Michael Gove has been sacked as Education Secretary - is the only way up?

"We been broken down
the lowest turn
and been on the bottom line
sure ain't no fun
but if we should be evicted from our homes
we'll just move somewere else
and still carry on
Hold on, Hold on, Hold on

Chorus
"The only way is up, baby
For you and me, baby
The only way is up
For you and me"

('The Only Way is Up', Yazz & The Plastic Population)

There is a principle is statistics called 'regression to the mean', which refers to the phenomenon that if a variable is extreme on its first measurement, it will tend to be closer to the average on its second measurement.  In other words, it means that events tend to even out, so an unusual measure is likely to be followed by a more 'normal' result.

Regression to the mean explains why football managers often seem to experience a brief period of success when they begin a new post (because they usually get their job after a particularly disasterous time for their predecessor - even standard levels of performance will appear to be an improvement after abject failure).  It also explains why alternative medicine sometimes seems to work (people tend to seek unusual treatments when their symptoms are severe, and any slight improvement is attributed the magical sugar tablet, rather than simply that random fluctuations would mean that the severity would have probably declined anyway).

Regression to the mean also explains the widespread euphoria that followed the sacking of Michael Gove as English Secretary of State for Education. Such was the contempt felt for Mr Gove by large numbers of teachers and parents, that it was simply assumed that his replacement, Nicky Morgan could not fail to be improvement.  That Ms Morgan is a political and religious conservative who opposed equal marriage (she says she's in parliament not only for her constituents, but "to remember the Word of God and serve the Lord") was more than out-weighed by her assertion that an important part of her job was to work with teachers, rather than against them:

'I will obviously be nice to teachers, because working with teachers and heads and governors and everyone else in the system is critical in getting the best outcome for our children. Education can be life-transforming.'

That the government minister responsible for education has to state something so blindingly obvious out-loud is an indication of how warped and distorted this role has become.  Whether or not Mr Gove, who showed his contempt for teachers with his every utterance and ill-thought-out policy, is the worst Secretary of State ever is a matter of debate.  He certainly has some stiff opposition for that title from the various bullies, incompetents and loons who have held the position over the preceding decades.

In this context, Nicky Morgan could become a wildly popular Education boss merely by staying in her office and watching daytime TV.  Perhaps she could appear from time to time at conferences to tell teachers and parents, like 'Young' Mr Grace of 'Are you Being Served', 'You've all done very well', before being carried back to her LaZboy recliner and the latest episode of 'Doctors'.

But lest we forget, Nicky Morgan was appointed by the same man who thought it was a good idea to hand over our children's futures to Michael Gove.  She is an ambitious Cameronite, and immediately felt compelled to jump on all of the standard Tory educational bandwagons, including Academies, faith-based schooling, and Grammar Schools. 

As I have argued before, the case for Grammar Schools is weak, and its impact could be summarised simply as 'benefit for a few at the expense of the rest'.  Much the same conclusion, I suspect, could be said of academies and faith-based schooling, although I would not include children among the beneficiaries of the latter.

My concern, though, is not that the new Secretary of State for Education holds these views.  It is that she is at the very beginning of her role, and has already decided her position on some of the most contested issue in education without, it seems, recourse to evidence or even discussion with those in the teaching profession.

Does that remind you of someone?

On the Duty of Being a Pain in the Arse

When I recently invited people to share their views on the so-called Olympic legacy, a colleague tweeted that she hoped people would remain optimistic in their responses.  Another respondent worried that sports professionals had a tendency to be too negative about issues like legacy, and maybe it was time we all positive-up!

These comments struck me at the time as extremely revealing, entirely reflecting a certain way of thinking that finds a welcome home in central sports agencies and some national governing bodies in the UK, and sometimes elsewhere.

Perhaps it is a natural response to a policy environment that is so unstable.  Some times we are flush with cash, other times not.  Sometimes that cash is directed into the shiny, beautiful world of elite sport, justified with, let's face it, a series of ludicrous claims about benefits tricking down to the dirty, much less glamorous worlds of community sport and school sport.  At other times, sport is hailed as the new public health prescription.  And then, in the blink of a general election, it changes again.

So 'keep smiling and carry on' has become something of a motto in British sport, much as a sense of humour became a defence against the horrors of bygone Britain.  Who can argue with that?  A certain wilful hopefulness has characterised the sports profession for as long as I have known it.

The only problem arises when this chirpy optimism is incompatible with intelligence.  Positive thinking is a worthy strategy, but it should not be at the expense of reason and evidence.  Just as there is a vital difference between an open mind and a whole in the head, there is a difference between constructive optimism and truth-blindness.  And here lies a bit of a problem for sport in UK, and elsewhere.  Criticism of policy has traditionally been as welcome as a fart in a duvet.

