Cabinet reshuffle

Resist calls to scrap GCSEs and ‘excuse failing standards’, Gibb tells successors

Former schools minister issues message to new DfE team in article

Former schools minister issues message to new DfE team in article

Nick Gibb 2020 grades appeals vaccines

The former schools minister Nick Gibb has urged his successors to resist “siren voices” calling for the abolition of GCSEs, and not to listen to those who “excuse failing standards”.

The MP has written for the Conservative Home website following his surprise sacking from the front bench last week.

The removal of Gibb, a key architect of Conservative education policy for more than 15 years, has prompted calls for reforms to GCSEs and the EBacc performance measure.

But in his article, Gibb said his successors should resist calls for GCSEs to go.

“Nothing would widen the attainment gap more than such a dismal and unambitious policy,” he warned.

“For a large minority of people, GCSEs are the last academic qualification they will take. Remove them, and that group lose any valid certification of a broad education.”

He also said GCSEs served to “define a demanding curriculum and they help hold schools to account”.

“Remove them and weaker schools will grow weaker still.”

Gibb said the government’s focus on “driving up standards” had seen improvements to schools, but acknowledged there was “clearly more to do”.

Gibb ‘worried’ about schools judged less than good

“I worry about the 14 per cent of schools that are still judged as inadequate or needing to improve. Too often, these failing schools are in areas of deprivation, serving communities that more than anywhere else deserve and need the highest quality schools not the worst schools.”

But he urged the new Department for Education team not to listen to those who “excuse failing standards and who argue that schools in deprived areas cannot succeed”.

“President George W Bush was right to dismiss such arguments as the ‘soft bigotry of low expectations’. Our ambition must not be limited by such arguments.”

As in many of his speeches while he was still in the job, Gibb praised schools including Michaela free school in Brent and Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford and Eden Boys School in Birmingham.

These schools have high rates of pupils on free school meals, he said, but were still delivering “a standard of education that rival or exceed the best in the country – state or independent”.

“What these schools also have in common is a high proportion of their pupils being entered for the EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs.”

Ex-minister defends EBacc

He said the Ebacc subjects were those “that more affluent families will expect their children to study because they give young people the greatest opportunities and options for their future”.

“If it’s right for these children, it’s right for all children regardless of their background. That’s why it is so important that the EBacc remains as a key metric by which we hold schools to account.”

During the last few months of Gibb’s tenure, a fierce row broke out over education recovery funding, prompted by the resignation of recovery commissioner Sir Kevan Collins.

New free schools ‘just as important’ as catch-up cash

Gibb said the £3 billion allocated so far was “crucial”, but that building and opening new free schools would be “just as important in helping ensure that children in the most deprived areas catch-up”.

He said he was “delighted” that his “friend” Nadhim Zahawi had been appointed as education secretary, again highlighting there was “still much more to do”.

“If I were to give the newly reshuffled team at the DfE one piece of advice it would be this: remember that reform must be a continuous process, the speed can change but momentum must not stop.

“If we let up our concentration on standards, on what evidence tells us works; if we stop pushing forward the knowledge-based curriculum or abandon changes to teacher training, the tide will turn. It’s hard work, but the progressive ideology has not gone away. It would be a tragedy for future generations if we gave in and settled for an easier life.”

More from this theme

Cabinet reshuffle

Reshuffle: Meet the new education ministers

The new ministerial team is complete, but their responsibilities are yet to be confirmed

Samantha Booth
Cabinet reshuffle

Reshuffle: Baroness Barran is new academies minister

Former DCMS minister replaces Baroness Berridge

Samantha Booth
Cabinet reshuffle

Reshuffle: Baroness Berridge gone as academies minister

Conservative peer has been in the role since February 2020

Freddie Whittaker
Cabinet reshuffle

Alex Burghart and Will Quince join DfE ministerial team

Conservative MPs Alex Burghart and Will Quince have been appointed education ministers in Boris Johnson’s reshuffle. Burghart, the MP...

Freddie Whittaker
Cabinet reshuffle

‘I will work with you’: Zahawi extends olive branch to demoralised sector

New education secretary pledges to 'invest in' schools in message to sector

Freddie Whittaker
Cabinet reshuffle

Robin Walker: 9 facts about the new schools minister

Robin Walker has confirmed he is the new schools minister. He replaces Nick Gibb who was sacked yesterday after...

Samantha Booth

Your thoughts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

3 Comments

  1. Janet Downs

    Now Gibb has gone it’s time to incorporate GCSEs (or similar tests at 16+) in a graduation certificate at age 18.
    Gibb has made the mistake of claiming that those who oppose his ideas, however well-argued and evidence-based, are guilty of accepting lower standards. (Gove did the same, dismissing them as the ‘Blob’). He also refuses to accept that schools in areas where there are few local jobs, high unemployment and high deprivation struggle to get a high Progress 8 score. Comparing them with a few schools which manage to do this demotivates other schools who are working just as hard but where the intake achieves below average results.
    (Note to Gibb: not all schools can be above average). Demonising such schools risks deterring the best teachers and leaders.

  2. Chris Waterman

    Mr Gibb would say that, wouldn’t he.

    I think spending time learning the soft skills (which are sometimes the hardest to master) should have a place alongside content.
    Being able to tell your peers what 12×12= is less important that knowing how to get along with them.

  3. Paul Luxmoore

    After all those years, Gibb still doesn’t understand why schools in ‘some’ deprived areas ‘under perform’. I would be surprised if the schools he mentions, such as Michaela, do not have a high percentage of immigrant children – who tend to be motivated by high aspirations. The most ‘under performing’ deprived areas tend to be the white workless class areas. There is still no measure for aspiration and Ofsted, by their own admission, still punishes such schools with lower grades.
    ‘The soft bigotry of low expectations’ – Mr Gibb, you continue to insult us all on the front line in such areas.