It's because a) primary teaching is perceived as low-status, and b) they tend to be specialists.

I don't get the specialist bit there. Why should that affect whether men want to do it?

12.32pm: Gove has finished. Here are the main points from his speech:

• Simon Schama has agreed to advise the national curriculum review of history. Gove said he wanted pupils to be taught narrative British history. Too often, he said, they just learn a mix of topics at primary school and Hitler and Henry VIII at secondary school "without knowing how the vivid episodes of our past become a connected narrative", adding: "This trashing of our past has to stop."

In a statement, Schama said better history teaching would make Britain "richer and stronger":

A return to coherent gripping history is not a step backwards to dry-as-dust instruction. It represents a moment of cultural and educational rediscovery.

Without this renewed sense of our common story - one full of contention not self-congratulation - we will be a poorer and weaker Britain.

With a rebirth of history in our curriculum we will be richer and stronger. That's what the great argument, the sound and fury, the excitement and joy of connecting with our ancestry does.

• Headteachers will be given the power to discipline pupils if they misbehave outside school premises. The government will introduce these changes through legislation and guidance, Gove said, telling delegates: "We have to stop treating adults like children and children like adults. Under this government, we will ensure that the balance of power in the classroom changes and teachers are back in charge."

• Spelling, grammar and punctuation will be made to count in exams. Gove said Labour removed the requirement for a set number of marks to be awarded for these factors in exams. Ofqual, the exams regulator, will be asked to produce proposals for achieving this.

• Academies will open in Department for Education properties. Gove said his department had more than 100 buildings, and that some were empty. This space would be used for academies, he said.

• Gove said he was determined to improve the life chances of pupils because, as an adopted child, he himself had been given "a second chance". Only 45 of the very poorest pupils get into top universities every year, he said. "This waste of talent, this squandering of human potential, this grotesque failure to give all our fellow citizens an equal chance is a reproach to our conscience," he added

• Gove described the Conservatives as "the party of the teacher".

Narrative is just a clever word for teaching stuff in chronological order here isn't it?

How is teaching stuff in modules "Trashing history"? That's a phrase to give the audience stiffies.