Dear Mr Gove

Dear Mr Gove,

I am writing this because I feel sorry for you.  You appear to be a very confused man.  Someone has told you that Education is broken and it is your responsibility to fix it.  They have also told you that you need to spend even less money, while fixing it.  I wouldn't like to be in your shoes.

Like you, I have no real qualifications to make any kind of decisions about how to run an education system; I am a parent, I have been to school, I do have common sense, I like words and writing and can spot the absurd and make a joke out of it.  I have also been trying to teach children about music for a while now.  I say trying because what I have learnt from this experience is that it's not an easy job.  You can't just open the tops of their heads and pour in the information you want them to know and they are all different, so that in a class of 30 you will probably need at least 20 different strategies to help them to learn and recall something.

In today's article in the Telegraph you appear more confused than ever.  You have spotted what appears to be absurd about how some teachers have worked with their classes and given them as examples of bad education and then gone on to say how, "Great teaching involves empathy and energy, authority and resilience, detailed planning; constant self improvement.  A great teacher has the ability to 'read' a classroom and understand its dynamics instantly; shows inspirational leadership, exciting and motivating pupils to help them achieve their full potential."  You say this yet you undermine the many great teachers who use some of the techniques you laugh about.  You are right about great teachers; they will do whatever it takes to excite and motivate a pupil into achieving their full potential but whatever it takes will probably have to include some of the techniques you pour scorn on.  You are great with a soundbite and you know any sane and rational person reading the article will think that 18 year old A level students would find making Plasticine models eye-rollingly stupid.  Most 18 year old A level students would much rather have their teacher stand at the front of the class and waffle on for 40 minutes so that they can continue their daydream about getting a date with Taylor Lautner, or whoever this week's most fanciable male actor happens to be.  Teenagers will tell you that most of what they do at school is,  "STOOPID."   They do not want to go out onto the field to re-enact the Battle of Flodden but in 5 years time they will still be able to tell you everything about that Battle, including the names and dates.  (I know because I have a daughter who can remember everything about a history lesson that she had to re-enact but can't remember any French Vocab she learnt by rote).

As an equally unqualified person to pronounce on these matters I have believed that education doesn't serve all children in this country well.  Like you, before I started working in schools, I would think that it would be easy to fix education. I would think, "How hard can it be to make children learn to spell properly?"  I would believe my children when they sneered at their teacher's methods.  However, since I have worked in schools I have learnt a lot.  I have watched really excellent teachers, who could teach children something inspiring if you gave them the phone book to work with.  I have seen dedication that requires work late into the night and at weekends. I have seen that children learn more when they are having fun.  Unfortunately, I have also seen teachers exhausted by having to write everything down, learn and follow the latest method of teaching and assess the children in the way that puts their school at the top of the league tables.

I never thought that schools are getting worse.  I have noticed that my children learn in greater depth and with greater understanding than I ever did.  I can still tell you the first 20 elements of the periodic table but my son can tell you why they are in the positions they are in, the number of electrons in each and tell you quite a lot about the properties of each element. My children were taught to think for themselves at school I was only taught to think for myself by my wonderfully intelligent parents (who, indidentally had a terrible secondary modern education, which they left at 14).  Schools in the eighties were just as worried about how they looked as they are now; the needs of the individual child came second to getting the best results for the school.  I took CSE English at the end of my 5th year, despite having already passed my English O level the year before.

If I were in your position I would be getting into schools to discover these things for myself.  I would look at the best education systems in the world like Finland, Denmark and New Zealand.  I would try to implement the things that make their education system great.  Here are a few of my suggestions.
1. Instil a love of books.  Give every parent 3 free books on the birth of their child that they can start reading to their children immediately.  Keep libraries open and free.
2. Reduce class sizes to 20.  Any teacher will tell you that smaller classes will make all the difference.
3.  Start formal education later.  Encourage play based daycare that isn't about babysitting to allow adults to work but is a place that children want to go to to learn, explore, make friends and have fun.
4. Have extended hours music schools at a reduced cost.
5. Remove gifted programmes.  Education is not a race.  Exams designed for 16 year olds should be taken by 16 year olds.  Children who already know enough to pass could help those who don't as teaching others is the absolutely best way to improve and understand your own skills. If that didn't suit an individual child they could read for pleasure.
6. Have a national curriculum but then leave it alone.  Allow teachers to use whatever method works for individual pupils. Teachers will need to be well educated and really understand every method available. Stop changing things with every government.  Employers don't stand a chance of knowing what their potential employees exams mean.  They have to ask themselves, "Was that a year when the grades were lowered? Was grammar taught that year?" "Did women exist in that year's History curriculum?"
7.  Get rid of league tables and competition.  Remember that statistics can and always will be manipulated.

However, I think all this may not make you a popular person with the treasury, as I suspect it might cost money they are not willing to let you spend but I do hope you consider some of these things and start to think about children, rather than the interesting soundbite.