Review of Micheal Gove's Letter

Having read the very negative petition set up by The Drama Army I was very surprised to find Micheal Gove's letter to appear as being very positively minded towards the Arts and demonstrates an appreciation of the value and importance of Arts within Education, "recognize that creativity is the key to both cultural and economic progress" and " no programmer of education can begin without making the arts and creativity central to a child's life". 

However with the Introduction of the Ebacc system and the removal of the Arts within this, his actions are speaking differently to his opinion for the Arts. 

He discusses that "Music and Art will continue to be statutory subjects for all children between the ages of 5 and 14". He doesn't include GCSE level nor Dance and Drama so it is unclear as to the position of these subjects for the future. Does this imply that he doesn't see a specific relevance to Drama and Dance within Education?

On Reflection, while this appears to be supportive of the Arts in Education, I would need to gain specific clarification of where Drama and Dance would be for the future. He is appearing to be a little hypocritical by stating "creativity is the key" where he continually discusses the importance of  the core Academic subjects that need improving on in his opinion, with his introduction to the Ebacc system.

Micheal Gove's Letter in response to the Drama Army Petition

Literature Review 2--The Drama Army's Petition..

Article Title

 Stop the marginalisation of the expressive arts in education policy 

Date

17/12/2013

Author

Michael Gove

Objective / Type

A Letter by Michael Gove, explaining his response to the online petition by Drama Army.

Source

Posted on Drama Army’s online Twitter Page

Key Points

1)    "Our creative industries define us as a nation"

2) Arts and creativity should be, "central to a child's life"

3) School performance will be judged by a range of Ebacc and non-Ebacc subjects, which will, "provide a strong incentive for schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum"

4) "The government is not considering removing creative arts from GCSEs."

Summary of View

A positive review of the role Arts play within Education for now and the future. A demonstration and appreciation of the need for Arts within Education.

Relevance

There has been a number of Articles stating concern of the removal of Arts from the Ebacc system. This is a very positive aspect to Arts as it states this is not the case for the future as this had been a grey area up to this date. It is vital as explains Michael Gove’s support for the Arts within Education and its importance within the economic Industry. 

Literature Review

Article Title: Stop the Marginalization of the Expressive Arts in education policy

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/michael-gove-stop-the-marginalisation-of-the-expressive-arts-in-education-policy

Date: Unknown

Author: Richard Wilson

Objective / Type: Online Petition to encourage members of the public to sign to prevent Michael Gove’s decision to not include Arts within the Ebacc system.

Key Points:  The Arts in relation to the league table and the focus of the Ebacc being solely on the academic subjects. Ofqual are considering banning up to 20 “soft subjects” who includes P.E and Media. 6.2% of the UK’s local income comes from creative industries.

Summary of View:  A very negative and byaist view of Michael Gove and the Government’s plans to the Removal of Arts from the Ebbac system.

Relevance: This article is a very useful as it breaks down the sections of the Ebbac system that are relevant to the Arts with additional links to each section. It is very powerful in its approach and talks very positively of the role which Arts play within Education.

SUMMARY FOR PAGE ONE

SUMMARY PAGE OF PART ONE

Title: What are the likely impacts on Dance teaching in the maintained sector driven by the introduction of the English Baccalaureate?

Questions: Feedback from Alan: My advice is to work now to craft better questions that lead to discussion and consideration of a range of perspectives. Therefore to not ask questions that require a yes or no answer as this has no place to gain an overall perspective on the question in hand. I am also targeting my questions now onto Dance teachers and head teachers within the public sector of primary and secondary level. As advised by my Advisor I have removed the involvement of student feedback as this would cause considerable ethical implications and would not provide the data that I would be able to adhere to.

Head Teachers:

1.       What aspects of the Ebacc system in relation to the Arts concern you?

2.       What is your view of how these changes may be implemented?

3.       What changes will you make to adapt to the Introduction of the Ebacc system?

4.       What do you think Arts in particular Dance brings to the Educational system?

5.       How do you think the Ebacc system will affect Arts within Education for the future?

Dance Teachers:

1.       What do you think Dance brings to Education?

2.       What aspects of the Ebacc system in relation to the Arts concern you?

3.       What affect do you think the Ebacc system will have on the students you teach?

4.       What affect do you think the Ebacc system will have on your teaching?

5.       What are your thoughts on the Ebacc system?

Ethical issues:

·         The participants I intend to focus my time with are teacher and head teachers within the public sector. I removed the involvement of student’s as you would need to gain permission from the school and parent and for data protection reasons I would be unable to gain their contact information.

·         On completing an Ethical form stating the issues I endeavor to consider I will need to implement this onto the parties I am gaining feedback from.

·         By doing this I will request that they sign a consent form understanding their position within the inquiry. I am lucky to have a number of people whom I know in the education system who work as teachers. I would call upon them as my initial network to gathering the data I require.

