teaching unions persuaded her to introduce them immediately, purely so as not to appear weak. Although Gove had sought but failed to replace them, his special advisor, Dominic Cummings, described the 1986 decision as catastrophic, leading to a collapse in the integrity of the exam system. During the 2010 Conservative Party Conference, Gove announced that the primary and secondary-school national curricula for England would be restructured, and that study of authors such as Lord Byron, John Keats, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy would be reinstated in English lessons as part of a plan to improve children's grasp of English literature and language. Academies are not required to follow the national curriculum, and so would not be affected by the reforms. Children who failed to write coherently and grammatically, or who were weak in spelling, would be penalised in the new examinations. Historian Simon Schama would give advice to Government to ensure that pupils learnt Britain's "island story". Standards in mathematics and science would also be strengthened. He said that this was needed because left-wing ideologies had undermined education. Theirs was the view, he thought, that schools "shouldn't be doing anything so old-fashioned as passing on knowledge, requiring children to work hard, or immersing them in anything like dates in history or times tables in mathematics. These ideologues may have been inspired by generous ideals but the result of their approach has been countless children condemned to a prison house of ignorance". In a November 2010 white paper, Gove declared reforms would include the compulsory study of foreign languages up to the age of sixteen years, a shake-up of league tables in which schools are ranked higher for the number of pupils taking GCSEs in five core subjects (English, mathematics, science, a language and one of the humanities), and the introduction of targets for primary schools. It proposed that trainee teachers should spend more time in the classroom, teacher training applicants should be more rigorously tested—including tests of character and emotional intelligence—and sponsorships for former troops to retrain as teachers to improve discipline. It also said teachers would receive guidance on how to search pupils for more items, including mobile phones and pornography, and when they can use force. In April 2011, Gove criticised schools for not studying pre-twentieth century classics and blamed "England's constricted and unreformed exam system" for failing to encourage children to read. Gove also blamed