It’s vital that our children study Dead White Men

According to a recent survey, a clear majority of teachers view the new knowledge-rich National Curriculum introduced last year as overtly political and unfit for purpose, as a consequence.

Now, I do not claim to know all of the reasons why this opinion predominates, but, having worked in the teaching profession for over a decade and, during that time, having listened to many of my colleagues decry knowledge as an instrument of oppression, I think it safe to assume that, within this majority, there is a strong conviction that such knowledge is indeed oppressive.

I recently stumbled across a blogpost which neatly articulated this prevailing view. It argued that such Anglocentric knowledge immerses ‘the oppressed in the culture of the oppressor’ and ‘ensures that the dominant culture’ remains unchallenged by the downtrodden and disadvantaged. To put it another way, it contrives to maintain the inequalities wrought upon society by the immanent evils of capitalism.

Interestingly, the blogger goes on to suggest – but not detail – an alternative narrative through a curriculum which strives to highlight and overturn these existing inequities.

In my opinion, though, this contention is littered with flaws. Most glaringly, it wrongly assumes that we live in a fixed, strictly stratified, intrinsically unfair society in which opportunity is scarce and social mobility non-existent. Don’t get me wrong: opportunity isn’t as widespread and easily accessible as one would hope, but it does exist. Why else do hundreds of thousands of migrants make the long, arduous and, in some cases, fatal journey to our shores?

Like the USA – the very embodiment of the capitalistic prison the blogger abhors – Britain is a land of opportunity. Capitalism has created and distributed wealth, increased living standards, funded universal healthcare and education, not to mention facilitated an attendant increase in life expectancy among all, including the poor, women and ethnic minorities (the so-called ‘oppressed’).

So when my Marxist-inspired colleagues and counterparts in the education blogosphere lament the malign effects of capitalism and decry the existence of a curriculum that attempts to preserve it, I cannot help but consider the failed alternatives and, in the words of John McEnroe, cry out: ‘You cannot be serious, man!’

Should we teach our children about Britain’s unique, inspirational, awe-inspiring evolution from feudalism to constitutional monarchy and representative democracy – something the blogger unfathomably believes ‘oppressive’? Of course we should.

But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that there are ‘oppressed’ minorities in our society. An Anglocentric, knowledge-rich curriculum like the one introduced last year evidently does not automatically render them ‘good-Soviets’ – supine, impotent and unable to question the status quo. On the contrary, many of history’s great reformers, even revolutionaries, were the recipients of what could be termed an occidental educational experience – Mahatma Gandhi, Kwame Nkrumah, Eric Williams, Edward Said and, dare I say it, Margaret Thatcher to name just a few.

If one wants to challenge existing hegemonic structures, one must first understand them, surely. In short, the ‘oppressed’ must be able to speak the language of the ‘oppressors’; or to put it in less emotive, perhaps more relevant terms, the poor must be able to speak the same language as the rich.

So the new National Curriculum is enabling rather than disabling. Depriving ordinary children of the knowledge available to the privileged is oppressive. They are left with no understanding of society, nothing to question and, most importantly, prevented from accessing the corridors of power which are, whether we like it or not, inhabited by those who enjoy a privileged, Anglocentric education in which ‘dead white men’ predominate.

On this last point, moreover, ‘dead white men’ have had a disproportionate influence over our history, whether we like it or not. That’s a fact. So if we want our children to know about and understand our island story, we must surely introduce them to such figures: otherwise, in the name of political correctness, we’re being dishonest and depriving them of important information concerning their shared provenance and place in the modern world – and let’s not forget that, as previously mentioned, learning about such people does not prevent one from questioning and challenging their legacy. It enables it.

Look, any curriculum is inherently political. By its very nature, it is, for want of a word with more benign connotations, an act of indoctrination. That much I agree with. The DFE recently decreed that we must instill our young charges with British values. If this isn’t indoctrination, I don’t know what is.

But let’s not imagine some kind of moral equivalence with Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany. Our values are based upon pluralism, human rights, democracy and tolerance. These are worth promoting – even worth indoctrinating – because rather than breeding compliance, they encourage contrarianism, questioning, challenge. So in our case, indoctrination, paradoxically, sets one free and broadens one’s mind. If anything it exists to challenge any existing inequalities.

If we were to teach an alternative, less Anglocentric curriculum, though – one tailored to galvanise resentment in those perceived as ‘oppressed’, without championing our shared and mutually advantageous national values and achievements – we’d jeopardize our survival as a democratic, tolerant, pluralistic yet cohesive nation. It really is that simple.

