Since the Secretary of State for Education's EBacc plans are now history, we thought it would be interesting to check out the timeline for those five months since he startled us all by announcing the plans he’d made to upgrade the national education system.
For a little bit of historical context, that announcement came hot on the heels of this past summer's GCSE grade fiasco, as well as those visa-related problems that didn't do London Metropolitan University - or its foreign students - much in the way of good.
And, of course, there was that little UCAS computer glitch that spoiled everybody's A-level results day, as well.
So ... the history of the EBacc. Are you paying attention there at the back? There’ll be questions afterwards.
First off, there was the confusion about the name: the English Baccalaureate was actually introduced as a measure of performance in the 2010 school performance tables that year. And it wasn't a qualification in itself, then. Just like it isn't now. (Oh, hush! - Ed.)
However, names notwithstanding, the new, improved, qualification-oriented English Baccalaureate was announced on September 17th, with core subjects of math, English, science, foreign languages, history and geography.
On September 18th, the National Association of Head Teachers raised a fuss because art wasn't going to be given much in the way of importance, and neither would sport which, according to the recent local games in East London, was supposed to inspire a generation. Er, no.
Things stayed quiet for a while when the Secretary of State for Education may have had other things on his mind, like converting as many schools as possible to academies ... and possibly helping his friend battle against local councils. They were refusing to grant planning permission for branches of a certain take-away pizza franchise within walking distance of local education establishments.
It might just be coincidence that said friend Moonpal Singh Grewal - the largest single Domino's shareholder in the UK, and member of a family that owns 76 branches at last count - happens to have been chairman of the Secretary of State's constituency party, and donor of around £60,000 to same.
Moving right along ...
On November 3rd, arts heavyweights warned that the EBacc would sideline lessons in music, art, drama, dance and design, thereby stifling the kind of creativity that, in many ways, made Great Britain ... great.
On December 16, the UK Athletics Association, and representatives of the FA and British cycling added their voice to what really should have been a debate, saying that PE ought to be added to the EBacc's core subjects.
And then everybody went home for Christmas.
But on December 27th, a former Education Secretary - and a Conservative, at that - warned that the planned EBaccs wouldn't survive if the Coalition were voted out at the next election.
And then everybody went home for New Year.
On the 29th of last month, the Welsh Assembly raised a couple of fingers in the direction of Westminster, and said they'd be maintaining the current GCSE and A-Level system, so yah, boo and sucks to the EBaccs.
The following day, after quite some effort on the part of major IT companies, including Microsoft, Google and well-established industry players, it was announced that computer science would be added to the EBacc - just as an additional option ... but it was a start.
And the day after that, the Education Select Committee found that the government had "failed to prove its case" that GCSEs should be abolished.
On February 6th, the whole sorry story came to an end.
We said there’d be questions afterwards, and the first one is, of course, what’s next?
You at the back?
Anybody?
