What it is that makes it so destructive? There is to be a core curriculum – English,
Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, French and another
modern language/Latin and PE. At first
glance this is a reasonable spread of subjects. Not suited to all perhaps but
surely there will be arrangements put in place for those whose educational
needs lie in different directions? But
consider what it doesn’t include. For a start what’s happened to sport, IT, any
element of Design Technology, Art, Music, Drama? Where they are offered at all, it is to be outside
the core curriculum as extra-curricular activities.
The EBAC has been sneaked in. It began as a list of nominated
subjects that would get schools special consideration in the points table if
they produced a sufficient number of students with grade C and above. And in
education points don’t mean prizes, they mean survival for the many schools whose
catchment areas don’t provide them with a majority of academically inclined
students. Then followed a direct hit at those
schools who, knowing their community, and aware of the needs and abilities and aptitudes
of their own students let them follow subjects suited those criteria, only to
discover that those subjects were to lose all their points.
A Tory minister came on to the Today Programme to tell
us how ridiculous it was that schools were teaching subjects like Horse
Management and Fish Farming at GCSE level and claiming that they should be
given the same value as History and Geography. Until the programme was swamped
with phone calls, texts and e mails from parents in rural areas, a lot of them declaring
themselves to be Tory voters, protesting at such a short sighted lack of
understanding.
We’re now moved on and the EBAC has been redrafted and
will be introduced with no margin for compromise. Sport. IT. Design Technology. Art. Music. Drama. And a host of other valuable
subjects all pushed out. And why? So we can return to what its supporters see as
a fondly remembered golden age when state secondary education imitated the public
school model. For grammar schools and
direct grant schools read academies and free schools. We don’t yet, in name, have the secondary modern
schools to shovel off all those who don’t fit the approved model but they are
being created, slowly, and without anyone but those affected really noticing,
by gradually syphoning off over the brightest from the existing state schools
and into the new schools for profit.
The EBAC will not only damage our children by depriving
them of the education they need to equip them for the twenty first century, it
will take away one of their basic rights, that they should be able to feel a
part of the cultural life of their country, and I use the word culture in its
widest sense. And it will hurt the nation. Where will be the artists? And the money they generate? Where will the
next Jessica Ennis or Mo Farrah, both of whom acknowledged PE teachers and
school sports as a vital part of their development, look for encouragement? And what about the kids who discover a love
of sport at school and carry that enthusiasm with them when they leave into
local football leagues and rugby clubs? Will
they find that level of enthusiasm when sport is jostling for space with
everything else in an extra- curricular circus? (The proposed Nottingham Free
Schools tell prospective parents that extra- curricular activities will last
for 45 minutes, anything after that they’ll have to be paid for.) Can we
seriously not have IT as a subject for all? Or do we assume that kids pick up all the
skills they need on facebook? Where will
the designers, and engineers, and chefs, and farm managers get their grounding?
We want our young people to grow up fit, healthy, aware
of the wider world , considerate and sensitive towards the needs of others, with
the best educational qualifications they have been able to achieve. If Mr Gove is allowed to restrict our children’s
school experience to this narrow, measly, curriculum we will all be the poorer.
It is probably too much to hope that he will have a
sudden change of mind and throw it all out and say sorry, chaps, you were
right, I’ve made a mistake. But we can
show him that we are not satisfied. That
what he wants to do isn’t right. And
that may bring about a rethink. The
straps on the strait jacket may be eased a tad, and further enquiries set up,
and time may pass, another education secretary take over, and the whole thing
may be allowed to slip away like so many other educational initiatives. I believe we can make that change come about
by raising our objections at every possible opportunity. And if we can’t then we may have to bite the
bullet and start up a few free schools of our own.
Follow the link below for one way to support the
campaign against the English Baccalaureate.
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