The Government’s new curriculum reflects this concern and aims to give ordinary children the same opportunities as the privileged few. There really is nothing to oppose. But to those who still do, worried about a conspiracy being conducted by the Bullingdon Club against the ‘oppressed’, I leave this message: one cannot legitimately argue that there are ‘oppressed’ groups in British society; neither can one argue that a traditional liberal education of the kind recently introduced helps to facilitate this non-existent ‘oppression’.

British society is mercifully free, open and eminently more desirable to live in than most other societies around the world, as demonstrated by current and historic levels of migration. It is an Anglocentric, core knowledge curriculum that is largely responsible for this monumental achievement. The new National Curriculum rightly rejects the relatively recent trend in favour of non-judgementalism and child-centred learning – a trend which places social cohesion at risk and retards social mobility – and seeks to challenge ignorance, increase opportunity and rekindle a sense of shared identity. We discard it at our peril. I’m just disappointed that Academies can opt out.

First published on www.conservativehome.com on 21st July 2015

Will Sir Tim Berners-Lee's selfless, far-sighted gift to humanity ever be repeated?

In 1994, Sir Tim Berners-Lee selflessly donated the World Wide Web to mankind. He refused to obtain a patent for and profit from a revolutionary invention that was arguably, among the practical and day to day alterations shaped by its influence, about to change the very nature of human existence. He sacrificed individual, material gain for the collective benefit of the entire human race.

I think that, given this fact, it is safe to assume that his alma mater, Emanuel School in south-west London, successfully inculcated a sense of responsibility beyond the narrow parameters of the self. It taught him to be aware of and contribute to something larger and ultimately more durable and long-lasting than one’s own perceived needs. In short, it instilled selflessness.

The aims of education are manifold. I contend that they can be categorised under two main headings.

First, the Individual. The purpose of education is to extend opportunity to each and every person, regardless of socioeconomic circumstance: it is to drive social mobility and, ultimately, enable the individual to climb the ladder of opportunity. Moreover, it strives – or at least should strive – to equip each person with the knowledge to understand and enjoy the world around them.

Through such knowledge and the material gain which hopefully accompanies academic success, the individual is liberated from the stultifying shackles of ignorance and penury, and is enabled and free to live a fulfilling life, bask in the wonders of the universe and reach the ultimate objective of self-actualisation. This is indeed a noble aim.

The second category is the Collective. Education is not just about the individual, but the good of society as a whole. By infusing pupils with morality and knowledge, they are being trained as custodians of their socioeconomic and cultural heritage – a heritage to be enhanced and passed on to their progeny – and instilled with the qualities and skills to be productive and useful to the collective advancement of not just themselves, but their fellow citizens. It is an enormous responsibility: one which is rarely explained in schools for reasons that will become apparent.

These aims are of course mutually reinforcing. What’s good for the collective is good for the individual and vice-versa. But a pertinent question is whether our schools successfully fulfil their obligations to deliver an education which meets these objectives. The answer, regrettably, is no. Our children are not satisfactorily inculcated with the morality, knowledge and skills to reach their potential, nor to be productive guardians of and contributors to humanity’s cultural inheritance. Why?

Alas, the collective aims of education are being subordinated to raw, untrammelled individualism – an individualism which ultimately, and paradoxically, stifles each pupil’s progress and stops him or her from fulfilling their potential.

In our desperation to live up to the mantra ‘Every Child Matters’, for example, and to ensure that each child has the same opportunities through ‘inclusion’ in mainstream schools – even if they’re eminently unsuited – we’ve colluded in a kind of reverse-utilitarianism. The individual has been elevated, almost sanctified, and his or her needs, in practice, now take precedence over the needs of the majority.

A child may be unable to cope in a mainstream school, for instance. He may be monopolizing a teacher’s time and resources as a consequence, and to the detriment of the 20-odd other pupils in the class. But in the name of equality, his needs, being an individual, are deemed to be of paramount importance. He must be allowed to realise his potential no matter what the cost. No consideration is given to the collective purpose of education, the continued sustenance and health of society, or to the utilitarian principles that should guide our actions. All that matters is the individual deemed disadvantaged.

Morality, moreover, is viewed as a construct of one’s own socioeconomic and cultural background. As a result, schools often refuse to sanction unruly pupils from dysfunctional households in the same way as their more advantaged peers. In a misguided effort to re-balance the inequalities bequeathed at birth, teachers individualise the school’s rules and treat their underprivileged charges with more compassion. Again, it matters not that the majority become frustrated and despondent and confused about the arbitrary nature of the school’s approach to rewards and sanctions; it matters not that behaviour deteriorates throughout the school in response, either: it’s all about the individual, nothing more.

