A work in progress

Gordon Brown's made (yet another) attempt to breathe life into the Education, Education, Education rallying cry. No doubt if anything comes of this it will be over-engineered, mis-directed and hideously expensive which is a shame, really, when you think about it.

If I could have any ministerial position, and predicated on the highly unlikely assumption that the funding and authority were in place I'd take the job, I'd take on primary education.

I'd decree that

• each 'year' be broadly made up of children with a birthday between 1st of August and 31st July
  
• children enter school on September 1 of the August-July year in which they turn 6 and that they spend six (not seven) years in primary education.
  
• the children entering school for the first time in any given year shall all start school on the same day - which shall be the 1 September or the first Monday thereafter
  
• the school day should begin at 8:00 am; broadly pre-lunch hours shall be reserved for more academic work while post-lunch hours shall be generally reserved for creativity and PE
  
• the academic year shall be divided into either three or four terms and no further, ie there shall not be six terms as at present (although they are commonly known as half-terms)
  
• the stated principle objectives of primary school education shall be centred around socialisation, physical fitness, creativity and basic skills in literacy and numeracy
  
• during the first two years children shall be read to each day, and the material shall include poetry and plays as well as prose; even in their sixth year children shall be read to for not less than half an hour on one day per week - and by this time they shall be receiving an introduction to major literary works
  
• all children shall be exposed to music, and musical instruments from their first year, and acquire competence in at least one instrument (even if the much maligned recorder) during the course of the six years
  
• all children shall be exposed to foreign languages and acquire basic skills in at least one language (even if the much maligned French) during the course of the six years
  
• all children shall regularly participate in one session of organised competitive team sport per week, one session of gymnastics and other PE as time permits
  
• each school shall conduct an annual sports day (weather permitting) and there shall be losers as well as winners
  
• school dinners shall be compulsory; they shall be both nutritious and delivered in a manner designed to encourage the develop social skills in diners
  
• the academic component of the primary school curriculum shall be centred around English language and mathematics as the essential tools for further learning
  
• clear and unambiguous emphasis shall be placed on developing sound handwriting technique encompassing neatness and clarity
  
• English language skills shall be developed through a twin-pronged strategy of supporting creativity within framework of discipline and increasing precision in spelling, grammar, punctuation and syntax
  
• it shall be possible to exclude disruptive children, bullying children, threatening and violent children and to hold back those who fail by a significant margin to achieve the designated standard required to move 'up a year'
  
• parents shall be informed once per term of their child's performance or more often as required

No doubt much of this would go down badly with teachers who regard themselves as over burdened by the demands of external agencies. They probably are so I shall, in so far as it is reasonable, dispense with bureaucacy and free up teachers to teach.

The abolition of mid-term breaks will not only release that time for teaching, but also eliminate at a stroke the wholly disruptive down time immediately before and after those breaks.

And no doubt the money question, too, will rear its ugly head. More money put into education today would mean less money having to go into the currently vast social welfare and national health service expenditures in the future, so if money had to be found and taken from somewhere else (say, in what's currently being put into British soldiers fighting other people's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) then it should be looked at as an ethical investment.

Well this policy formulation work is knackering, and I recognise that my work is incomplete but I have plot to search out. This is theme though is one to which I shall return.