Skip to main content
Reforms increase anxiety for stressed, demotivated pupils

REFORMS to school accountability criteria pioneered by ex-education secretary Michael Gove are making kids increasingly anxious, new research published yesterday suggests.

Academics Merryn Hutchings and Naveed Kamzi have revealed pupils are “losing motivation” as a result of a narrowing curriculum, in an interim report which forms part of an ongoing research project for the National Union of Teachers.

Mr Gove introduced four new league table measures in 2013, including grading schools and ramping up the importance of their performance in relation to one another.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
UNRECOGNISED POTENTIA:L: Girl students conduct an experiment by throwing cotton balls to demonstrate the instinctive reaction of flinching at The Big Bang Fair 2025, for young scientists and engineers, at the NEC in Birmingham on June 18 2025
Science and Society / 16 July 2025
16 July 2025

What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society

A school teacher looking stressed next to piles of classroom
Education / 9 July 2025
9 July 2025
BRAVE NEW WORLD? Annual British Educational Training and Technology conference in London, January 2025, where Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson set out plans to use technology to ‘modernise’ the education system, support teachers and ‘deliver’ for pupils
Technology / 27 June 2025
27 June 2025

NICOLA SARAH HAWKINS explains how an under-regulated introduction of AI into education is already exacerbating inequalities