Oral Answers to Questions

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Mr Speaker, to visit your apartments,

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.”

Yes is the short answer to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

There is evidence that Shakespeare poorly taught can put children off English literature for a very long time. Do our children not need a broad diet, which might even include our famous poet John Clare this year, the 150th anniversary of his death?

[Michael Gove]

Any author poorly taught can put children off for life, but more and more lessons are being taught well in our schools. As the chief inspector has pointed out, we have more good and outstanding schools than ever before. I had the opportunity recently to see children from a special school, a primary school and a secondary school—Burlington Danes academy—all perform Shakespeare productions in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s flat. I was blown away by the quality of their verse speaking. I believe that Shakespeare has the power to move and touch every child, and I know that John Clare would have thought exactly the same. That peasant poet understood that he stood in a tradition of great literary figures, of whom Shakespeare was another grammar school boy made good.