In the same vein, the system refuses to allow pupils to fail. Grammar schools were abolished because they hurt the feelings of the individuals who failed the Eleven Plus, even though they provided an excellent education for thousands of ordinary children. In mainstream comprehensives, many remain wedded to mixed ability teaching lest the less able feel stigmatized and teachers – demoralised and exhausted – run themselves ragged to ensure the success of every child, even the ones who don’t deserve to pass.

Perhaps the most indicative aspect of this phenomenon is our existing hostility to the explicit teaching of facts. We no longer pass on a specific body of knowledge with the aim of entrusting our children with society’s cultural inheritance. That would have the distinct whiff of indoctrination. In particular, the historical knowledge taught in schools is viewed as a way of perpetuating the hegemonic status of the West and with it, the cultural dominance of white middle-class men. Instead, we are now encouraged to free our charges from this groupthink and collective straight-jacket, urge self-discovery and facilitate non-judgemental, individual enquiry. The phrase ‘child-centred learning’ pretty much encapsulates the current zeitgeist which elevates the individual above the collective.

In each instance, society as a whole unquestionably becomes less educated and, as a consequence, weaker. The nation’s moral certainties and cultural traditions are not being passed on, nor is a sense of collective responsibility and duty to one’s fellow citizens. It’s all about me!

And as the collective aims of education are subordinated to those of the individual, the individual’s aims, paradoxically, become unattainable, too. We can only thrive within the collective, after all. In the name of individualism, pupils are placed in unsuitable schools, taught that rules don’t apply to them, shielded from failure and prevented from acquiring a uniform body of knowledge. How can this possibly be beneficial?

Furthermore, whenever teachers are asked about the purpose of learning they invariably reply: ‘To get a decent job.’ This is an extremely individualistic, narrow way of looking at it. We rarely think about and explain the collective aims of the endeavour; the responsibility that children have to learn for the preservation, sustenance and progress of society.

The result is entrenched selfishness and, unless we reverse this damaging trend, I don’t think it’s too alarmist to predict, the sad, gradual demise of our civilisation. Will Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s selfless, far-sighted gift to humanity ever be repeated?

First published on www.conservativehome.com on 12th July 2015

Where are the social reformers who will speak up for abused teachers?

Vincent Uzomah. Have you heard of him? If you haven’t, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Apart from one small unremarkable news bulletin, his recent stabbing at the hands of a disgruntled pupil at Dixons Kings Academy in Bradford has been largely ignored, even though it should serve as a belated wake up call for a complacent profession and an indifferent public.

According to the most recent figures available, there were 17,190 fixed-term exclusions for physical assault on an adult and 50,630 for threatening behaviour towards an adult in 2012-13. Only 920 pupils, however, were permanently excluded for similar offences during the same period.

What do these disturbing statistics tell us? Well, not only do they highlight the fact that violence in our schools has become a mundane feature of everyday life. They also, on closer inspection, elucidate the reasons why the phenomenon is so widespread.

Every year, tens of thousands of children either threaten or assault their teachers; yet the vast majority are allowed back into school after a fixed-term exclusion. Only a tiny minority are permanently excluded. The number of exclusions permitted, moreover, before a permanent exclusion is issued, is infinite.

So where is the disincentive?  One could argue that these violent pupils are, in the main, being granted a short holiday for attacking a member of staff, before being invited back to resume their education. There is no deterrent. On the contrary, there seems to be a perverse incentive actually to be violent.

I suspect these statistics only represent the tip of a rather large iceberg. Many schools, including mine, do not even issue fixed-term exclusions for violent behaviour, especially if the perpetrator pulls on the Head’s heart strings with a hard luck story which divests him or her of any meaningful responsibility. Don’t forget, we live in an excuse-making, relativist epoch in which rules only apply to the already advantaged. In addition, schools are reluctant to use such penalties lest they attract Ofsted’s opprobrium – a very real possibility. So you could perhaps double these figures to get the real picture.

In short, schools should permanently exclude violent, threatening pupils – without exception. If they did, we would unquestionably see a reduction in physical abuse, threatening behaviour and a concomitant reduction in fixed-term exclusions in consequence. Eventually over the longer term, as children realise and understand the full consequences of their actions, we would also see a reduction in permanent exclusions, too. The current reluctance to issue exclusions of any kind is paradoxically fueling their growth. It is incredibly self-defeating.

