I gave up secondary teaching ten years ago. One of the reasons I did so was the constant meddling in our education system by politicians of all parties.
Once upon a time (in the 1960s) Governments commissioned reports before making changes. We had the Plowden report for Primary Schools and the Newsom report ("Half Our Future") for Secondaries. Then everybody sat around and debated them for a while, and finally changes were made. By and large this worked, and we could do a lot worse than go back and read those huge reports again.
Now, a politician gets appointed to the Education Ministry (whatever it's called this week!) and immediately starts making changes. Why? Because he or she needs to Make Their Mark before they're moved on to another post. Result: schools haven't finished implementing the last lot of changes before the next lot are on them. You couldn't run a business that way. Oh, hang on . . . . the Railways. Same management model, and look at the mess they're in.
Also Education Ministers seem to be prepared to listen to whatever charlatan shouts the loudest that schools are getting it all wrong. That started with the awful Chris Woodhead under Thatcher (he was a comparative failure as a teacher, and shagged one of his female pupils - what a star!) and the process seems to accelerate with each new Government. Blair and co seemed to think that Reg Vardy, the evangelical secondhand car dealer, knew more about schools than anyone who'd ever worked in one!
I despaired when I gave up teaching, I despair more with each passing year and each new education Minister. I want to rewrite the old Floyd song "Brick In The Wall": "Minister: leave them Schools alone!"
