If Michael Gove seriously intends to take us back in time, he could do worse than return to 1916, the year in which A.N. Whitehead first delivered his essay The Aims of Education, in which he suggests “that no system of external tests which aims primarily at examining individual scholars can result in anything but educational waste”. This essay, alive with wisdom and new ideas about education, will provide a refreshing antidote to the dreary and stultifying rhetoric of Michael Gove and, let’s be honest, most recent secretaries of state for education.

Peter Scales, Author of Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector, Derby.