Struggling primary schools

Michael Gove is – no doubt – extremely bright and persuasive, and he knows the buttons to press. But this does not always lead to a rational policy position. And sometimes his lack of subject knowledge shows through - especially when he is speaking off the cuff.

Take, for example, his pronouncements on children in 'chaotic families'. He said: "They will grow up in circumstances so chaotic that it's not just that they are neglected, it is the case that they are actually harmed by the failure to be in a nurturing environment where their brains can develop.”

He does not seem to know what 'neglect' means in the technical and legal sense used by professionals – and thus seems to downplay 'neglect'.

What he describes is, of course, straightforward neglect, and it does have the profoundly damaging long-term impact he describes.

At the same event, it was stated that increasing numbers of children are arriving at primary school still wearing nappies and unable to tell the difference between a number and a letter. Michael Gove noted all this, saying that some children are being 'actively harmed' by chaotic homes.

So, in the logic of the moment, he agreed that the state should intervene. And of course that's right, the earlier the better, prevention being best.

But what is he actually doing? In another part of his office, he is writing to MPs about failing primary schools, threatening to turn them into academies.

Michael Gove seems to have focused, glassy-eyed, on the notion that there is no education problem to which 'academies' is not the answer, while at the same time properly recognising that negative pre-school experiences impact hugely on school outcomes. Sometimes I despair.

(In fact, the academy debate is pretty sterile – and will prove to have been a mirage in the desert when standards do not suddenly improve across the country... but by then, Michael Gove will be long gone, possibly a) becoming Home Secretary b) becoming leader of the Conservative Party or c) being cast back to the backbenches and punditry for the Murdochs...)

John Freeman CBE is a former director of children’s services and is now a freelance consultant