Critics are trouble-makers.  Stirrers.  Awkward questions are spoilers.  One senior sport leader used to publicly condemn the 'yes but' folk who could not just accept new schemes and initiatives without piping up and pointing out their potential problems.  The way these poor fools were described and the laughter of derision they inspired made it perfectly clear that, in this context at least, a critical friend was a contradiction in terms.

No UK government in recent times has sought out expert opinion in sport in any serious or meaningful way.  And this applies whether that expertise lies in Universities, sports agencies or professional associations.  From time to time, and out of a sense of grudging obligation, new policy documents are waved at the professional community, and they are warmly invited to send their comments by last Tuesday.  Generally speaking, the people who run sport for a living are seen as obstacles to be overcome, rather than resources to be tapped.

There are many reasons for this situation.  For example, a great deal of money is invested in even the most small-scale schemes, and perhaps those charged with promoting them feel under pressure to defend them too.  A more plausible explanation is that sport suffers and benefits from being politically sexy.  All sorts of people, including the general public, have views about it.  So any sports policy carries with it expectations both of politics and public opinion.  So, some policies need protecting from criticism because they are bullshit (in the sense I have defined elsewhere in this blog: "The bullshitter does not care if he or she is lying or telling the truth; only whether the statement advances a particular objective.  The bullshitter makes claims to persuade, or sell, or convince.  Whether they are true or not is irrelevant.").

Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s account of the most gifted bullshitter of recent history is helpful because it makes the art more real for us:

“Blair isn’t a liar, not in the sense that most of us are.    That is, most of us have on occasion told untruths, usually to get out of trouble of some kind or another .. but we crucially knew what we were doing .. By contrast, Blair is something different, and far more dangerous: he s not a liar but a man with no grasp at all of the distinction between objective truth and falsehood.”

A more recent example of policy bullshit is Education Secretary Michael Gove's repeated calls to increase the amount of competitive sport in schools.  One clue that this is the case is the fact that it was Mr Gove, himself, who was responsible for undermining one of the most effective competitive school sport structures in the world, when he attacked the PESSCL/PESSYP scheme, and especially the School Sport Coordinators role.  Apart from this, I am willing to bet my liver that Mr Gove has never given school sport a second thought since he was a pupil himself (I assume he failed to make any of the teams, and was forced to watch the matches with the wheezy children with notes from Matron).  But he must say something stirring about competition in schools because he is a Tory minister, and that is the sort of thing they have to say.

Of course, open discussion is not a panacea.  It may be that certain issues are too complex to be laid open to genuine discussion, although I have never come across an instance where this applies in sport or education.  Is the bases of ideas and schemes are made clear to everyone, and open dialogue on any problems or concerns takes place, those with greatest influence can be challenged to justify their views all to change them.  And, of course, it may well be that these ideas turn out to be entirely reasonable. The whole point of open discussion and dialogue is to allow all sides to detect errors and correct them, for the greater good. And also that, where changes need to be made, they must emerge from the discussion, and not be made in advance by those with power or control.

This is so radically different from the model assumed by most public agencies in the UK and elsewhere that it might seem naive. When I have asked why there is so little open consultation before new schemes are finalised, I have been told that it would not be practical, and that special interest groups merely slow-up the process of implementation.  In many cases, the special interest groups contain far more expertise then is held by the government and quasi-government agencies, so this position is clearly ludicrous.  Experts only cause "trouble" if they let errors or inconsistencies or nonsense slip by into practice.

If this is accepted, then we need to think again about the importance of discussion and criticism in public discussions of sport.  Those in control need to reflect a little on their own limitations. The rest of us need to step up and take our responsibilities seriously as active participants in the exchange and improvement of ideas.

And those people who we have been told are the most loyal and most supportive, who stand behind policy no matter what, should be exposed for what they are: freeloaders. There is a large numbers of people and groups in the current climate who have identified that compliance is a safe and secure strategy. There are outraged at criticism of any sort, and imply that those disreputable folk who criticise the creators of policy are not team-players. In fact, the opposite is true. These bland, cowardly individuals add nothing to the quality of public discussions. They contribute nothing to learning, and merely act as anchors, resisting change and progress.

Humans, all humans, make mistakes.  We are fallible.  Criticism is the best way we know to put those errors in check.  So criticism is vital.  It should not be merely tolerated; it should be invited, encouraged, and celebrated.  And those who seek to protect their ideas from criticism should be exposed and condemned.