And let’s not forget the lost opportunities and human misery behind these statistics. Pupils are forced to share their classrooms with unrepentant thugs, and teachers are expected to enthusiastically support the unsupportable. We are not only the abused, the ones on the receiving end of these violent outbursts, but we’re the individuals accountable for the progress of these children tool. Yes, we’re still responsible for their results, even though they’re unmanageable and, in many cases, uncontrollable.

It’s nothing short of a scandal. Apparently Teach First has recently offered psychological support to its new recruits. They are finding the profession intensely stressful, by all accounts. I wonder why…they are being subjected to regular verbal and physical attack; they are unsupported by their senior leaders, the Government and their unions; and moreover, despite these considerable obstacles, they’re still expected to teach with gusto and secure the expected progress of their young charges, even the naughty ones. For the life of me, I can’t understand why they’re finding things so anxiety-inducing, can you?

Look, we need to wake up to what’s going on in our schools. Uzomah’s fate may be rare, but it’s an extreme example of the violence that many teachers face, in many schools, on a day to day basis. Teachers have truly become the twenty-first century equivalents of nineteenth century factory workers. Where are today’s indignant, impassioned social reformers?

First published on www.conservativehome.com on 5th July 2015

Nicky Morgan needs to denounce the Left's shameful record and speak up for Conservative principles

Let's make no bones about it; the Left's unrepentant fingerprints are all over the scarred, lifeless body. It lies face down, riven by ignorance, indolence and poverty, desperate but unable to escape the torpor and abject misery in which it finds itself. Council estates which housed the existing poor were the most vulnerable limbs. These, in the name of equality, were mauled and left broken by well-meaning Leftists only too willing to expose their credulous inhabitants to new, unproven experiments which, alas, went horribly, catastrophically wrong. In short, over several decades - and in the name of egalitarian principles which failed to achieve their stated aims - the Left destroyed the education thus life chances of generations of school children and, in pig-headed contravention of all the evidence available, blithely continues to do so.

So when will Nicky Morgan take the fight to Labour and say so? She should be adding, moreover, that these failed policies were, and still are, inimical to the defining tenets of Conservative thought and, as a consequence, can only be expunged by a Conservative administration.

Let's take the liberal doctrine - a doctrine adopted wholesale by the Labour party - of moral relativism as a starting point. With the decline of the traditional family, the demur withdrawal of Christianity from public life, the post-war increase in immigration and with it, the proliferation of different religious, ethnic and cultural mores, the Left's politicians, cheerleaders and myriad agents of the state - including teachers - began to impose a doctrine which forbade the application of judgement and decried the occidental moral certainties of the past. Instead, this view intolerantly insisted that we have to accept the fact that positions of right or wrong are socially, economically and culturally determined therefore subject to a person's individual choice. So there you have it: there is no longer a dominant moral code to be followed in Britain, apparently.

But how does this affect our schools? I hear you ask. Well, according to this position - which is widespread by the way - how can you possibly sanction two pupils from completely different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds in the same way? They may have vastly different conceptions of what's right and what's wrong, after all. 

Let's consider this scenario as a not untypical example: Child X comes from a middle class, Catholic household in which both parents remain married. Child Y, on the other hand, has an alcoholic mother, absent father and a revolving door which greets and often violently bids farewell to a different stepfather every few months. One afternoon, Child X and Child Y both threaten to hit a member of staff - again, a not uncommon occurrence in many of our schools. However, Child Y is treated more leniently than Child X - Child X being the one, of course, who should know better, coming, as he does, from a relatively descent household.

Now, to access the reality - which is, alas, far worse - imagine this scenario being multiplied by an indefinite number to accommodate the myriad different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds of pupils in schools up and down the country. You end up with confusion as kids no longer know which rules apply to them; resentment as some discover that their peers are being treated differently; and ultimately, an intensely damaging moral vacuum in which right and wrong no longer exist, so open to question thus clouded they've become. Of course, it is surely obvious that in such an environment, low expectations and poor behaviour find sustenance, and, where they find sustenance, so too does educational failure. Moral relativism is indeed the scourge of our education system, responsible for ill-discipline, expectations which barely manage to get off the ground and truly appalling standards, especially among the poor.

