Michael Gove MP, Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary

ANDREW MARR: Now, why do children from poorer backgrounds tend to be overtaken by middle-class kids, even though they may start off more able when they arrive in school?

This is a question the Conservatives are going to address this week.

They say opportunity must be made more equal and they believe in more discipline and less trendy teaching methods in all schools. Michael Gove is the Shadow Secretary of State for children, schools and families. He's with me now. Welcome

MICHAEL GOVE: Hi, good morning.

ANDREW MARR: Good morning. Now, much of what you're announcing this week, or some of what you're announcing this week, is about the importance of Synthetic Phonics.

MICHAEL GOVE: Absolutely.

ANDREW MARR: Which, like a bit like sub prime mortgages, one of those that everybody pretends to understand. So what are Synthetic Phonics?

MICHAEL GOVE: Well Synthetic Phonics is essentially the modern way of describing a tried and tested method of teaching reading. I suspect it's probably the method that you were brought up with in school in Scotland, certainly the method that I was brought up with. And it involves teaching children the basics of the alphabet, the sounds of individual letters and how they're blended together.

Now it's come under attack, actually, over the past couple of generations because it's seen as a sort of authoritarian and stuffy method of teaching reading. Rote learning some folk say. But in fact the evidence is that it works, and it works best of all for children who come from backgrounds which aren't particularly middle-class, privileged or literary.

ANDREW MARR: Of course it is something the government also accepts and it's coming back more generally. In essence, however, you're saying, or certainly the headlines today say you believe that children should be able to read by six or seven.

MICHAEL GOVE: Yes.

ANDREW MARR: Now, every teacher and educationalist quoted in every single newspaper says that this for a lot of people is too early. I mean lots of Scandinavian countries don't even start to teach their children by this age and they all end up just as, in fact rather more literate than we are. So why is six or seven so important?

MICHAEL GOVE: Well there are certainly lessons that we can learn from other countries including Scandinavian, we'll be outlining some of those lessons that we want to learn a wee bit later. But the key things is that in this country we think that by the time that someone has been through two years of primary school, reception year and year one, they should be able to decode effortlessly.

They should be able to have mastered the building blocks of reading. Because unless they learn to read properly they won't be able to read to learn subsequently, and this is the key foundation stone on which the rest of learning is built.

ANDREW MARR: Why should it not be seven or eight? And why should you as a politician be telling schools how to do it?

MICHAEL GOVE: Well what we want to do is we want to introduce a simple test which means that at the end of two years of primary school we know whether or not the children have mastered the skills which are required to read. And one of the other things that we want to do is we want to get rid of some of the rest of the bureaucratic teaching programme that comes a wee bit later.

So that once children have got that skill then teachers are free to inspire them, and the children are free, having got the skills, to be able to read and explore on their own. So it's slimming it down and making sure that those first two years have the building blocks in place and then thereafter children are capable, as I say, of exploring for themselves, and being led into a world of knowledge which enables them to become truly effective learners.

ANDREW MARR: So here you are, you have got a clear idea in your head of how you would like schools to change. You're going to, if you get into power, make them change that way.

MICHAEL GOVE: By using a new test, exactly.

ANDREW MARR: And yet, on the other side, you say that you want parents and local communities to have much more power over their schools, you want independent local schools, you're going in both directions, you're saying both the schools should be independent but also as a government we're going to tell them what to do. We're going to tell them when their children should be reading, and we going to no doubt tell them lots of other things too. Which is it?

MICHAEL GOVE: Well, we believe that it's vitally important that there is a minimum level of educational attainment which all schools achieve. So we're going to concentrate on those basics. And reading is the absolute basic. Unless children can read effectively, then what happens afterwards won't work.

ANDREW MARR: Absolutely I understand that.

MICHAEL GOVE: But once that's in place, and we're going to absolutely guarantee that it is, then there is greater freedom for teachers to develop the curriculum in their own way. And the one thing that I think that's absolutely vital is we can't afford to neglect this. At the moment 20% of children are leaving primary school incapable of reading properly.

If they come from poorer backgrounds, if they're eligible for free school meals, the figure rises to 40%. Now these are the children who will go on to truant, who will go on to become disruptive, potentially, who will miss out themselves and will also undermine learning for others. Unless we deal with this issue early on then we're condemning these children to a life without effective education. And I'm afraid that's just simply not good enough.

ANDREW MARR: And speaking about, in many cases the same groups of children, you want exclusion - putting children out of school to be handed entirely to the head teachers. Have you talked to the head teachers about this?

MICHAEL GOVE: Yes. One of the things that struck me is that there have been a number of head teachers, and for that matter school governors, who've been frustrated that when they have excluded pupils, and let's be clear, exclusion from school, permanent exclusion, is a last resort, it's the ultimate deterrent. But you need to have that deterrent if you're going to maintain effective discipline.

