Policies

• League tables?

  allowed parents to see how well a school is doing, bringing focus to not only the high achieving schools, but underachieving schools
• Oftsed?

  regulate and inspect schools
• Why was the national curriculum introduced?

  to ensure schools were teaching the same basic subjects
• What is formula funding?

  funding based on the number of students, this encourages schools to raise standards to increase demand
• 1994- Butler wanted more:

  • aimed to create meritocracy via equality of educational opportunity
  • aimed to create a highly skilled workforce by teaching vocational skills
  • tripartite system was created, whereby pupils were made to sit the 11+ exams, so that they are assigned suitable schools
• Butler Education Act evaluation:

  • unfair for late developers, most secondary modern schools did not meet their educational needs, and so they never got to reach their full potential
  • Failure of the 11+ led to a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing children to drop out of school and subsequently have no qualifications
  • Entrenches social class division, as secondary modern schools typically consisted of majority working class children
• 1965- Equality was alive

  • The labour prime minister believed that education should promote social mobility
  • He opted to merge grammar and secondary modern schools to create a set of mixed ability students
  • Students were to be differentiated via streaming
  • Comprehensive schools required no entrance exam and consisted of pupils of all abilities
  • children from different social classes were mixed in an attempt to reduce class inequality
• Evaluation of comprehensive system:

  • Setting and streaming means that the comprehensive system is no different to the tripartite system in the sense that working class children were commonly found in lower sets
  • Due to the range of mixed abilities in a classroom, it is thought that high achieving students are held back as the weaker learners catch up
  • The anonymity of students in such a big school limits the opportunity for 1 to 1 from teachers
• 1976- BTECS will exist

  • The labour minister claimed that British education didn't teach the necessary vocational skills required for a strong workforce
  • aimed to promote the economic role, so that Britain maintains a successful position in the world economy
• 1988- it wasn't too late

  • The education reform act
  • aimed to introduce more market principles (competition) into the education system
  • aimed to create more parental choice and control over state education
• marxist would argue that comprehensive schools are not meritocratic, as they reproduce class inequality through streaming and labelling
• 1988- Education Reform Act

  • believed that education should be driven by competition and consumer choice
  • introduced national curriculum
  • aimed to equip pupils with work skills, thus contributing to economic growth
  • gave more power to parents to choose schools for their children instead of the LEA
• a criticism of the education reform act is that it encourages the ”teach to the test” method of teaching in which the curriculum solely focuses on exam success
• “teach to the test“ is bad as it limits a teacher’s ability to foster a holistic understanding of a subject
• Stephen Ball (1988 ERA)

  • refers to m/c parents as “skilled choosers” who use social networking and good negotiation skills to guarantee enrolment in the best schools for their children
  • refers to w/c parents as “disconnected choosers” who lack cultural and social capital, thus tending to settle for local schools
• school/parent alliance;

  • an idea proposed by Ball in which m/c parents want m/c schools, and schools wants m/c pupils
  • schools with more m/c pupils often see the best exam results
  • m/c pupils are seen as easier to teach and more likely to succeed
• marketisation means creating an “education market”, in which market principles are entrenched into the education system, schools begin to compete for pupils like businesses, the parents being the consumers
• better performing schools attract more pupils, meaning they earn more funding and are able to expand
• marketisation

  • in order for marketisation to work, parents must have a choice of where to send their children
  • parental choice directly affects school budget, every extra pupil means extra money
• league tables rank schools based on their exam performance in SATs, GCSEs and A Levels
• OFSTED;

  • aimed to drive up standards
  • OFSTED reports are publicly published, meaning low-performing schools are shut down if they are consistently getting bad reports
• why m/c parents have better choice of schools;

  • selection by mortgage; houses in the catchment areas of top schools are more likely to be more expensive, meaning those with money have access to the best schools
  • m/c families are more likely to own two cars, and therefore have a wider range of schools to send their children to
• cream-skimming

  schools cream-skim the best pupils on waiting lists in order to achieve the best exam results, and thus rise up the league tables. those not chosen end up in low-performing schools. these schools turn into sink schools that no one wants to go to.
• more exams means more negative labelling for those who fail
• students who end up in sink schools are given little hope of doing well
• national curriculum is a set of subjects and standards used by primary and secondary schools to ensure that pupils are taught the same material
• Tough & Brooks- covert selection

  • the process in which schools will discourage parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds from applying to their schools
  • examples include deliberately making school literature difficult to comprehend, lengthy application forms, expensive uniforms, not publicising schools in poorer neighbourhoods
• A-C Economy

  the process in which schools ration their time, effort and best resources using notions of student potential and ability, as a means of producing the most A-C grades, and thus boost their positions on league tables