It is also a doctrine beloved of the Left and scorned by true Conservatives. But no Tory, not even Michael Gove, has been courageous enough to challenge it. Through a reformed school inspectorate Nicky Morgan needs to emerge from her predecessor's shadow, throw down the gauntlet and finally extinguish this cancerous growth. Only then will we see the behaviour and expectations necessary to close the gap between rich and poor.

The Left's opposition to the explicit teaching of facts is another failed approach yet to be highlighted and challenged. As the 7 per cent of privately educated children continue to enjoy the multitude of opportunities offered by a knowledge rich curriculum, their state school counterparts are reduced to ignorance and disadvantage, deprived of the common terms of reference that would enable them to access power and the knowledge to stimulate the higher order thinking skills so crucial to future success (an outcome brilliantly explained by Daisy Christodoulou in her recent study, The Seven Myths About Education). 

The impartation of knowledge, or so the Leftist position goes, is an act of subjugation used to maintain existing social structures and the hegemony of the West. A traditional, knowledge rich curriculum is deeply discriminatory, it claims, affirms the host nation's cultural superiority and, as a consequence, runs counter to the current moral relativist zeitgeist discussed earlier. One has to ask oneself: why else has Tristram Hunt - a man who incidentally received a knowledge rich education himself in one of the world's leading private schools - promised to deprive state run schools of subject specialists on account of their failure to go to teacher training college? Is it possibly because he views subject expertise as secondary to a college-taught pedagogy that explicitly proscribes the teaching of facts?

Why hasn't this been highlighted and challenged? We now know, thanks to various cognitive studies, the importance of facts to the development of thinking skills - something that should go without saying, really (you can't think with nothing to think about, after all). Bearing this in mind, again, I reiterate, why has Nicky Morgan not highlighted the Left's insidious hand in this deeply un-Conservative trend that eschews tradition and results in the endemic ignorance of our children - ignorance responsible for scuppering the life chances of so many? 

Okay, I recognise Michael Gove's attempts to address the problem with, inter alia, reforms to the National Curriculum, but these don't go far enough. Academies can opt out and, take it from me, many do, enabling them to continue inflicting child centred learning on yet another generation of unsuspecting schoolchildren and parents. Morgan needs to go one step further, in my opinion. She must make the National Curriculum compulsory, even for academies and free schools, and, again, through a reformed Ofsted, insist on the teaching of facts in our schools. This should be non-negotiable. Indeed, school freedoms should be determined within these very parameters. 

In the Left's misguided rush to realise equality through such measures - and others which include the pervasive 'all must have prizes' culture and ill-conceived Inclusion policy -, it has further entrenched disadvantage as private schools and good state schools - often in the best areas with the highest house prices and wealthiest children - continue to enjoy the benefits of moral certitude and a knowledge rich curriculum.

With the General Election approaching, Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, recently issued yet another headline grabbing initiative which will do absolutely nothing to improve our schools. Another test, another resit, this time sat during Year 7, will simply, yet again, highlight the system's failings rather than boost the standard of its provision. Nicky, you can test our kids until the cows come home but, unless you speak up for Conservative principles, denounce the Left's shameful commitment to moral relativism and its aversion to the teaching of facts, we'll still be talking about the corpse of educational failure and the socioeconomic decay that accompanies it in 2050. In truth, only the Conservatives can resuscitate the scarred, lifeless body that represents our most underprivileged children.

Schools should direct boys’ natural aggression and competitiveness, not just accept misbehaviour

Several years ago, a Guardian columnist – whose name escapes me – argued that, as a consequence of an evolutionary anomaly, whereby the peculiarities of male instincts, immanent skills and inherited abilities have yet to evolve to suit our altered socioeconomic and environmental circumstances, it is not surprising that some boys behave badly. Far from being equipped for the modern world of sedentary indolence, where tapping a keyboard is the closest thing you’ll get to the kind of intense activity existent on the steppes of central Asia some twenty thousand years ago, they remain, at heart, ferocious hunter-gatherers, genetically predisposed to sporadic bouts of aggression and gifted with the spatial awareness to successfully pursue, kill, gather and ultimately survive to live another day. No wonder, then, given this reality, they find it difficult to sit still and learn Pythagoras’ Theorem and quadratic equations.

It is indeed a convincing argument that, unfortunately, lets itself down by proffering a pessimistic non-remedy. Apparently we’ve just got to lump it; we’ve got to accept the fact that boys will naturally be aggressive and, by implication, violent and abusive at school; we’ve got to accept that, literally speaking, “boys will be boys”. Well I don’t buy it.

