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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The re-shuffle continued:-
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The re-shuffle continued:-
Theme of the #reshuffle is weakness. Teachers hate Gove; green lobby hate Paterson; euro-sceptics hate Clarke/Hague. All shall have scalps.
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@ydoethur
Interesting posts. I hope you hang around and continue to contribute.
My sister is a teacher in Scotland and her views are the problems are not with the teachers (who generally work very hard and are conscientious) but with the teacher training which is largely warmed over Marxist sociology with an inadequate focus on actual teaching skills.
I think the problem Gove had was that every idea, no matter how sensible, was opposed which made it much harder for him to see that the opposition had a point when it did. The rate of change was also destabilising.
In Scotland we have had the cultural revolution of Curriculum for Excellence which is a very mixed bag and has put tremendous stress on teachers learning new methods and new curricula at the same time. I fear Gove was doing something similar. There comes a point in any organisation that permanent revolution is a recipe for failure, not success.
Lord Hill was 20/1 to be next EU Commissioner. No-one backed him. Ladbrokes owe PM a drink.
At this rate, they are going to need a much, much bigger table
@Hurst
True enough - literacy and numeracy are supremely important and need to be drilled in.
The date an ancient king died does not. There's an app for that.
A general level of basic facts is not, however, harmful. Knowing the broad historical development of the nation we live in is important as well, it contextualizes everything. It takes up little time to ensure some general facts and skills alongside the more aspirational aims of inspiration etc etc, along with basic literacy and numeracy.
Did Gove put too much emphasis on that focus on facts? Maybe, people hardly need to know a great deal of specific detail of arcane facts, but I regard it as pretty shameful that I managed to get to get through school without being taught anything about the British Civil Wars of the 17th century, to pick one example. Even if most of the specifics are not necessary to know, the impact of those events were hugely significant in determining how the country has ended up in the style it is now, and understanding how we got to where we are is very useful in figuring out why things are the way they are and how they perhaps should be and how to achieve that.
I think "Marxist sociology" is, strictly speaking, tautological.
I don't see Gove taking a back seat in that department so Cam has retained the intellect but drawn the poison amongst educators.
Not that the rantings of the NUT seem to have lightened up but they might find such outbursts self-defeating if directed at a jet-fresh female SoS.
Owen Paterson was fired because he was rubbish, on floods, on the badger cull.
It does seem to be a very well-considered reshuffle - which adds credence to the line that Gove has been working with DC on it for the past fortnight.
Anyway, must be off - well done to Cameron for saving some reshuffling until there's some major ones to make, keeps them an interesting event.
Just heard Clarke talking about needing to defend human rights against, among other things, the 'modern all powerful state' - yet another very unpopular view of his among any political party it appears these days.
Clarke and Hague were widely expected to go for their own reasons.
Yes, Paterson may be disliked by greens, but he also didn't seem to handle the floods well.
Gove and the teachers is the only one that fits the scalps line, really.
Edited extra bit: and Thatcher 2.0 is a bad line for Truss. She'll disappoint those who like Thatcher (imitations almost never match, let alone exceed, originals), it'll instantly put off those indoctrinated since birth that Thatcher was Satan, and it makes it harder for her to carve out her own identity.
As Maria Sharapova said: "I'm not the second anyone. I'm the first Maria Sharapova."
I understand Osborne opposed Gove move but dire opinion polling presented by Lynton Crosby of MG's standing with teachers forced change.
Thanks. I'll add a quick reply before I have to return to my paperwork.
I agree about teachers. Even though sometimes my colleagues seem to me to be missing the point, they do all work hard and they do all want to do well for the children. Otherwise, they tend not to last long because the job is so demanding and so stressful. As one very wise old music teacher said to me, 'Teachers don't wake up on Monday morning wondering how they can ruin the education of 500 children this week.'
