Michael Gove: End this school culture of low expectations

It’s still the case that just under 60 per cent of children get five decent GCSEs including English and Maths in this country. That’s a problem of low expectations. We should expect 80 or 90 per cent. When I suggested that students study Dryden and Keats, a variety of commentators and people in the unions said “which world are you living in? Those are ridiculously high expectations”.

There are wonderful people in teaching and I want to empower them. This is, I think, a tremendous opportunity for teachers. But there are some in the teaching profession, I’m afraid, who won’t take yes for an answer. They say we’d like more freedom – and we give them more freedom with academies and free schools.

One of the best ways of professional development is to have your lessons observed by another teacher and to observe another teacher yourself. Yet the unions are saying that lesson observation should be demoted to three hours, not a week, not a month… but a year. Why?

One of the tragedies of our time is that the teaching unions have chosen to put the interests of adults, ahead of the needs of our children. And that is why sadly, the unions, as a voice of teachers is diminishing. My challenge not to teachers, but to teaching unions, is to do a better job.

It’s already the case that some of the best schools in the country recognise the need to change the structure of the school term.

It’s also the case that some of the best schools in the country recognise that we need to have a longer school day as well.

David Young Community Academy in Leeds operates a seven-term year starting in June. The basic pattern is a maximum of six weeks at school followed by a maximum of four weeks holiday.

Ros McMullen, principal of David Young Community Academy, explains the fundamental rationale: that long terms and long holidays have adverse effects on students and staff alike.

First year students start in June, while still on roll at their primary schools. “The seven-term year buys us additional time,” she says. “By the time other Year 7 students start, ours have had 10 weeks of secondary education.”

The structure of the school term and the school day was designed at a time when we had an agricultural economy. I remember half term in October when I was at school in Aberdeen was called the tattie holiday – the period when kids would go to the fields to pick potatoes.

It was also at a time when the majority of mums stayed home. That world no longer exists, and we can’t afford to have an education system that was essentially, set in the 19th century.

One of the striking things about East Asia is that they do not have what we have in England – the automatic assumption that you divide children into the achievers and the others, the academic and the vocational. They believe that every child can be educated.

The assumption is that all children at every year will absorb and learn the curriculum. And their expectations are higher than in this country.

We have been reviewing our curriculum recently and we’ve noticed that in Hong Kong, in Singapore and in other East Asian nations, the expectations of mathematical and scientific knowledge at every stage are more demanding than this country. And in order to reach those levels of achievement, a higher level of effort is expected on behalf of students, parents and teachers. School days are longer, school holidays are shorter.

The expectation is that to succeed, hard work is at the heart of everything.

And if you look at the length of the school day in England, the length of the summer holiday – and we compare it to the extra tuition and support that children are receiving elsewhere – then we are fighting or actually running in this global race in a way that ensures that we start with a significant handicap.

• Michael Gove is the Education Secretary.