If boys are genetically inclined to evince such behaviours, we shouldn’t bury our heads in the sand and wait for evolution to work its magic – a phenomenon that could, no doubt, take tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to bear fruit. Instead we should accommodate them, as they do in many excellent schools around the country. Why not direct their natural aggression, competitiveness and hone their spacial awareness through sport, for example? Would that be too masculine for our fluffy Guardian columnist, perhaps?

I was lucky enough to go to an excellent school that encouraged competitive sports, music, drama and, of course, both academic and artistic excellence. In the winter we played rugby every Saturday afternoon; in the summer it was athletics and cricket; in music, we had various bands according to instrumental competency and our lessons were equally competitive and strictly stratified according to one’s ability.

The point is here that the educational philosophy espoused by my alma mater accepted our inherent masculinity. Aggression was controlled through sports; our competitive spirit was accommodated through academic, sporting and artistic selection, inter-house cross-country, debating and chess tournaments not to mention regular competitive fixtures against other schools. As a result, abuse of our teachers was unheard of. Away from the rugby pitch, acts of aggression were indeed non-existent, and, let me make this clear, this was a comprehensive school that included ordinary kids, including me, from the local area, some relatively wealthy, some living in abject penury.

In contrast, in my view, today’s education system has been feminised and, as a sad consequence, aggression, abuse and violence are rife, particularly among boys. There are mixed ability classes, little to no competitive sports, an overweening, suffocating “all must have prizes” culture and interminable classroom discussions about feelings – four features that contrive to inhibit and frustrate a boy’s natural instincts. No wonder they misbehave, especially when Left-wing, moral relativist, non-judgementalist, misguided senior leaders refuse to discipline them, too.

If we want our boys to behave and get the best out of school, we must accept reality, accommodate and control their natural instincts, and reverse the dangerous feminisation of our education system. It’s no good, Mr Guardian Columnist, irresponsibly asserting, “We’ve just got to put up with it!”

First published on www.conservativehome.com on 10th April 2015

Gove's reforms will expose rather than reverse Britain's educational decline

Like Thatcher's before him, Michael Gove's demise was greeted with gleeful cheers from the militant Left and disconsolate tears from the libertarian Right - peppered, of course, with a fair bit of enraged apoplexy. Peter Oborne, for example, columnist for The Daily Telegraph and unapologetic Govian neophyte, described him as 'the greatest education secretary since the Second World War', and angrily dismissed his removal as 'an act of sabotage' orchestrated by George Osborne's Machiavellian desire to dispense with his rivals and succeed David Cameron as Conservative party leader in the not-too-distant future.   

James Forsyth, another centre-right commentator and passionate Govian apostle, bemoaned his departure as a sop to the cosy Etonian club that dominates political and public life. Children schooled in the old Etonian art of power, he lamented (something Michael Gove wanted to extend to all, regardless of socio-economic circumstance), will now remain unchallenged by their state-school-educated contemporaries, courtesy of the former Education secretary's dastardly removal.

On the other hand, Christine Blower celebrated the apparent efficacy of her union's strike and menacingly, if indirectly, threatened Nicky Morgan, Michael Gove's replacement, with a similar fate should she dare to upset her members by, among other things, attempting to improve our schools.

It may or may not surprise you to know that I do not agree with either view. Neither do I share Peter Hitchens' typically surly and uncharitable assertion, though, that Michael Gove 'is the most overrated Education Secretary in recent British history'. On the contrary, Michael Gove, in my view, deserves credit for some courageous and long-overdue reforms.

Through his refashioned National Curriculum, for example, the core subjects have been injected with more rigorous, knowledge-based, intellectually challenging programmes of study - a reform that not only reverses a child-centred obsession that's scandalously led to nationwide, multigenerational ignorance and entrenched disadvantage (especially when one considers the private sector's unwavering focus on rigour), but one that really does force teachers to adopt a culture of high expectations, rather than one that simply pays lip-service to this hitherto overused, largely meaningless, shibboleth.

After years of government- and teacher-sponsored dumbing down, moreover, he has imbued our national qualifications with real value again. Many so-called BTEC equivalents have been abolished; others toughened up to more accurately reflect their stated value. Likewise, GCSEs and A-levels  have been armed with gold-sheathed rocket boosters as end of course exams replace their modularized, easier predecessors. Thanks to Michael Gove, no longer will our children be hoodwinked into taking meaningless courses, cruelly convinced of their artificially inflated value by venal politicians and their self-interested colluders in the teaching profession. For this, the former Education Secretary deserves considerable credit.

