Gove hails TV school as he calls for revolution in state education

The Education Secretary said in a speech yesterday that it is his ambition is to raise standards in state schools in England to the point where they are indistinguishable from their fee-paying counterparts.

He said evidence shows “beyond any reasonable doubt” that English state education is starting to show a “sustained and significant improvement”.

Mr Gove told of his desire to see state schools run more like independents. “Instead of reinforcing the Berlin Wall between state and private, as the current Labour leadership appear to want, we should break it down,” he said.

“Thanks to our reforms, private schools are opening their doors and their opportunities to more children than ever before.”

He was speaking at the London Academy of Excellence, a selective sixth form free school in the capital.

Highlighting improvements in state education, he said: “When Channel Four make documentaries about great comprehensives – academies – in Essex and Yorkshire, when BBC3 make heroes out of tough young teachers, when even Tatler publishes a guide to the best state schools – you know tectonic plates have started to shift.”

Educating Yorkshire – which recently won a National Television Award – showed life inside the Thornhill Community Academy, near Dewsbury. It was filmed by 64 fixed cameras set up inside the school last year and turned many of its staff such as headteacher Jonny Mitchell into celebrities.

Mr Gove’s speech yesterday came against a backdrop of bitter wrangling within the coalition, with the Liberal Democrats accusing the Education Secretary of trying to “politicise” schools inspectorate Ofsted, following the removal of its chairwoman, Labour peer Baroness Morgan of Huyton.

At the same time Mr Gove is under fire from the teaching unions after he unveiled plans for a return to traditional methods of classroom discipline, including ordering misbehaving pupils to pick up litter, weed the playing field or write out hundreds of lines.

Meanwhile a former Ofsted chief inspector has warned Mr Gove that he risks becoming isolated by listening only to his own supporters.

Sir David Bell said he should “not believe his own hype” or surround himself with “yes men”. He said: “The day-to-day grind of policy battles, firefighting and political ding-dong can start to cut you off from outside ideas and thinking.

“The row over Ofsted’s leadership shows the importance of retaining and being seen to retain independent voices near the top – not simply ‘yes men’.”

Responding to these comments yesterday Mr Gove said: “I don’t think that’s true. One of the best things about the DfE is that it attracts brilliant civil servants who are skilled at saying yes, no, maybe or just sucking their teeth if they want to let me know it’s a bad idea.”

He added: “The characterisation of the DfE as a gallery of nodding dogs is very wide of the mark.”

Bradford East’s Liberal Democrat MP David Ward criticised the DfE’s decision not to keep Baroness Morgan in position.

Speaking on radio yesterday he said: “It is absolutely crucial that we have some solid ground on which to stand which is provided by an independent Ofsted.”

He suggested that a new appointment might undermine confidence in the education watchdog’s ability to hold free schools and academies to account.

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