Teaching

Last week Eton College made the controversial decision to sack an English teacher after he refused to take down his YouTube video entitled ‘The Patriarchy Paradox’. In the 30-minute lecture, Will Knowland argues that the patriarchy results from biological differences rather than social constructs and that the system benefits women. Eton’s decision is not, as many people would argue, an attack on free speech and fundamental liberties. It is an attack on foolishness. If Knowland’s intention had been to encourage healthy academic debate, then there are many other outlets he could have chosen: an assembly, a debate, or one of his English lessons.

Teacher training is terrific fun. Oh yes, I am thoroughly enjoying myself on my evening course at Guildford College. Don’t worry, I’m not actually becoming a teacher. The Snowflakes of Britain are safe. No, I hit upon the idea of running a writers’ group. But of course you can’t just run anything in this country any more. Once you look into the Kafkaesque nightmare of having strangers in your house or of hiring a venue in which you will interact with other human beings, you start to fall into a dark and terrifying pit of equality and health and safety legislation. Naturally, the first thing anyone wants to know if you are offering to come within 50 paces of a ‘student’ or ‘learner’ is that you have a DBS.

A few months ago I joined forces with Sir Anthony Seldon, the vice-chancellor of Buckingham University, to run an idea up the flagpole. Why not make it possible for senior managers from outside the teaching profession to retrain as heads? Anthony, who was a successful head himself, is in the process of setting up the Buckingham Institute of School Leadership to train the heads of the future. He proposed creating a mid-career and late-career entry track into this programme so successful managers in their thirties, forties and fifties can retrain as school leaders. This idea was met with some scepticism by teachers and I can’t say I blame them.

Teaching maths the Asian way English primary schools have received funding of £41 million to embrace the ‘Asian style’ of teaching maths. The method, used in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong — all of which are at the top of Pisa’s study into the school performance of 15-year-olds — is more visual than the ‘normal’ British style of maths teaching, and focuses on children being taught in a mixed-ability group, rather than being divided into streams. The funding, announced in July, will allow 700 teachers to be trained in the Asian method, in addition to the 140 who have already completed their training.

King’s College London Mathematics School is precisely one year old. And on 13 August it woke up to AS-level results that make it one of the ten best state schools in the country. 97 per cent of students got an A in mathematics. 90 per cent of grades in maths and further maths were As. Students’ grades were, on average, two grades higher, across all their subjects, than would be expected from their GCSE results. As a governor, I bask in reflected glory. Ours is a ‘free school’ sponsored by King’s, and it teaches talented, committed 16- to 18-year-olds. We select for potential, using our own test. But we also select by the education, and especially the quality of the A-level maths, that applicants could expect at their current school.

Watching a group of unruly children make mincemeat out of a well-meaning teacher has become a television staple and Are Our Kids Tough Enough? Chinese School, a factual entertainment series that debuted on BBC2 on Tuesday, is a case in point. We look on aghast as five teachers from China struggle to manage a class of ordinary 14-year-olds in England. They quickly discover that the techniques that have made Chinese schoolchildren the envy of the world don’t work with Kevin the Teenager. On the face of it, the Chinese educational model has much to recommend it. Shanghai is at the top of the Pisa international education league tables in maths, while the UK is in 26th place.

From school places to behaviour to teacher training, the teaching unions have excelled themselves with their doom and gloom pronouncements at their conferences this weekend about the state of our schools.  We shouldn’t be surprised, there is, afterall, an election coming up and we all know where the union leaderships’ loyalty lies. But these conferences have simply served to highlight one thing - that the gulf between the leadership of the classroom unions and their members is wider than ever before. Because the unions' depressing portrait isn’t what I see when I look at England’s schools today. The first commitment I made as Education Secretary was to get out of Westminster and into classrooms.

Is internet technology turning our brains to mush? For those born after 1990, it is a constant fear. Most of us struggle to read a poster, let alone a book. We’ve overstimulated our prefrontal cortexes to near death through incessant multi-screening. Our brains aren’t wired to do anything except be wired. But technology fans tell us to be positive. We should embrace the new world and its limitless possibility. In education, in particular, there is a sense of optimism. When I started secondary school at the turn of the millennium, we had just one interactive whiteboard. It immediately became the epicentre of the school. By the time I graduated from university, all students were equipped with their own laptop, and essays were uploaded electronically.