked up that Gove's madness would make no difference at all! (He could change the plans for those ludicrously expensive white elephant aircraft carriers and their equally ludicrous jet fighters yet AGAIN - and cost us all yet more £billions - with no chance whatsoever of any UK operational carrier force available until about 2030. Fortunately that wouldn't matter a jot to our national security - unless we decide to take part in a naval battle with China ....whereas fucking up our children's educations to please his ignorant foibles really does matter.)

I'd like to know why anyone thought making a traffic cone-hurling yobbo Sec of State for Education was a good idea. Fucking great example he sets for all those young minds! "You too can be like me if you steal cones then chuck 'em off a viaduct without a care for the damage they do!".

 

[ViolentPanda]

Is it me or is all this wordy gobbledy goop?

It's not just you!

 

[marty21]

Gove in the shit -

As far as I can tell he still wants to introduce exam based GCSEs , not sure what to think about that - my O'levels were exam based only, my A Levels were exam based only, even my degree was exam based, I had to pass my first year in order to continue - and at the end my degree was based on the 8 finals I took

 

[Plumdaff]

Anecdotally, I am a natural exam taker - great short term memory, good crammer - and I thank goodness that some of my GCSEs were modular in nature as much as I hated them at the time without that I think I would have really struggled with the level of forward planning and self-organisation that was required at university in many courses (eg. dissertations). Well, I did struggle anyway but it would have been much much worse! In his desire to create some educational Tom Brown Schooldays wonderland that only exists in his own head I think he'll fuck up the chances of a lot of state school pupils if they manage to get into further education - and my experience having sampled Russell Group universities and an ex-poly is that the supposedly 'better' the Uni, the far less likely they are to have that kind of pastoral and learning support on offer.

 

[marty21]

I could probably have improved my grades if I had some course work modules that contributed to the final grade - the changes to module based make it impossible to compare the A Level grades - they keep boasting about how the grades have improved for the last 30 years (when I took my A Levels) but how can you compare the grades for students who had exam based qualifications to those who had course work/exam based qualifications?

 

[Pickman's model]

I could probably have improved my grades if I had some course work modules that contributed to the final grade - the changes to module based make it impossible to compare the A Level grades - they keep boasting about how the grades have improved for the last 30 years (when I took my A Levels) but how can you compare the grades for students who had exam based qualifications to those who had course work/exam based qualifications?

very easily. but not meaningfully.

 

[marty21]

very easily. but not meaningfully.

exactly - you can say that 75% got 5 or more GCSEs at A grade, but it doesn't take into account that the exams from 30 years ago were totally different

 

[spanglechick]

The revised ebacc eight will look like this:

English and maths
Three out of: sciences, MFL, history and geography
Three other subjects such as art, music or RE


The devil will be in the detail of those "other subjects" and what will count - as a drama teacher I can't breathe out yet... But it is a significant win for arts education specifically, and for the concept of breadth of study.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

As far as I understood it from The world at One, EBACC is to be kicked into the long grass. GCSEs will continue but be meddled with; he still intends to do away with coursework. Also History will be royally rogered as planned so that children will be able to reel off a list of famous people in their chronological order showing how Britain has 'progressed' over the years.

 

[Garek]

Doing away with course work is really going to harm those with LDs.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Doing away with course work is really going to harm those with LDs.

It will skew exam results in the favour of boys compared to now as it has been shown that girls do better at coursework because they work harder at it. Perhaps that is Gove's intention. Gove probably has not heard of Learning Difficulties.

 

[weltweit]

The revised ebacc eight will look like this:

English and maths
Three out of: sciences, MFL, history and geography
Three other subjects such as art, music or RE


The devil will be in the detail of those "other subjects" and what will count - as a drama teacher I can't breathe out yet... But it is a significant win for arts education specifically, and for the concept of breadth of study.

That is pretty much what our school told us last week. English and Maths but that seems too many other subjects, that would make 8 - is that not too many?