Mr Gove's and Mr Hunt's Party Games

By a judicial mix of luck and judgement, the last English government arrived at a cluster of policies for Physical Education and School Sport that set England apart from almost every other country in the world.  They were not perfect, of course, but compared to the situation around the world – where PE is often twilight subject undermined by poor facilities, badly or untrained staff, and minimal central support – our PE teachers found themselves in the unfamiliar situation of being relatively happy.  

The Physical Education, School Sport and Club Links / Young People (PESSCL / PESSYP) scheme drew together a range of initiatives like School Sport Partnerships (SSP) and Gifted and Talent PE and Sport (G&TPES) that evolved over a period of ten or so years into well-designed, well-delivered programmes that benefited millions of children.  And the last national evaluation for G&TPES judged the scheme to be the best in the world.  I know this because I directed the study.  We identified many problems, including the old familiar of wildly inconsistent practice in primary schools, but we also reported highly sophisticated methods in some schools, and a general pattern of good practice.

In light of the fact that most countries’ school-based talent development strategies lie somewhere behind blind luck and voodoo, the English approach provides a rare and slightly uncomfortable source of pride!

And then things changed.  The new government immediately started closing schemes and changing income streams.  SSPs were blocked, and ripples of uncertainty spread across the country.  Since then other schemes have closed, and it is accurate to say the England no longer has a strategy for school sport.

Now we hear that,

The unveiling of a £100m government school sport policy designed to combat criticism over the Olympic legacy has been delayed due to a dispute between the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and the education secretary, Michael Gove.

The standoff between the Health and Education departments over a replacement for the £162m school sport partnerships controversially axed by Gove in 2010 has caused them to miss a pre-Christmas deadline to announce the new scheme.

It had been hoped the strategy would be unveiled this week, coinciding with announcements on investing £492m in grassroots sport and £347m in elite Olympic sports ahead of the Rio Games in 2016.

The use of the word ‘strategy’ is interesting, isn’t it?  The word usually refers to some sort of plan or forethought.  But it is clear that the Government’s proposals are merely policy fluff designed to pacify the armies of Olympians who condemned the casual killing of a sporting legacy.

And thank heavens for the athletes, as the plaintiff cries of teachers, parents and advocacy groups were simply ignored.

But we should not expect matters to return to the way they were.  The funding for schools has been cut, and many of the most successful programmes have been either cut or reorganised.  The real problem, though, is the almost total absence of evidence or consultation behind the new policy.  The quite substantial body of research into effective practice, and especially into inspiring hard-to-reach groups though sport, seems not to have been touched.  Instead, we hear ill-informed ministers parroting simple-minded nonsense of the urgent need for ‘more competition’.

Does it matter?  Of course it does.

Evidence of increasingly high levels of sedentary behaviour in both children and adults means genuine cause for concern.  Nike’s recent ‘Designed to Move’ report told of an reduction of physical activity levels around the world, and including the United Kingdom.

Inactive children and adults are not just denied the joy of movement and play.  They are also vulnerable to increased risk of a host of chronic diseases, such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes, and are deprived of the most effective and cost-effective method for developing effective overall functioning, including intellectual performance, psychological and social well-being.

PE and school sport are the only experiences of physical activity available to every child.  So, the importance of the school as a setting for being active, for learning sporting skills, and for developing talents is unequalled by any other context.

School sport is a political football (apologies for the pun!).  And it deserves better, as it is too important to leave to the egos and ignorances of politicians.  The Government uses the language of evidence-based policies without subjecting itself to its discipline.  Instead, they rely on lazy presumptions and an ideologically driven vision of sport that as out-dated as it is impotent.

Sport has still got a long way to go, Mr Gove

I don't think I was the only person surprised by the tone of the recent speech by Michael Gove, English Secretary of State of Education, at Brighton College.  He took the opportunity to highlight the inequalities that remain characteristic of British society, and especially advances offered those able to attend independent schools.

"It is remarkable how many of the positions of wealth, influence, celebrity and power in our society are held by individuals who were privately educated."

I was surprised because Mr Gove has never struck me as someone especially bothered by our evident social biases.  A great deal of Mr Gove's speech focused on the inequalities inherent within our sports systems.  Yet, in dismantling the Physical Education and School Sport programme in English schools, and especially the School Sport Partnerships, he was directly responsible for sabotaging one of the very few national policies to successfully break down barriers to participation of state-school pupils.


And the proposed solution of 'more competitive sport in schools' would be simply laughable if it was not for its promise of reversing many of the advances we have seen during the last decade, with the negative health consequences that will bring.


Simple solutions are great for dealing with simply problems.  But even Mr Gove is starting to recognise that the problems of participation and talent development are not simple.