He also deserves credit for redefining what makes a good teacher, debunking long held prejudices that outstanding teachers talk less, encourage children to work collaboratively (in other words, in groups) and reject didacticism in favour of emollient facilitation. It's now, thankfully, all about pupil progress, without reference to teaching style.

He's granted Head teachers greater autonomy over behaviour management, allowing them, for the first time, to permanently exclude unruly pupils without the threat of having their decisions overturned by detached, all-powerful appeals panels. In addition, teachers no longer have to give 24 hours' notice before detaining a pupil - another potent, enabling reform that should, if used, make a profound difference. On reflection, I find these changes extremely difficult to oppose and, quite honestly, feel baffled by the profession's general hostility to an Education Secretary with the vision and courage to push them through.

However, as welcome as they are, these reforms do not go far enough. In fact, as they currently stand, they will only expose rather than reverse our educational decline. As a consequence, and with much regret, I do not view him as the 'great reformer' he's reputed to be by the likes of Peter Oborne and James Forsyth. Increasing demands through tougher exams and a more challenging National Curriculum, for example, and for all their merits, will not lead to higher standards; instead, as pupil outcomes get worse, unable to cope with the extra challenge, they will only illustrate the system's shortcomings, shortcomings that, unfortunately, Gove's reforms do not adequately address.

His attempt to reintroduce teacher-led, traditional lessons has been thwarted at every turn by Ofsted's refusal to play ball. Just last week a Civitas report exposed the organisation's unwillingness to enforce the will of its Chief Inspector who, in this case at least, fully supports Michael Gove's reform agenda. In reality, then, away from the headlines, child-centred learning continues unabated, leaving yet another generation to wallow in a morass of ignorance and want.

Most significantly, though, and this will come as no surprise to those of you familiar with this blog, he has not done enough to challenge the truly appalling behaviour so prevalent in our schools - behaviour that leads to such poor educational outcomes for so many of our children. OK, as already acknowledged, I concede that he's given Heads more power over behaviour management, but, quite often, those same Heads are unwilling to use their newly acquired authority, so indoctrinated by fluffy group think they've become - my Head being just one example.

During his tenure, rather frustratingly, Michael Gove made lots of noise when it came to behaviour, but much of it was hot air, platitudinous drivel designed to get a headline. For example, the use of reasonable force to restrain uncontrollable pupils is too vague and open to question – I can certainly see the lawyers rubbing their hands together at that one. Increased powers to stop and search those suspected of skulduggery are equally nebulous and frankly, unwanted – we are not police officers. Moreover, surprisingly, some of his reforms actually conspire to encourage the bad behaviour he said he wanted to eradicate. Through financial penalties, to give one such example, schools are now discouraged from permanently excluding persistently disruptive pupils. This is absurd. Schools should be urged to follow clear, easily understood sanctions ladders. If this means permanent exclusion as a last resort, a final sanction when all other avenues have been exhausted, so be it. They certainly shouldn’t be penalised for following their own procedures, procedures that exist to protect the education of the majority. 

'So what needs to be done?' I hear you say. Simple. Through a refashioned Ofsted school leaders must be forced to address the issue of behaviour in a much more meaningful way, only then will we see lasting improvements. Inspectors must indeed make it their number one priority. This will need, I suspect, especially when one considers their continued defiance of Michael Wilshaw's leadership over teaching styles,  a drastic, wholesale change of personnel - preferably to include the voices of commonsensical teachers and educational bloggers (here I am!) - accompanied by root and branch reform. They must forensically examine behaviour policies, question students and classroom teachers and, most importantly, and this is where Michael Gove again deserves some credit, arrive without prior warning. All schools, not just some, must be seen warts and all, only then will inspectors get an accurate picture. 

If adopted, and I implore Nicky Morgan to seriously consider it, this approach will initially lead to an increase in permanent exclusions that should be facilitated and supported through the creation of more specialist schools specifically designed for children with behavioural and emotional needs- something that could be encouraged through Michael Gove's Free Schools programme. 

A similar remedy should accompany the long-overdue reversal of David Blunkett's cruel Inclusion policy - a policy built upon the tacit, misguided assumption that children with often severe special educational needs should be educated in mainstream schools.This can only be seen as a missed opportunity, thus far.

Finally, for all their fanfare and the impassioned hysteria surrounding them, Academies and Free Schools aren't the game changers being touted. They are instead a continuation of the Marx-inspired status quo: the very same Leftie group-thinkers dominate the top positions with one significant change, thanks to Michael Gove: they now have more freedom to do their worst.


