Michael Gove

The democratic deficit in the EU

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One of the central claims of those supporting leaving the EU is that the current arrangements represent an unacceptable democratic deficit. This is writ large over Boris Johnson’s Telegraph article announcing his support of the Leave vote. Above all, we will be told that whatever the democratic deficiencies, we would be better off remaining in because of … Continue Reading

The Toxic Language in Education

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A few weeks ago I was in a meeting at the school where I am a governor to review last year’s performance against targets. As we were looking at each subject area, and the ‘added value’ the school had brought to the results, mapped against ‘expected achievement’, we (quite naturally) fell into a kind of … Continue Reading

Michael Gove is wrong—again

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I don’t disagree with Michael Gove on everything he says. Learning in any context is always a combination of knowledge acquisition and the development of skills, and I have some sympathy with the notion that the balance in secondary education has moved too far to the latter and needs more of the former. Acquired knowledge … Continue Reading