And there are head teachers who are frustrated because their position has been overturned. Tony Blair was asked about this a couple of years in the House of Commons when a Labour MP was rightly incensed that a pupil who had been excluded from school for carrying a knife, was allowed to return to that school, and the head teacher's position was overturned.

ANDREW MARR: But if you remove the appeal system, one of the worries is that it all ends up in court, and it actually puts much more pressure on head teachers in schools because they end up fighting court cases about the behaviour of individual pupils.

MICHAEL GOVE: Well I believe, and certainly the head teachers that we've talked to believe that the important thing that we need to do is to reassure that they have the authority. So, if there are legal changes that are necessary to be made in order to strengthen the position of head teachers and other teachers in school, we'll make them.

And we're looking at other legal changes that we can make in order, for example, to allow teachers to ensure that mobile phones are banned from the classroom. It'll be up to each head teacher and teacher, there's no reason why you should have mobile phones...

ANDREW MARR: No, no, we all understand that. But, let's move on to another thing which is A-levels and GCSEs, that's also a big issue at the moment. You're very pro A-level and you've been very critical of the government's ideas for diplomas. When did the Conservative Party do a U-turn on this?

MICHAEL GOVE: Well we haven't done a U-turn on this. One of the things...

ANDREW MARR: George Osborne said two years ago that it was very important to create a bridge between vocational and non-vocational, and that diplomas were the way forward. Now you say they're a terrible thing.

MICHAEL GOVE: Well the Labour Party have been selectively quoting from an appearance that George made on Any Questions several years ago. And Ed Balls had been pedalling a particular line...

ANDREW MARR: What he said was pretty clear.

MICHAEL GOVE: Exactly. And what he said, if you look at the transcript, is that we support GCSEs and A-levels. It's vitally important that they be maintained as the gold standard. And in particular, we believe that more students can do well in GCSEs and in A-levels. We don't think place any cap on ambition or excellence...

ANDREW MARR: You believe in the market system though and, you know, across the country people are turning away from A-levels, and as you know they're going to the International Baccalaureate and other systems, The A-levels, if you just allow the schools to choose, might very well wither anyway. People might go to IB and to diplomas. So why are you trying to...

MICHAEL GOVE: It is certainly the case that within the independent sector there is a lack of confidence, and we've seen that this week in some of the examinations which the state is responsible for monitoring. And we want to restore that confidence because we believe it is a good thing if more people take the single academic route that is the A-level or the GCSE, and we do not want to see independent schools opting out, because we believe that we're all in this together. But we also believe that Ed Balls's proposal for diplomas is muddying the waters. Diplomas can play a hugely valuable role in helping people acquire vocational skills. And we're all for that...

ANDREW MARR: But they shouldn't replace A-levels?

MICHAEL GOVE: Precisely.

ANDREW MARR: You talk about independent schools. Buckinghamshire, Tory-controlled Buckinghamshire is announcing a new grammar school. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

MICHAEL GOVE: It's a matter for Buckinghamshire.

ANDREW MARR: Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

MICHAEL GOVE: Where grammar schools exist they're doing a great job and it's a matter for the local authorities.

ANDREW MARR: I want to know if it's a good thing. This is a new one.

MICHAEL GOVE: It's a matter for those in Buckinghamshire to decide.

ANDREW MARR: Come on, you're education spokesman. Here is a Tory education authority with a grammar school. Your voters love grammar schools, it's a new grammar school, and you can't say, "oh good, that's a good thing, well done Buckinghamshire"?

MICHAEL GOVE: It's a matter for Buckinghamshire. I'm sure that the good people of Buckinghamshire will make the right decision for their area. What I'm concentrating on is trying to develop policy for the vast majority of schools in this country. There are 164 grammar schools in this country, they're all doing a good job.

ANDREW MARR: 165 now!

MICHAEL GOVE: Well, we'll see. There are many, many comprehensive schools that are also doing a brilliant job. The majority of people in this country send their children to state comprehensives. My concern is making them better.

And we can do that, because one of the other things that we're doing this week is we're highlighting best practice in the most successful comprehensives. They do a brilliant job, we want to see the good things that happen in those comprehensives spread more widely.

ANDREW MARR: Is it simply the case that if you said "good on Buckinghamshire" you'd lose your job, like David Willetts did?

MICHAEL GOVE: I've no idea. Whether or not I lose or keep my job is up to David Cameron. The point that we acknowledge is that when it comes to these sorts of decisions local authorities should decide.

ANDREW MARR: All right, Michael Gove, thank you very much indeed for coming in.

MICHAEL GOVE: Not at all, thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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