Eng: Cabinet reshuffle - Nick Gibb reinstated, Gove moved.

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Eng: Cabinet reshuffle - Nick Gibb reinstated, Gove moved.

Post by debbie »

Watch the video clip below as Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of Ofsted, hears the news that Michael Gove is no longer Secretary of State for Education.

Michael Gove's successor is Nicky Morgan:


http://www.lbc.co.uk/live-sir-michael-w ... -9am-93784

Welcome to Nicky Morgan in this huge role for education, here she is:

http://www.nickymorgan.org
Last edited by debbie on Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by debbie »

Early response to the news of Gove's departure by the Times Educational Supplement (TES):


http://news.tes.co.uk/b/news/2014/07/15 ... ction.aspx
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Post by debbie »

'Andrew Old' writes with some sadness about Michael Gove's departure via his 'Teaching Battleground' blog:

http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.c ... e-mr-gove/
I won’t say this is the post I never wanted to write, because I would have written a post with this title more than happily if Michael Gove’s departure had been the result of an incoming Labour government. While I did have some worries that a Labour government would see a return to the complete dominance of progressive orthodoxy in education, I was pessimistic about both the chances of my party winning and the chances of a re-elected Tory government, with a different education secretary, being any different in that respect. The one thing I have noticed most about the education system is that it is barely under political control. The only politicians whoever seemed to be in charge while in office were Gove and Blunkett, and both of them had years of opposition to study the brief and four years in office.
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Post by debbie »

I am particularly delighted about Nick Gibb being reinstated as Minister of State for Schools. Nick Gibb has worked tirelessly to promote systematic synthetic phonics and always insisted this issue is so big that it needed to be a cross-party issue.

This is what the BBC has to say about his reinstatement:
One of a rare breed, the so-called ministerial re-treads, who return to government after having been sacked. He was ousted as schools minister in the 2012 reshuffle. He now returns to the Department for Education.
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Post by debbie »

Richard Adams in The Guardian writes a summary about Gove's period as Secretary of State for Education:
Michael Gove: a controversial but influential education secretary

Like him or not, his decision to bring in a phonics check and open up the national pupil database could have a lasting impact
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... -secretary
At the risk of sounding contrary, there are two policies from the Gove years that could end up being most influential of all 20 years from now – and they are two that many people won't have heard of.

The first is the phonics check – the brief test of reading ability the DfE introduced for year 1 pupils. For years, synthetic phonics – which teaches pupils to break words into sounds – has been supported by government policy as the most effective way to teach reading in the first years at school. But inertia and opposition meant that the policy was never implemented. The phonics check changed all that, and teachers in primary schools have quickly responded by adopting synthetic phonics teaching.

The implications are profound – although phonics remains bitterly opposed by some, there is clear evidence that it is more effective than other methods and offers those from disadvantaged backgrounds the best chance of catching up with their more fortunate and more literate middle-class peers in the crucial first years of formal education.
Please bear in mind that systematic synthetic phonics has not been introduced in a complete way as I describe in the article I wrote recently for SEN Magazine (May 2014):

https://www.senmagazine.co.uk/articles/ ... or-phonics
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Post by debbie »

Commentary by Sam Freedman via 'When 40 characters isn't enough' blog re education after Gove:

http://samfreedman1.blogspot.co.uk/2014 ... -gove.html
5) Gove's enemies may be celebrating prematurely. Though policy is unlikely to change much it will be significantly harder to demonise Nicky Morgan than it has been to attack Gove. He was something of a unifying factor for the teacher unions - the last NUT strike was effectively an anti-Gove demonstration. They may find their campaigns lose some momentum now.