I'm not sure I would agree about training. My training course was not like the one described - but that was in the South of England and I appreciate in Scotland it may be very different. I was a teacher both before and after doing a PGCE (long story) and I'm in no doubt whatsoever that I am a far better teacher after doing the PGCE than I was before, because I did indeed learn new teaching skills on the course (and I didn't hear any Marxism, although Vygotsky reared his head). That's not to say every person who wants to be a teacher has to be qualified (which is the NUT position) - merely that I'm not a 'natural' teacher and while I could muddle along on instinct and common sense I had to take the trouble to learn it before I was good at it.
I think a large part of the problem was the LEA system - it had some good points but having worked in a couple of LEA schools, then an academy, corruption and complacency were becoming big problems. This also spread its tentacles into school management. However, Gove's attempts to get rid of them were being opposed, at the finish, simply because the idea came from him.
I also agree entirely about the destabilising effect of change - in England, a new national curriculum is in force from September, a fairly drastically altered A-level from the following September and a completely revamped GCSE (bearing no resemblance to the old one) from September 2016. Reworking all the resources, planning new schemes of work and doing all the necessary preparation is going to be hard. It's also going to be extremely costly - I'm estimating a bill of at least £1,000 for each change for my department alone, and I could be being optimistic. And that's in a private school where I have the money to spend. The new GCSE is actually pretty good, better than the one we have now - but it should really have been phased in much more slowly and much more carefully resourced.
Again, we come back to Gove's reluctance to distinguish between good ideas and bad ideas, and his habit of ignoring sensible warnings.
"The date an ancient king died does not. There's an app for that. "
This sums up everything that to me is wrong. Unless you have a basic understanding of the facts - the narrative - of our history and that of other countries, of basic scientific concepts, of mathematical concepts etc, how on earth do you know that what you are being told is true. How can you ask intelligent questions? How on earth do you think that you can design an app or whatever will replace them?
Education is not just a collection of random facts that you pick up from an app, anymore than if you collected facts from an encyclopaedia or words from a dictionary. That's just confusing the sort of random knowledge that might win you points on a pub quiz team with education. You need a good solid basic understanding of what happened, how things work, how to use numbers, how to express yourself etc,. Without this, you will always struggle no matter how many apps you have.
Mr. Grandiose, I concur. It is possible, I think, to see Gove's departure through a scalp prism, as it were, but the tweet seems very forced and false to me.
"I understand Osborne opposed Gove move"
Bolting the stable door.....? There is not going to be a major shift in policy given the timing, so the new incumbent will only be left holding the chalice?
Some American respondents thought their country had won independence from Germany - a misunderstanding easily resolved either by one fact or another. Or confusing the War of Independence/Revolutionary Wars with the Civil War.
Polling seemed to say he was toxic with all types of swing voters.
People with an agenda also get certain people hating them (ie toxic) but they only have one vote per person no matter how much they hate him.
I for one think he has done good and had good aims. I am not a teacher but a parent
This does not mean that rote learning of facts, dates, etc is necessarily a good palliative for such a failing, but I think one should be a bit concerned if people haven't managed to pick up and retain the basics.
It's hardly likely that someone will have a good knowledge of the way in which Britain is run - and why - without also having some recollection of key events in British political history such as the passing of the Parliament Act in 1911, the Great Reform Act of 1832 or the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Just commenting on the polling referred to in one of the live feeds (not sure which).
We now have a Foreign Secretary who has said he would vote to leave the EU.
Think about that for a minute.
UK consumer price inflation (CPI) rose at a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in June, from 1.5% in May, Office for National Statistics data showed. Core CPI -- excluding food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco costs -- rose a seasonally adjusted 2% in June, from 1.6% in May. The retail price index (RPI) rose 2.6% in June, from 2.4% in May. Meantime, the UK house prices index climbed 10.5% in May, from 9.9% in April. - See more at: http://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4849132/UK-data-for-CPI-RPI-and-HPI-rise.html#sthash.p27V7Vsg.dpuf
Presumably this is good news?
