Lord Knight

Lord Jim Knight took his seat in the House of Lords earlier this year. Lord Knight held several ministerial posts during his time as an MP including Minister for Schools and Learners. In his interview his gives us his views on the latest developments in the Coalition’s education and literacy policies.

Do you plan to focus on education in your new role in the House of Lords?

Very much so, education is a real passion for me. It’s not something I want to take a front-bench role in because it’s also an area where I’ve now got direct employment so it would be inappropriate. However, I will bring the expertise that I’ve gained from being the longest-serving Schools Minister in the last government and continue to put across my point of view.

In your opinion, how much can national government support literacy?

I think it’s very important for national government to take a lead. I think we saw when former Education Secretary David Blunkett introduced the “Literacy Hour” that governments can do things that have a significant impact. As a result of the introduction of the Literacy Hour, we saw levels of reading among primary school children rise for the first time in 30 years. In the end what’s most important is that children are read to at home and they are given consistent teaching of how to read in school, but national government can help with this.

One of the most effective things that the last government did in narrowing attainment gaps was introducing “Extended Schools”. Extended schools gave children an opportunity to have an extended school day and take part in extra-curricular activities. It gave schools the chance to get parents into school, make them more comfortable with the school environment and build a better relationship between home and school, which can help support literacy at home.

What do you think of Michael Gove’s free schools?

I understand what he’s trying to do and that he thinks that it’s routed in the Academies programme that I was responsible for, but I think it’s misguided. The assumption behind free schools is that you give outstanding schools the freedom of becoming an academy and that will lift the quality of the rest by increasing competition. There is no evidence anywhere in the world of that working. What counts is what happens in the classroom and what happens at home, it’s not really about choice.

It’s really hard to predict the future of the scheme because it depends on the take-up. If free schools capture all the aspirant parents and leave behind those with lower ambitions for their children, then I fear that it will create some form of educational apartheid. But the signs are it’s not really going to take off system-wide. Frankly, I don’t think it can be applied across the education system because if free schools are given total freedom to run the school as they want, then they will need really strong leaders and governors to be able to use those freedoms well. I’m not convinced that there are 23,000 outstanding headteachers and governing bodies to support the really good use of those freedoms.

In your words, the Labour government ended up “driving the education system too hard” and as a result took some of the enjoyment out of learning. What sort of impact do you think this has had on the education system? 

We drove the existing paradigm of schooling as hard as it is possible to drive it. We championed testing, accountability and targets and really pushed a system that was fundamentally designed as an industrial system of schooling where the elite went to the elite academic universities and the rest would go into unskilled work. This system doesn’t work anymore and I think that paradigm needs to change. The consequence of the current system is that we have too many children that don’t enjoy school, as evidenced by the fact that truancy rates haven’t shifted in the last fifteen years, and as a result they become disengaged. They might be coached to get through their exams but in the end they become NEETs.

Some schools have demonstrated that you can make learning relevant and relate it to the real world because in the end that is what’s meaningful to children. A learning revolution has taken place in this country in the last 15 years but unfortunately in many ways it’s happened outside of school. Through use of technology people are learning a lot and they’re learning with their friends around the things that they’re interested in. We’ve not made that relevant in school because we’re still trapped in a methodology and a form of teaching where the teacher is the guardian of knowledge. The teacher’s job is to lecture and to pass on that knowledge and the child’s job is to sit, listen and absorb it all. It’s not the most engaging form of learning, it’s not the most effective form of learning and it doesn’t relate to the real world anymore.

How do you think we can adapt teaching methods to suit this level of change?

If people are interested in this I’d strongly recommend they look at what Sir Ken Robinson has to say either with his TED lectures which are available on You Tube or what he said to the Royal Society of Arts recently which is on their website. They could also read a book by Mark Prenski “Learning without frontiers”. It discusses a new form of pedagogy that is based on ”partnering”. The role of the teacher is to ensure that there is rigour, momentum and challenge in the classroom and to allow pupils to learn together and from each other. Employers want children to be able to read, write and add up and education always make sure that it delivers that as its first priority. But, employers also want school leavers that can follow, work collaboratively, communicate, can present. None of those things are assessed at the moment.

With new leadership and policy direction in the Labour party, what direction do you think Labour will take in terms of their education policy?

It’s very early days and I would strongly suspect that Andy Burnham will take time to review the evidence as to what it’s going on and how we can develop a school system that works for every child. A principle such as “Every Child Matters”, is something that we did in government of which we should be hugely proud.

No-one in the world has properly cracked it, but the UK isn’t doing as badly as the government likes to make out we are. I would like to see an education system that is judged on how much it can narrow the gap between rich and poor as much as how much improvement we’re getting across the whole system.

How do you envisage literacy in the future for Britain?

I’m actually quite optimistic about literacy for children. Every Child a Reader has been a success and I’ve visited primary schools where teachers have told me it’s worked really well. I think schools are aware of the importance of literacy and that they will encourage children and we may get there..

The greater challenge is adult literacy. One in six adults in the UK struggle with their literacy. As we’re moving towards a world where being able to communicate online is becoming increasingly important, how we address adult literacy is an even bigger challenge.