Now is not the time for a proper retrospective of Michael Gove's time at the DfE. But - as Andrew Old says - perhaps his greatest achievement has been to normalise comprehensive education for the Conservative party; to shift the argument from "saving" a few bright poor kids through grammar schools or assisted places to creating a genuinely world class system for all. In time I suspect that will be more widely recognised than it is now.
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Post by debbie »

Hat tip to Tom Bennett's piece on Gove's departure in the TES:

To Kill a Michael Gove: The Gentleman Rapper Shuffles


http://community.tes.co.uk/tom_bennett/ ... YA.twitter
Despite his pantomime villain status, Gove was one of the most effective ministers in my lifetime, and certainly the most effective education minister, by several barometers. One was by the sheer amount of change he drove through in such a short space of time. Whether you think he was the Tooth Fairy or the Child Catcher, there's no denying that he took a scythe to the long grass of the secret garden, and you can take that metaphor any way you want. Others tinkered and rearranged the porcelain frogs on top of the education mantelpiece; he fixed them with a hammer. Your attitude to porcelain frogs will dictate your taste for what was left.
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Post by debbie »

Nick Gibb states his intentions in the Bognor Regis Observer:

http://www.bognor.co.uk/news/local/mp-v ... -1-6181790
MP vows no let-up in schools’ reform

Published on the
17 July 2014


DETERMINED Bognor Regis MP Nick Gibb spent yesterday getting back to work improving education.

Mr Gibb has been given his first red boxes to reflect his restored status as a British government minister.

He warned the teaching unions, which celebrated the removal of education secretary Michael Gove in the reshuffle, there would be no let-up in the pace 
of change.

Mr Gibb, the Conservative MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, said: “All the policies that Mr Gove put in place will continue.
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Post by debbie »

Nick Gibb's speech at the Reading Reform Foundation conference back in 2011 illustrates his commitment to systematic synthetic phonics teaching:


https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/ ... conference
The Government is determined to improve the teaching of reading in schools, and close the gap in attainment between the wealthiest and poorest pupils. We want to help all children, from all backgrounds, to become fluent and enthusiastic readers. Only once children have learnt to read, can they read to learn.

We already know how to tackle reading failure. High-quality international evidence has proved that systematic teaching of synthetic phonics is the best way to drive up standards in reading. Taught as part of a language rich curriculum, systematic synthetic phonics allows problems to be identified early and rectified before it is too late.
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Post by debbie »

'Andrew Old' asks:

Will everything really calm down after Gove?


http://teachingbattleground.wordpress.c ... fter-gove/
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Post by debbie »

Robert Peal writes about:

Gove's unfinished business


http://quarterly.demos.co.uk/article/is ... -business/

Robert Peal is a history teacher, an education research fellow at the think-tank Civitas and author of Progressively Worse.

He is on Twitter @goodbyemrhunter.
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Post by debbie »

This is a very useful page to get an overview of 'who's who' and the current emphasis of the Department for Education in England:



https://www.gov.uk/government/organisat ... -education
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Post by debbie »

Nick Gibb's formal responsibilities have now been listed - he is 'Minister of State for School Reform' - very interesting!

His pioneering work on investigating reading instruction and his subsequent promotion of Systematic Synthetic Phonics teaching has certainly been 'reform' without a doubt - although we have some way to go before all teachers are thoroughly trained and the 'multi-cueing reading strategies' are a thing of the past - perhaps they never will be!


https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers ... -state--29


The minister’s responsibilities include:

*qualifications and curriculum reform, including assessment and key stage tests
*behaviour and attendance
*reducing bureaucracy
*the relationship with Ofqual
*the Standards and Testing Agency
*overview of all funding, including revenue and capital for schools (with close links to the Minister of State for Schools)
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Post by debbie »

John Bald's analysis of Gove's contribution to education - and recognition of Nick Gibb's contribution too:


http://www.conservativehome.com/platfor ... utler.html

Bald notes:

Cranks make damaging headlines, but could have been dealt with by making the National Curriculum a baseline for academies and free schools, rather than letting them ignore it.
It does seem strange that a new (2014) National Curriculum was good enough for maintained schools but that academies and free schools have greater freedoms.
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