Michael Gove has decided that that there will be a new qualification. The English Bac, awarded to students with good passes in English, maths, science, a language, and history or geography.
Why this choice of subjects? Where is the Latin or Ancient Greek I hear you asking? After all there has been a lot of support for these subjects as the true core of a real education!
What will the history be about? Will it bang the drum for England and its achievements? Or perhaps ancient history, the study of ancient Greece and Rome, is a safer bet?
And why are there only five subjects in it? Why cannot RE be included, or psychology or sociology or technology or art or music?
I tried to get my head around the Scottish system to see what they did but its jargon, innumerable levels and differences in terminolgy totally defeated me. Proof I supose of the superiority of the Scottish system.
There is the Middle Years programme (ages 11 – 16) of the International Baccalaureate which is an easily understood programme that aims to develop students academically, socially and emotionally and practically. Surely that could improve English education? Most probably it would, but it would also cost money to implement. Why did Gove not choose the Middle Years IB?
So have you spotted the real reason for Gove’s English Bac yet? It certainly has no academic or pedagogical foundation. It will not distinguish good teaching or good schools from bad. It is quite simply a measure that guarantees to show, at no cost, two things:
- That private schools are better than state schools!
- That Gove’s programmes of education have given rise to a huge improvement in standards in English state schools by the time of the next election!
Of course in reality it will show neither of these two things. So how does it work?
Some years ago the Labour government made modern languages no longer compulsory. As a result in many state schools students have voted with their feet and the proportion of students taking a modern foreign language has dropped significantly. State schools will therefore automatically have poor English Bac results. Of course those students choosing their GCSE options to start this September for examination in May/June 2013 will find that languages are again, for large number of more able students, back on the subject list. So in 2013 results will be better.
Will Mr Gove be starting his measurements in 2013? Not at all. He has already started by publishing English Bac results for 2010! This is a full three years before the new system can possibly start to give results. As one would expect these 2013 figures will show two things:
- That private schools still have much better results at the English Bac and are still “somehow better”
- That state school results in 2013 will be much better than in 2010, the last year Labour had an influence on schools, so showing that conservative policies are much more successful than those of Labour!
Will either of these two assertions be true? No!
Private schools will, by and large, be selecting their students from amongst the brightest 16% in the nation. That is to say from those with a CAT score of 110 or better. The local comprehensive will have the whole range of student ability from a CAT score of between 70 and 130. If they are lucky the brightest students, those with a score of 110 or more, will make up 10% of their intake (the rest of the bright students will be in private schools) compared to the 100% for the private school. The private school result should therefore be 10 times better, shouldn’t it? The fact that they are never any where near that good attests to the good quality of much of state education.
Denbigh High School in Luton is led by one of the regions most outstanding head teachers, Dame Yasmin Bevan DBE Hon DEd BSc (Econ) BA MA. Are Denbigh’s English Bac results for 2010 better than poor? Probably not. Will they be better in 2013? Certainly they will. Will that have anything to do with Gove’s policies? Of course not! It will happen simply because more Denbigh students will be taking a modern foreign language.
Will the coalition government claim the improvement is because of Gove’s policies? Almost certainly!
What will it actually prove? You decide!
My Last question to you is this. Do we not deserve better government than this shoddy mixture of trickery and deceit?
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