At Brighton he said:

Take sport – where by definition the biggest names are in their teens, twenties and thirties.

As Ed Smith, the Tonbridge-educated former England player, and current Times journalist, points out in his wonderful new book “Luck”:

Twenty-five years ago, of the 13 players who represented England on a tour of Pakistan, only one had been to a private school. In contrast, over two thirds of the current team are privately educated. You’re 20 times more likely to go on and play for England if you go to private school rather than state school.

The composition of the England rugby union team and the British Olympic team reveal the same trend.
Of those members of England’s first 15 born in England, more than half were privately educated.

And again, half the UK’s gold medallists at the last Olympics were privately educated, compared with seven per cent of the population.
 

  
All of this is true.  And it has been known from at least the 1980s.


Here is a summary of some of the social and economic factors linked to high performance in sport:

Variable	Source
Parents achieved high standards in domain	Rotella and Bunker, 1987; Radford, 1990; Feldman and Goldsmith, 1986
Relatively high socio-economic status	Rowley, 1992; English Sports Council, 1997; Duncan, 1997
Ability and willingness to financially support participation and specialist support	Rowley, 1992; Kirk, et al, 1997a; Kay, 2000
Ability and willingness to invest high amounts of time to support the child’s engagement in the activity	Yang et al., 1996; Kirk et al., 1997b; Kay, 2000; Holt and Morley, 2004
Parents as car owners	Rowley, 1992
Relatively small family size	English Sports Council, 1997
Two-parent family	Rowley, 1992; Kay, 2000
Attendance at Independent School	Rowley, 1992

Table: social and economic influences on youth talent development in sport (based on Bailey and Morley, 2006)

These, and other, factors show why any ambition of a fair and equitable sports development system in countries like the UK will always be difficult.

Think of these data this way: imagine a child who is talented in a sport; the absence of each factor listed in the table above becomes a barrier to that child's development NO MATTER HOW TALENTED, OR COMMITTED HE OR SHE IS.

Mr Gove's speech acknowledges the unfairness of the UK sports system.  But there is another side to the matter: it is also stupid.  It is stupid because participation and advancement in sport are always undermined by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with interest or ability.

So it is a refreshing to read Mr Gove's speech.  Perhaps it will bring about renewed awareness of the problems inherent with the UK sport system (and all other Western systems).  But this awareness needs to be coupled with an acknowledgement that simple solutions will not do.

We need a root and branch re-evaluation of the whole system, and a suite of solutions based on evidence.  And we are a long way from adopting that sort of approach in sport.

The one book of which there is never a shortage

Michael Gove, English Secretary of State for Education, has caused controversy (again) with his decision to send a copy of the King James Bible to every school in the country.


At an estimated cost of £375,000, the aim is to mark the 400th anniversary of what is undeniably a very important book.  In the words of the Department for Education:

"the King James Bible continues to shape our culture. Understanding the story of its publication and the impact it has had on today's English-speaking society is an important part of the teaching and learning of history and language."

This is probably all true.


Two questions come to mind, though.


First, will all similarly important books be sent to schools?  The Complete Works of Shakespeare?  Darwin's Origin of Species?  Victoria Beckham's Learning to Fly.  And if not, why has he chosen the one book of which there is never, ever a shortage in schools?  


Second, how does he imagine the eager population of a school (on average, about 150 in a Primary School; about 1,000 in a Secondary) will share this particular book?  Presumably he knows that most children can't happily share with one other child, let alone nine hundred and ninety-nine.  And this is true even when they don't care about the object of their attention.  Once they find out that the book will have a foreword by Mr Gove himself, schools across the country will descend into the animalistic frenzy of a One Direction concert.


Not surprisingly, secular groups have been outraged by this idea.  They see it as an unacceptable attempt to push Christianity further in schools.


But the King James Bible is not really a religious text in the way that 'the Bible' is.  Even Richard Dawkins likes it.  The book is one of those texts that make up what is sometimes called 'the canon': the books that form a literary foundation of our culture.


Personally, I think it is a great idea to promote great books.  But I cannot scratch the niggly feeling that this will not the first of a series of grand actions, and that it might just be a rather costly attempt to support a view of England that belongs in the history books.

Stand up Mr Gove!

Michael Gove has decided that there is not enough competition in schools.

So do many people, you might say, and they all read the Daily Mail. Sadly, Mr Gove is the Secretary of State for Education; I have no information about his reading preferences.

Mr Gove's evidence for his claim is a little unclear, but he seems to have drawn on a mixture of research and personal conviction. His research reports that one in three pupils do not take part in internal school competition.