·         Within the consent form I will include:

1.       To not include the name or place of the location which the data came from unless they allowed me the permission to do so.

2.       When dealing with a number of staff within one premise, the consideration of the way I would secure the work so that other members of staff couldn't see what had been written.

3.       If you are using transcripts or recording of the interviews, check that the participant is in awareness that their information will be used word for word at a later date.

4.       Inform the participant of what you are doing from the start.

5.       Ensure they are within complete understanding of their involvement within the project from the start.

6.       State the purpose of your goal.

7.       Inform the parties of the objectives and what will be done with the information during and after you are carrying out the inquiry.

Points to be aware of:

1.       Try and keep to your word of the length the interview may take or else they may lose confidence in you.  

2.       Providing the participant with a thank you card for their time and showing your appreciation of this as you are aware of their busy time schedule.

3.       To commit to avoid the use of sexual, racist or offensive language and to those who are disabled to ensure you abide by the Middlesex Universities policies.

4.       Offer Feedback of the participants information provided, which can be particularly important for interviews where meanings may need to be addressed.

Literature:

1.       Linda Jasper, Director of Youth Dance England, “An Overview of the campaign to fight for the position of dance in schools and the curriculum in England.”

2.       AQA GCSE Dance Outline Syllabus booklet explaining the requirements of the subject.

3.       Department of Education Article of Michael Gove’s titled “Securing our children’s future”

4.       Article from the Guardian titled “What Michael Gove’s statement means for the Arts” written by Charlotte Higgins

5.       The Stage Magazine Article titled “ACE funds GCSE Arts review in drive to improve cultural education written by Nicola Merrifield.

As I began reviewing the Literature I discovered a need for Clarification. It was not clear as to if the Arts have been removed from the Ebacc system or not. Therefore I plan to contact the department of Education requesting for some documentation that clarifies the current status on this and then I can proceed with organizing my title and research.

Module 2 Feedback

I was pleased to receive good feedback received by Alan from Module 2. He was pleased with the structure and title of the piece. The areas that needed to be changed was the questioning focus. He felt I needed to ask questions that lead to a discussion and a range of perspectives as my questions were more yes and no answers as I was trying to get statistical responses that I could create a chart of the findings. Also I needed to remove gaining feedback from students due to the ethical implications and a head teacher and dance teacher within a school would provide a detailed in depth response than a student would provide. 

Critical Reflection on Professional Practice Inquiry

I have felt this module has been an interesting path within my practice. I felt more established in my theory of what was required within Module two than that of Module One. When choosing the Inquiry Questions for Reader 4, I needed to change them a number of times as feedback from my tutor was that they were too broad and not specific enough. I struggled to gain feedback from my peers and colleagues as they all stated they were either too busy or wasn't sure as to what to write. I tried to gain feedback initially via email of specifically my friends I know whom are dance teachers or working in the Arts. I then reverted to Facebook as it is more accessible to a larger group of people.

 From talking to Georgie Bird who’s currently doing Module 3 she suggested to work on a one on one basis with individuals as it would be more personal than writing the information so broadly for all to see as Facebook does. I also spoke with Lizzy Rowden who is currently doing Module Two and opened her questions to all her friends on Facebook, not necessarily within the Arts and gained a better response from. I then wrote to a number of schools whom currently offer Dance as a subject and they were happy to assist in my research process. The two schools I contacted were either teachers of students I used to teach or musical directors I had previously worked with. This made my procedure far easier rather than walking blindfolded into a school asking for help. I feel that the approach to gaining feedback will need to be a far more organised one through ensuring enough time is allowed for gathering and analyzing the data.

The view of Ethics I found to be that of a confusing one. On speaking to Adesola on a Skype session for a Campus session she advised that Ethics are about looking at a number of opinions as appose to my own judgmental view. It is not what is the right or wrong answer it is looking at different views and stating a non judgmental opinion of what’s written. The factors of ethical implications within this module related to the schools of which I was contacting. To gain permission I would need to approach this in the right way. By asking permission to arrange a meeting with a teacher and observing some classes. You would have to ask permission of the head teacher and the teacher in question, their parents and your employer. It is important you make clear of your purpose of gaining research and what you intend on doing with the research gained. I intend on giving them the opportunity of reading through your essay on completion.

Reader 6 I found to be far clearer to understand and read through. I found the Survey Monkey a far simpler way of gaining feedback data from. It was efficient and quicker way of gaining research than emailing individuals and they couldn't see what other people had written which may have been their hesitation previously. With the current changes being made to the educational system I need to gain further research on the issues being discussed by the political parties. It is not the best time to be coming into education as told by friends whom are teachers and it is important to have an alternative plan of how to carry my degree through to teach in schools.