Interview in today’s Telegraph:
- His team have compiled a list of the top 100 comprehensive schools
- Most of them insist on streaming their pupils across the board, including the wearing of blazers and ties are in.
- They have long lunch breaks during which pupils are kept on the premises and encouraged to take part in chess clubs and debating societies.
- Children should sit in traditional rows rather than
freeform classrooms.
- Discipline is crucial, head teachers should be able to
exclude disruptive pupils without being second guessed
- Traditional teaching methods include
children reciting times tables, learning to conjugate verbs and memorising the dates of the kings and queens.
- "The 1960s aren’t the root of all evil but certain teaching methods are actually reactionary, they’ve won favour
with people in the educational establishment but they don’t serve children well."
- It is
often the poorest children who suffer most from trendy teaching, such as the abandonment of synthetic phonics for being too authoritarian.
- Government plans to keep schools open before and after classes should be supported.
- There is a strong case for getting rid of AS levels, and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority should be broken up.
- Tories’ education plans are far more radical than Mr Brown’s, they would introduce a genuine free market into education, with businesses, charities and faith groups paid to run state schools, and parents given real choice.
Related link: Daniel Kawczynski MP has written for the Platform today about regional differences in funding for schools