The lesson here for Nicky Morgan is that you can create as many Academies as you like, but, in my experience, as someone who works in one, they will make precious little difference without recasting Ofsted and through it, addressing the issues at the heart of our educational malaise: poor behaviour and trendy child-centred teaching methods. Who knows? Perhaps Michael Gove needed more time to become, like Thatcher before him, a truly great reformer.

Also published on www.conservativehome.com on July 24, 2014

The pitfalls of unencumbered immigration

Recently I started to read a book called Bloody Foreigners. Written by a regular contributor to the New Statesman, Robert Winder, it seemed, at least initially, quite intriguing. I felt that I just might learn something. However, my optimism quickly wilted as the author's ultimate objective became clear, his patronising, sanctimonious style apparent. 'What do you expect?' I hear you say. 'He's a Lefty, a New Statesmanite, an arrogant member of the chattering guardian-reading classes, a quixotic imbecile convinced by his own agitprop and self-righteous diatribes. You should have known better!' But in the interests of balance, and in the knowledge that, like most fallible humans,  I can be pretty blinkered myself, I thought I'd give it a go.

Needless to say, its message was predictable. Masquerading as an example of learned scholarship and objective commentary, the book purports to be a history of immigration to Britain. However, its barely concealed prejudices are quickly revealed as the author's true intentions become clear. Winder aims to convince the reader - as long as he doesn't alienate him first with his sententious, pontifical tone - that no reasonable person could possibly oppose unencumbered immigration. After all, he argues, Britain has been the destination for untold numbers of immigrants for centuries. In fact, if you go back far enough, we are all the descendants of foreign peoples seeking new opportunities and better lives. How can we possibly deny to others what was granted to us? Moreover, if our provenance can be traced to foreign climes, how can we claim to be homogeneous and, worse still, the proprietors of the land we arbitrarily call Great Britain? In essence he implies that Britishness, as we think we understand it, based on shared customs, values and traditions, does not exist. It is a myth, a human construct, a figment of our imagination. We are, and always have been, a multicultural salad bowl. 

Of course he does have a point, we are the descendants of immigrants, and we are a strange hybrid people as a consequence; but over the last two millennia, we, the disparate peoples of these islands, have developed a collective consciousness and visceral sense of belonging that the Left, with its purblind devotion to social liberalism and natural hostility to the nation state, finds hard to accept. We have continued to absorb and assimilate newcomers, granted, even adopting many fine aspects of their native cultures, but this gradual process of cross-fertilisation has not undermined society's social contract, expressed through our commitment to the nation state. If anything, it has strengthened and renewed it. 

Having said all that, it is important to recognise that immigration has not always resulted in inter-communal harmony. We should not, therefore, assume that it is always beneficial, for the immigrant or the indigene (sorry, Will, I meant descendant of an earlier generation of immigrants). Indeed, history tells us that inter-communal violence is no stranger to multi-confessional, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies. We should, as a consequence, be eternally vigilant, surely, and not take our hitherto exemplary record when it comes to assimilating newcomers for granted.

The key here is in the word assimilate. All immigrants must be assimilable. They must share our inalienable commitments to individual liberty, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law; they must also feel a deep affection for the history, institutions and traditions that have shaped and defended these defining principles. Yet this eminently sensible objective is being undermined by mass immigration, a phenomenon encouraged by Lefties like Winder. How can we possibly guarantee the loyalty of every one of the 600,000 newcomers who arrive each year? It is simply impossible. It therefore stands to reason that we must reduce the numbers to manageable levels. This would not only allow the authorities to adequately scrutinise each applicant's suitability, it would also represent a response, albeit unintended, to a long-overdue recognition of humanity's natural resistance to radical change. 

Settled communities have been forced to endure unprecedented levels of immigration over the last twenty years, and continue to do so. Without any consultation, the defining characteristics of entire villages, towns and cities, loved and cherished by their inhabitants, have been irredeemably lost. In short, areas have been rendered unrecognisable. To expect people to graciously welcome these alterations and embrace the liberal-Left-ordained creed of multiculturalism to boot - a creed that conspires to amplify the upheaval -, is both arrogant and vacuous. Being attached to the familiar is a very human instinct; moreover, it is a human instinct that should inspire pride, not shame. It is surely the job of government, therefore, to ignore the likes of Winder and satisfy this instinct by implementing policies that encourage gradual - not revolutionary! - change. Over to you, Boris.