I have no idea where he sourced this finding, but it does seem a little concerning. But all is not lost as I have seen research evidence that two in three pupils DO take part in competitions, and that seems a rather promising finding! In fact, since the low tide of school sport in the 1980s, two-thirds of young people taking part in intra-school sport is a remarkable achievement.

Nonetheless, Mr Gove thinks/feels/knows that there is just not enough competitive sport in schools. Perhaps competition is like beauty or truth or celery: it is impossible to have too much of it.

Clearly he feels very strongly about this, because he keeps going on about it. And he continues despite the almost total rejection of his views by those who work in sport or education for a living. Physical education teachers, for example, have looked on in open-mouthed bewilderment as their political leader casually hacks away at the progress they have made over the last decade or so.

Well, Mr Gove was recently joined in his campaign to save PE and school sport from those who know what they are talking about by a recent article on the subject. Dr Andrew Franklyn-Miller is a "sports and exercise medicine expert" (which I think means he is a doctor).

Writing for the BBC, Dr Franklyn-Miller also thinks that schools need to push competitive sport. For him, the blame for the current namby-pamby attitude stems partly from our soft society which deems it,

"acceptable to aspire to participate rather than achieve, to hope that vaguely defined skills might maintain fitness rather than test our children against benchmarks".

And partly from the national curriculum for PE with its talk of "aspirations of stringing together movements", floating in a swimming pool and "achievements" of participation and understanding.

What should we do? According to Dr Franklyn-Miller:

"Let it be competitive and let us test our children against each other and identify those who need support from the network of doctors trained in sport and exercise medicine as an existing Olympic legacy."

It is difficult to know how to respond to this article. This is partly because I have a suspicion that 'Dr Franklyn-Miller' is really Mr Gove's more impressive pen-name, so self-preservation is hindering my commentary.

Here are the clues:

1) Both of them talk about the need for 'more competition' in schools, despite the fact that England, at least, has one of the most comprehensive competitive sports structures in the world.

2) They talk about school sport, but neither mention the people who actually run it, and who have made such extra-ordinary progress in recent years: PE teachers.

3) They are disconcertingly vague about the bases of their assertions. Gove just states things as if they were self-evidence truisms. Franklyn-Miller does this too, and adds a few suspicious quotations, to boot (as far as I can tell, the national curriculum for PE never mentions "aspirations of stringing together movements", at all).

4) They both seem to have a faith that competition is inherently motivating for young people, when in fact a huge body of evidence suggests that this is not the case for all. Some like competitive sport; some like dance, or outdoor activities; and some like recreational, but non-competitive physical activities. In fact, an over-emphasis on competitive is routinely given by young people, themselves, as a reason for dropping out of sport.

5) And they both simply assume that the imposition of adult sporting values and practices will drive up participation and performance standards.

Dr Franklyn-Miller says that the curriculum needs to be built on on the "lessons learnt in athlete development, and sport talent identification, not to build potential superstars but to change a lifestyle." What are these lessons? If actual science is to be believed, rather than the hunches of a sports doctor, the first three lessons are:

1. do not treat children like mini-adults
2. do not treat children like mini-adults
3. do not treat children like mini-adults

Both politicians and doctor claim to be bound by the demands of evidence. But neither Gove or Franklyn-Miller show any awareness of the huge body of literature that should inform their pronouncements.

Vitally, there is no evidence to support their guiding assumption that more competition will improve participation or achievement. On the contrary, to the best of our knowledge the most successful curriculums offer a wide range of sporting experiences, including many that are non-competitive. And the underlying character of these experiences ought to be play and enjoyment, especially in the primary years. As even Franklyn-Miller acknowledges, lifelong physical activity is built on a foundation of 'physical literacy', or fundamental movement skills, or 'the basics'. Too much competition too soon undermines the development of these skills.

Does it matter?

Unfortunately it does. I suspect that Mr Gove, Dr Franklyn-Miller and myself would all agree that regular sporting activities are among the valuable experience society can offer young people. We'd also agreed that physical education and sport ought to be part of everyone's schooling, probably as a matter of right. My worries start when they start to talk about turning these nice thoughts into practice.

Sport is a powerful resource for young people and for society. But like all resources, its use is value-free. The value of sport for young people comes not from the activities themselves but from the quality of the experiences offered by teachers and coaches. Provide a variety of positive sporting experiences for young people and we are some way to laying the foundations for lifelong physical activity and love of sport. Mess this opportunity up by playing to the ill-informed calls for 'more competition', or to push adult sport earlier and earlier into children's lives and the least serious consequence is likely to be a generation lost to the incredible potential of sport.