Teach Secondary - Issue 13.2

The case for powerful KNOWLEDGE TobyMarshall ponders what the seemingly imminent change of leadership at Westminster might mean for the last remaining vestiges of Michael Gove’s far-reaching education reforms... N othing is certain in politics. Yet, as I write these words, two things do seem relatively likely. One is that the next General Election will be held no later than 28th January 2025, because electoral law says so. The second is that after enduring many long years of Tory misrule, the British people finally seem to have had enough of their executive. So where does that leave teachers? Should we welcome a now perhaps inevitable Labour Party victory? And is it fair to say that everything the Conservatives did to English state education was bad? Vital asset I’ve worked in schools occasionally, but for most of the past 20+ years I’ve taught A Level film studies in East London’s further education colleges. I pick up on young peoples’ education where local school teachers leave off. I’m also a parent who has raised three children, all of whomhave attended English state schools, and am pleased to say that they’ve benefited greatly from the patient work of their teachers. Most importantly, I’m a citizen who, like many others, sees state education as a vitally important national asset. Schools are uniquely responsible for systematically engaging the young, in what the poet and critic MatthewArnold once described as ‘The best that has been thought and said’ . No other institution performs this role, and at their best, state schools will regularly deliver on this duty. The Gove revolution Some years ago, the English academic Michael Young began to think through the role of the modern school. It might be argued that he gave some sociological heft to Arnold’s position. Young’s best known work, the book Bringing Knowledge Back In , was published in 2009. It saw Young argue that schools did more thanmerely socialise the young, and ought to be seen as specialised epistemic institutions. The primary role of schools, he maintained, wasn’t to directly serve the needs of either the economy or politics, but rather to provide the young with access to what he described as ‘powerful knowledge’. Soon after the book’s publication, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats formed the 2010 coalition government, withMichael Gove appointed as Secretary of State for Education. For a time, Gove and his team drew on Young’s ideas as a way of justifying a radical, knowledge-oriented shift in school curriculum policy. Some advocates of this new policy direction went so far as to call this the ‘Gove revolution’. I remember the debates of the period well, and while I supported this ‘knowledge turn’ in education policy, I found Gove’s style of argument often juvenile and counterproductive – especially when describing those with whomhe had educational disagreements as ‘The Blob’. Such language wasn’t becoming of his high office. Curriculum concerns Four years into Gove’s tenure, all the major teaching unions passed motions of no confidence in him, prompting the then Prime Minister, David Cameron to move him on. A key lesson here is that you don’t win arguments for change by insulting those who must deliver it. Ultimately, however, I agreed then, and still agree now, with Gove’s overarching arguments. His most significant achievement, in my view, was to lead the fifth full rewrite of the English National Curriculum, originally introduced back in 1988. The latest version of the document makes clear that all students within English state-funded schools are entitled to access bodies of powerful academic knowledge, and that providing access to this knowledge should be the primary focus of teachers’ work. Following Gove’s dismissal, English state education policy under the post-2015 Conservative government continued to be “There’s beenagrowing focus onmoral andpolitical issues, at expense ofknowledge” 12 teachwire.net/secondary