World class - but who cares?

It took a lot of people a lot of work and a lot of time to create what was collectively one of the best set of resources for educators in the world. The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency's site offered a superb range of teaching and planning resources; Teachernet gave instant access to the current guidance on a wide range of government education policy; Teachers' TV was a wonderful source  of video resources covering governance, leadership, teaching and support staff.

As a headteacher I made frequent and constant use of teachernet, for example for detailed guidance on exclusion or matters of school governance. Meanwhile, my staff used QCDA resources to help their planning and delivery of many aspects of the curriculum.  As a trainer I have made regular use of the excellent video collection on TTV and frequently speak to headteachers who use them for staff development.

In a world where our political masters bang on about Britain needing to be world class these resources were just that. It is doubtful if any nation could boast such a wide range of high quality and professional resources. You would expect Michael Gove to be a proud man.  And you would be wrong.

As part of his mission to take education back to the twentieth century one of the first steps taken by the Secretary of State was to deprive schools of these wonderful resources.  It was easy to justify, of course, on the grounds of economy - these website must have cost..... hmmm, how much would it really have cost to have kept these world class resources? We are left to conjecture what might have been the real reason for Gove to remove them. Surely, surely, his refusal to acknowledge that there was anything good about New Labour's education advances would not extend here?  Perhaps his 20th century thinking excludes them?

The QCDA resources and teachernet have already been consigned to the National Archives and tomorrow is the final day for Teachers' TV. The site will then be taken down.  They may have been world class but nobody noticed. And few cared. Certainly not Michael Gove or Sarah Teather.