 

[Garek]

Hope this works for those who haven't got a log in: Exams in South Korea: The One Shot Society

This is what I worry about in terms of what people like Gove want. Schools as factories, one chance, separate the wheat from the chaff and may the chaff suffer in eternity.

 

[spanglechick]

That is pretty much what our school told us last week. English and Maths but that seems too many other subjects, that would make 8 - is that not too many?

In my day you only did eight, but now it's not unusual to sit several more. At my school they start gcses a year early to add to the numbers you can take, and instead of getting three hours per week over two years for each non-core subject, you now get two hours in one year and three hours in the other. Or five hours a week and do a whole gcse in one year.

I think our kids do 12 as standard.

 

[marty21]

Hope this works for those who haven't got a log in: Exams in South Korea: The One Shot Society

This is what I worry about in terms of what people like Gove want. Schools as factories, one chance, separate the wheat from the chaff and may the chaff suffer in eternity.

He's like the headmaster in the Dickens book Hard Times - Bounderby?

 

[Pickman's model]

He's like the headmaster in the Dickens book Hard Times - Bounderby?

i think you mean gradgrind.

call yourself a published poet?

bounderby is a manufacturer and mill owner.

 

[Garek]

He's like the headmaster in the Dickens book Hard Times - Bounderby?

I wouldn't know. Hard Times may have been a set book for me but somehow I managed to get away with never reading it

 

[marty21]

i think you mean gradgrind.

call yourself a published poet?

bounderby is a manufacturer and mill owner.

Yeah Gradgrind

 

[Hocus Eye.]

The headline news on World At One was that Gove was backing down on the EBACC and described it as "a bridge too far".

 

[SLK]

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but we only have the independent article to go on so far...?

The ebacc six have been part of league tables for a couple of years now, but are roundly ignored. Parents don't ask about the stats, universities and sixth form colleges don't care, RAISE doesn't focus on them... The only game in town is the five including eng and maths stats. Perhaps with a fluctuating trend to and from cva.

Had gove succeeded, these new qualifications would've been here to stay, and arts education would never have recovered. This way, the bizarre cluster of six deserving special attention will continue to be irrelevant, and when he goes, can disappear altogether.

Far far too optimistic in my view. The academic curriculum encouraged by the EBACC (and now the renewed top 8 measure that schools will be judged on now that is not any 8 any more) is not disappearing when Gove goes. If it's another Tory it's likely Truss, but Tory education policy is about the only area that they are popular in - so the Tories back it. And the EBACC collection of subjects is backed by Russell Group universities, who increased their power under Labour. There is no chance of any government moving away from this.

In addition, Gove has basically said he wants to work with OFQUAL to turn GCSEs in the EBACC subjects to something like the EBCs would have been.

I'll find the best summary I've seen on it and post it up here. I sent it to all the staff at my school.

 

[SLK]

The headline news on World At One was that Gove was backing down on the EBACC and described it as "a bridge too far".

No, replacing GCSEs with EBCs was a bridge too far... as I said. Here's the summary I'm on about:

http://www.lkmco.org/article/what-happened-round-ebacc-ebc-8-best-announcements-07022013

 

[jakethesnake]

Looks like old govey is in trouble... oh dear
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/09/michael-gove-bullying-claims-payout1

Mearns told the Observer that there was a case for Gove to be recalled to the committee: "Clearly there is a case for the secretary of state to come back to the committee and answer further questions. He has either misled the committee or is the most ill-informed minister in the government."

 

[DownwardDog]

he doesn't want to make 'the best the enemy of the good'...eh? Implying the idea is right, but everyone else is wrong.

It's a Voltaire reference. Dans ses écrits, un sàge Italien dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

Which is presumably what he was thinking when he picked those glasses.

 

[brogdale]

It's a Voltaire reference. Dans ses écrits, un sàge Italien dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien.

Which is presumably what he was thinking when he picked those glasses.

Or, put another way...it was poncey way of dressing up his (latest) up-fuck; his idea was utterly absurd and he's not prepared to admit it. Twunt.