Education

Much of the talk down in Brighton is of the coming shadow Cabinet reshuffle. One person frequently tipped for the chop is Stephen Twigg, the shadow Education secretary. There’s much chatter that he might be replaced by Liz Kendall. But judging by his interview in today’s Evening Standard, Twigg won’t go quietly. He declares that he’s not going to try to change the fact that most secondary schools are now academies and that ‘if further schools want to convert that’s fine by me.’ This is Twigg telling those on the Labour left who are opposed to academies to get their tanks off his lawn. He’s also making clear that if

This morning, as parents were getting their children ready for their first day at school, the Education Secretary was taking to the airwaves. To many parents, who will be sending their children into overcrowded classrooms, they will be astonished by the complacency shown by Michael Gove. David Cameron’s Government has created a crisis in primary school places, of its own making; with a forecast shortfall of places of 240,000 by 2015. Michael Gove has no business grandstanding about his record. He and David Cameron cut schools capital spending by 60 per cent on taking office – twice as much as the cuts to other departments’ capital budgets. In fact, the cut to

In this week’s magazine Fraser Nelson and I look at the breaking of the English middle class, a subject so scary you’ll want to hold someone’s hand when reading it. The frightening thing is that in Britain, as in the United States, the middle class is not just squeezed but shrinking and sinking. Even before the Great Recession began, middle-class jobs in the law, media and accounting have been melting away, outsourced, unprofitable or obsolete, while salaries are falling behind prices. This is not a product of the credit crunch, and it will not be going away. Median hourly income in London is now below 2002 levels, real wages in Britain have

Ed Miliband is rumoured to be on the verge of sacking shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg, who is simply no match for Michael Gove’s flair and intellect. I hear that Vernon Coaker, who was Children, Schools and Families Minister under Brown and Balls, is in line for promotion. Coaker is a former teacher and seasoned political pugilist, so he would certainly brighten things up. But the damp Twigg has not given up, not yet. As is his wont, he has penned a letter to the Times Education Supplement. And, as ever, it is not a success. Among the usual bleats about Gove being a rabble rousing ‘ideologue’, I noticed this line: ‘Like a shark in

Michael Gove’s team is cock-a-hoop about the performance of free schools in the latest round of Oftsed reports. Of the 24 schools tested, 4 were judged outstanding, 14 were rated good, 5 have room for improvement and 1 was declared inadequate. A quick turnaround is required of the 6 substandard schools. The Department of Education emphasises that the tests were vigorous, carried out under Ofsted’s ‘tougher new inspection framework’ introduced last September. Michael Gove is making some political hay from this admittedly small sample. He said, ‘Too often the best schools are only available to the rich who can afford to go private or pay for an expensive house in

Remember all the fuss about ‘tiger-mothering’ sparked by Amy Chua’s book: Battle-Hymn of the Tiger Mother?  Mothers around the world began agonising about whether they were pushing their children hard enough. Well here’s a thought, sparked by our interview with the brilliant Professor Robert Plomin in the magazine this week. Maybe Amy’s children, the tiger cubs, would have got all those A+ results anyway, even without her cracking the whip so hard. Professor Plomin has studied over ten thousand pairs of twins and found that IQ is strikingly heritable – and that it becomes more heritable as kids grow up. Part of the reason for this, he suggests, is that

Michael Gove leads a lively life. In the past week he’s landed himself in the doghouse with his wife after a night on the town with Boris Johnson, and has been exposed as a gentleman rapper. Today, after giving an impassioned speech on teachers’ pay, the Education Secretary found himself being grilled by members of the lobby about both activities (rather than his desire to improve classroom standards). Did he leave Boris drunk in charge of a bicycle, wondered one member of the press pack. ‘As far as I could tell on Monday night, Boris was on sparkling form, and that was due more to his natural joie de vivre than

The funny thing about the new National Curriculum, published today, is that after all the fuss of the past few months, particularly over the history curriculum, it’s probably the last ever national plan from the government. As more and more schools convert to academy status, and more free schools pop up to compete with poorly-performing schools, there will be fewer and fewer who must conform to this: the rest have been given freedom to teach what they judge is best for their pupils. Michael Gove’s critics like to argue that he is a great centraliser, dictating the curriculum from Westminster while claiming to give schools freedom. But he only remains