Author Topic: Gove's New Idea  (Read 1538 times)

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Offline Colwyn

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Gove's New Idea
« on: July 08, 2013, 18:33:55 PM »
Gormless Gove is rumoured to have a great new idea to follow up from today’s great leap backward. Currently the wet mouthed lunatic who is supposed to be in charge of the British education system has just launched his scheme to change every curriculum in the country, at all learning levels, in one year whilst simultaneously changing the examination system. The man’s an unrecognized genius; unrecognized for very good reasons. His new curriculum is designed to minimize the levels of skills and understand amongst students and maximize the amount of rote learning of data. For example, History will be taught chronologically and pupils will need memorize key dates that are essential in today’s global, competitive marketplace. The first syllabus will include these nation forming event dates that must be internalized:
3952 BC (or 4004 BC in Northern Ireland); 60 AD; 537 AD; 878 AD; 1157 (only in Wales) and 1215. {NOTE: there are other famous dates in the syllabus that have been omitted).
Since many (most?) CBFers were educated in the “Golden Age” of British education I am sure these dates will be very familiar to you. You will be pleased that a new generation of citizens will benefit from knowing these numbers.
 
So what is Gove’s new big idea? All seven year olds to start learning Latin and continue their studies until they are eleven or can read Aeneid from start to finish.
 
Is any or all of the above true? Difficult to tell with Gove, isn’t it?



Offline SuzzPuss

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2013, 18:42:32 PM »
What I can never understand with this man and his harebrained schemes is why he always has to rush everything.  I rarely agree with any of his policies anyway but when he rushes them through like this they don't have a chance of succeeding do they?  I have a close association with teachers as I used to be one and am from a family of teachers, (Oxford comma?) but also having been involved for some years with an organisation which runs courses for them.  Every teacher I have ever spoken to has said the same.  Some are more sympathetic to his ideas than others but every single one agrees that his ideas are consistently executed poorly.  Will he never learn?  In fact he used to come to the final plenary of these courses but the teachers had the audacity to disagree with him about some things and he's never been back...   >:(

Offline Eric

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2013, 20:24:40 PM »
 According to Doctor of the Church the Venerable Bede, the Earth was created today in 3952 BC
Year 60 AD was a leap year starting on Tuesday.  Oh and Boudica died this year too.
Siege of Rome (A.D. 537‑538)
Henry II of England invades Wales and is defeated at the Battle of Ewloe by Owain Gwynedd in 1157 AD
Alfred the Great defeated the Great Heathen Army led by Guthrum on a date between 6 and 12 May AD 878
1215, signing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede (the only one I actually knew)

What an absolute load of tosh.  Thank god for Google, a lot of kids will be using for History I fear!

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2013, 09:24:18 AM »
Pretty good, Eric. 60 AD is the date of the British revolt against Roman rule led by Boadicea. 537 AD death of King Arthur (if he was real). Glad you got Runnymead and so would be Anthony Aloysius Hancock who delivered one of my favourite lines in British comedy: "Does no one remember Magna Carta? Did she die in vain?".

Offline usedbustickets

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2013, 09:46:47 AM »
Pretty good, Eric. 60 AD is the date of the British revolt against Roman rule led by Boadicea. 537 AD death of King Arthur (if he was real). Glad you got Runnymead and so would be Anthony Aloysius Hancock who delivered one of my favourite lines in British comedy: "Does no one remember Magna Carta? Did she die in vain?".
Marks out of ten then?

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2013, 15:13:41 PM »
Under Gove's new, improved education system 10 is insufficiently rigorous and demanding and merely demonstrates teachers' lack of ambition. Starting immediately all marks will be out of 12. By September 2014, for the new school year, they will out of 14. If re-elected the Conservative Party pledges to increase by 2 marks - year on year - until we have the highest scoring system in the world. Vote for Progress! Vote Gove!

Offline SuzzPuss

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2013, 17:22:12 PM »
So they're not just going to increase it to 18 in one go at a month's notice without consulting anyone within the profession then?   

Your post, Colwyn, reminds me a little of when my mother used to teach in a school in Windsor.  They were trying not to stream the classes but to make them mixed ability, not sure why.  The school management decided that, if they weren't to be streamed, then it would be wrong to keep the system of naming the classes A, B and C because if you were in 8A you'd assume you were in top set and if you were in 8C you'd assume you were a failure.  In their wisdom the renamed the classes X, Y and Z!!  Wonderful.   ;D

Offline usedbustickets

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #7 on: July 10, 2013, 19:57:27 PM »
Gove is of course the modern day Thomas Gradgrind from Dicken's Hard Times, from which the wonderful passage below is drawn

"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!”

What is it that draws the Tories back to Victorian time?, Which they appear to perceive as a golden age, when even during the Victorian times people like Dickens and many others could see what was wrong with Victorian society, a pity that Gove didn't learn from their experience.

No return to Victorian values or utilitarianism ...... and furhter we demand a new order based upon a chicken in every pot and a Lada in every drive  ;)

Offline Colwyn

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2013, 14:50:15 PM »
Under Gove's new, improved education system 10 is insufficiently rigorous and demanding and merely demonstrates teachers' lack of ambition. Starting immediately all marks will be out of 12. By September 2014, for the new school year, they will out of 14. If re-elected the Conservative Party pledges to increase by 2 marks - year on year - until we have the highest scoring system in the world. Vote for Progress! Vote Gove!

I thought I was being satirical with this post over three months ago but it turns out this is actually (near enough) Gove's Master Plan. Just announced! The biggest shake-up to the GCSE system in a generation! A new grade will be added to the current eight so it it will become a new, improved nine grade system! Even more grades may be added in future. Not only this, which already offers our children a vastly improved education system, but - wait for it - instead of old-fashioned letter grades (A* to G) under GoveEd there will be bold new numbers! 1 to 9 of which 1 is best. Hooray" Sorry, correction, 9 is best. Look! Numbers! How much more precise than letters. This will give the UK world class secondary education.

I promise you I am not making this up (see below). I wonder how gives keeps escaping from his straight-jacket and giving his minders the slip.

[size=78%]http://news.sky.com/story/1162403/gcse-exams-numbers-to-replace-a-g-grades[/size]

Offline SuzzPuss

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Re: Gove's New Idea
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2013, 15:35:00 PM »
That is madness.  I'm recording a teachers' conference in a couple of weeks and Gove is invited.  Hope he comes...  Got a few questions for him.   ???




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