Nick Boles is Minister of State for the Business & Education depts. Part of his brief will be equal marriage implementation. #Reshuffle
John McTernan is talking nonsense, but then there's a lot of that about today from all qtrs.
I'm not sure that this is quite the right way to look at it, but it's hard to argue that the balance is away from euro-scepticism.
Good or bad....it is buried anyway, in a coincidental way of course.
Of course you need knowledge, of themes, times, trends, dynamics, ideas and theories.
Knowing the exact date of King Harold's death you do not need in your head.
And Morris, nor do you need to know what 7x8 is, off the top of your head. But you do need to grasp how to multiply, and the basics of algebra, and, ideally, game theory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU
It was great if your child got into a nearby Free School that Gove drowned in cash. It was somewhat less great for rest of us who saw our cash being diverted into distant schools.
William Hague was the guy who argued 24 hours to save the pound/In Europe not run by Europe, which the Euro-sceptics loved.
Now he's hated, despite not changing his views on Europe.
The Charge of the "Right" Brigade? :-)
Being able to perform simple arithmetic in one's head is, in my experience, very useful in later life.
We can't have Befordshire pensioners and Australian spinners dictating out nation political intercourse.
I demand a judge-led inquiry into this
Have the Tories done the decent thing and cancelled the use of PFI? Sadly not...
You are right about academies, they were a really good innovation, and one thing Blair got right. Unfortunately, and no doubt precisely because of Blair's short attention span and the fact he kept switching ministers around, they didn't actually manage to overcome the inertia of the 'blob' in implementing them. After 13 years of Labour with massive majorities and without the constraints of coalition or the tight financial constraints that this government has had to work under, they managed to get just 203 up and running. Contrast that with Gove's achievement: 3,444 by November 2013.
QED.
The second and probably correct impression is that this in taking place so late in the Parliament - before things close down for the 3 months annual summer/autumn holiday - and there being so little outstanding business to take care of when the HoC re-assembles for the final few do-nothing months before the General Election, it appears to be nothing short of a monumental window-dressing exercise.
Cameron is attempting to be the all things to all men (and now women) Prime Minister.
Secondly, while knowing the precise date of King Harold's death as a fact in isolation is irrelevant, it would be hard to know anything about the Norman Conquest without having a good idea of what year it was.
It is a damning indictment that we have people thinking the Battle of Zama was a good thing for Carthage and Hannibal
I had to look up 7x8. Yet I am highly numerate and grasp much mathematical theory.
Lots of people who know what 7x8 is have no grasp of maths.
It has the hallmarks of something that has been planned very carefully - unlike any of the Blair/Brown reshuffles. And the fact that DC has never undertaken anything quite so radical so far as PM means that it was always going to a significant set of changes.
Everyone is going to be trying to put their own spin on this.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2014/jul/15/cameron-reshuffle-owen-paterson-liz-truss
"David Cameron's reshuffle gets rid of the 'green crap'
Liz Truss replaces Owen Paterson as environment secretary, while William Hague and Greg Barker – rare strong green voices in the Conservative party – also leave government"
After 4 years in government, and at the dog end of parliament, Dave has a "Damacine" conversion on the benefits of having more women in cabinet?
It will be interesting to see how it is perceived in the polling?
Of course getting rid of the Yellow Peril would free up a few more seats as well...
I must say when he went I was bit worried but Truss is not a bad replacement.
The referendum vote will still be 67 - 33 for staying in. Including 40% of Conservative voters.
Damascene conversion.
Of course there's a reason for this: the source of their disappointments is that they are blaming individuals for the constraints of reality.
You unpleasant pedant you!
My main aim since the early days of PB is to find something provocative to talk about. That's what start good discussions.
To this end I like to go against the prevailing narrative and digging up data that some might find surprising.
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12477/9382593/force-india8217s-otmar-szafnauer-says-zero-chance-of-unanimous-pact-on-fric-ban-delay
It was your polling analysis that toppled Gove.
The Monty Hall Problem - if you count that
Okay I am highly innumerate and completely illiterate.