Michael Gove believes that primary school children should be taught standard English with a good understanding of English grammar.   Michael Rosen doesn’t.   He appears to think emphasis on grammar will stunt creative writing.

As one who was immensely proud of being able to analyse and parse at the age of nine, I’m with Mr Gove on this one.   Read the full story here

John quotes several teachers on the kind of behaviour, indeed violence, they face in the classroom.   He continues:-

“The Association’s general secretary, Dr Mary Bousted, who wrote her thesis on the ideology of English teaching, puts the blame on funding cuts in local services.   The real source of the problem lies in the power structure in schools put in place under Labour, that in cases like these two leaves teachers in an impossible position, and that Michael Gove and his colleagues are quite rightly setting out to dismantle.

“Dr Bousted used her conference speech yesterday to “castigate” Michael Gove  for supposedly  ignoring evidence and experts and attacking teachers.   Her fury went down well with her members, but is in fact a mask for an ideological, Leftist view of education as determined by social class that is very close to that of the French neo-Marxist Pierre Bourdieu, who invented the idea of “cultural capital”, advocated discrimination against the better educated, and considered even personal taste to be determined by social class.”  

Here’s the link to the full Conservative Home article.