Lessons to learn
Sir: Your leading article ‘Requires improvement’ (7 September) rightly raised concerns that a curriculum review in England might reverse the excellent progress in schools following the Gove reforms. Fortunately, there are two very good examples of what happens when you replace rigour and the acquisition of knowledge with left-wing dogma and woolly thinking. The introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland has led to a dramatic fall in standards in Scottish education and a resultant collapse in its Pisa [Programme for International Student Assessment] ranking. Last year Wales recorded its lowest-ever Pisa ranking. Its new national curriculum is closely based on the Scottish model, so it would seem likely that Wales will suffer yet further and a generation of children will be let down by a flawed model.
A quick review of the career of Becky Francis, who has been appointed to lead the government’s review of curriculum and assessment, should cause further alarm. Most of her academic work appears to relate to gender, feminism, class and ethnicity. I don’t think we should be surprised at this, but those expecting excellence, standards, rigour and academic achievement to feature as the key drivers might be disappointed. England could be on course to follow Scotland and Wales down the path of educational mediocrity, and increase yet further the gap in attainment between the state and independent sectors.
Martyn Thomas
Bryngwyn, Monmouthshire
School of thought
Sir: Ofsted should turn to Waugh’s Decline and Fall for a ready-made school ranking system (Barometer, 7 September). Mr Levy of scholastic agents Church and Gargoyle grades them thus: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School and School. ‘Frankly,’ said Mr Levy, ‘school is pretty bad.’
Stephen Chittenden
Great Shelford, Cambridgeshire
Campaign trail
Sir: Charles Moore’s revelation that the government’s ‘Lead on Fox Hunting Crime’, Devon’s assistant chief constable Matt Longman, attended a League Against Cruel Sports event but declined the British Hound Sports Association’s invitation to National Trail Day (Notes, 7 September) echoes the Labour party’s rejection of the BHSA’s application to take an exhibition stand at the forthcoming Labour party conference, while allowing LACS to do so. Does the government’s appointed police ‘enforcer’ – and, for that matter, Labour MPs – not wish to know the consequences of their manifesto pledge to ban trail hunting? Some 10,000 hounds and many horses having to be what is euphemistically called ‘repurposed’. More job losses than at the Tata Welsh steelworks, as well as £1.7 billion of lost revenue in mainly rural areas – not to mention denying 40,000 ‘ordinary working people’ the freedom to go into the countryside to enjoy legal, well-regulated, healthy outdoor exercise.
Every year a quarter of a million people go out to enjoy the Boxing Day meet. Incidentally, that’s the same number of football fans who attend three Wembley FA Cup finals.
Neil R. Kennedy
Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex
Case in pointe
Sir: I was fascinated to read Lesley Downer’s account of cultural appropriation claims in ballet (Arts, 7 September). How timely, how apposite. The previous evening I had attended the opening night of Northern Ballet’s new series of Three Short Ballets, including Mthuthuzeli November’s Fools. This is a reimagining of a novel, creating a sort of South African township Romeo and Juliet. I watched Sarah Chun in this and another of the pieces, together with the many dancers of a variety of nationalities that make up the splendid Northern Ballet troupe. As I watched I thought: ‘Well, no one would be able to accuse this piece of cultural appropriation’ – created as it is by a black South African choreographer especially for this multi-national dance company.
Reading Ms Downer’s article on my return made me very sad, not least as a supporter of Northern Ballet, knowing how very hard they work creating new pieces and the time and cost that would have been expended on Geisha. Do we accuse Lang Lang of cultural appropriation as we listen, entranced, while he plays western classical music? It is a nonsense, and a very destructive one. I hope the time might come when Northern Ballet can revive Geisha and we can all enjoy what no doubt will be a delightful production. Meanwhile I commend to all who can see it this series of new works, performed by a diverse and highly talented company of dancers.
Jilly Burrows
Wilmslow, Cheshire
Stage fright
Sir: David Hare (Diary, 7 September) bemoans the National Theatre’s discontinuation of the repertory system, and that establishment’s limited repertoire. He would do well to turn his gaze to our regional theatres, those erstwhile centres of excellence in our major cities, where some of our greatest actors, directors and playwrights cut their teeth.
Sir David would, I think, despair. Their websites exude a kind of chirpy inclusivity: lots of workshops, musicals, comedy gigs and evenings with… (insert name of middlebrow celebrity). The occasional nod to Shakespeare or Tennessee Williams, yes, but it’s as though the canon of world theatre didn’t exist.
This – at a time when more young people are going to university, and drama is a school subject – is astonishing. Is there no hunger to see the plays that speak to us down the centuries, performed live on stage? If I lived in, say, Birmingham, I would be mightily peeved at contributing in my taxes to theatres in the lucky metropolis.
Vera Lustig
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
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