1997-2010 New labour policies

Question 1

How did New Labour marketise edu

Answer 1

New Labour’s educational reforms remained faithful to the Education
Reform Act 1988.

In other words, Labour remained committed to parental choice and expanding the diversity of schools.

Therefore, the new policies introduced by the Labour government have been based on New Right

Question 2

reducing social inequality

Answer 2

However, New Labour also set out to reduce social
inequality and increase upward social mobility for
the working class through their educational
reforms

Question 3

New labours plan for edu

Answer 3

To marketise it and reduce social inequality

Question 4

1)Nursery and Primary Education

Answer 4

All 3 year olds have access to a free nursery place. This was introduced as part of compensatory education to install the values needed for success from an early age.

In primary schools, class sizes have been reduced to a maximum of 30 in order to increase the attention teachers can give to students in order to meet the needs of individual students.

Literacy and numeracy hours were introduced in primary schools whereby students receive one hour of each per day. This was introduced to improve key skills, enable students to access the curriculum and meet the needs of employers/economy.

Question 5

Aim of Nursery and Primary Education

Answer 5

Reduce social inequality by compensating w/c and e/m students for their
deprivation.

Question 6

2)Higher education (university)

Answer 6

Abolished grants, created university fees

Question 7

Aim of Higher education (university)

Answer 7

Marketise universities as they now have to compete to attract students
in order to get funding. So, now universities are also funded on the
formula funding principle – the more students they have, the more
funding they get. This created competition between universities.

Question 8

Criticism of Higher education (university)

Answer 8

Created greater class inequality as it puts working class students off
from going to uni.

Question 9

3)Different types of schools

Answer 9

New labour introduced 3 different types of schools

Specialist schools
City academies
Faith schools

Question 10

Specialist schools

Answer 10

these are schools that provide exceptional provision in one
of 10 subject areas, e.g. Sport, MFL, etc. They receive extra funding to support their subject of expertise and they can select 10% of their students on the basis of their ability in the specialist subject.

Question 11

City Academies

Answer 11

these are ‘failing’ schools that have been closed down and
re-opened with funding and control from private businesses and / or individuals who are required to contribute £2 million while the government provides £25 million to improve the school. Their value added scores are improving, but GCSE results are not.

Question 12

Faith schools

Answer 12

these schools were expanded to include non-Christian schools. This is because faith schools are seen as having high standards, support the community ethos and in order to increase parental choice.

Question 13

Aims of different types of schools

Answer 13

The aim was to increase parental choice, encourage competition and raise standards by enabling
schools to excel in their specialism.

To further marketise edu by allowing businesses to run schools and to improve failing schools without additional cost to the taxpayers.

Marketisation - expand the parental choice of schools (parentocracy) by creating different types of
schools.

Help the ‘failing’ schools improve through extra funding from private investors.

Question 14

Criticisms Different types of schools

Answer 14

Parentocracy is a myth as only the m/c have the cultural capital to choose the school for their child.

Private investors into schools have the right to determine the curriculum so this could make it ethnocentric or remove the teaching of evolution from Science.

Specialist schools have the right to select 10% of their students by talent in the specialism. The fear is that this will lead to ‘selection by the back door’ as pointed out by Bartlett.

City academies are criticised for rejecting applications by students with learning needs.

Faith schools can use their right to select students by faith to select by ability as well.

Question 15

4)Compensatory education
policies

Answer 15

The three Compensatory education policies were:
Education Action Zone (EAZ)
Extended schools
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)

Question 16

Education Action Zone (EAZ)

Answer 16

are the most deprived, inner city, areas in the country. Schools
in EAZs receive extra funding. By 2003 there were 72 EAZs. Each one is run by an Action Forum made up of parents, representatives from local schools and businesses as well as government representatives. The money was used by schools to run breakfast clubs, homework clubs, etc. However, even though improvements were made at KS1, the EAZs had no effect on attainment at KS3 or Ks4.

Question 17

Extended schools

Answer 17

is a compensatory education programme through which schools receive extra funding to offer a range of services for the parents, students and the community, e.g. half-term activities, English classes for parents, etc.

Question 18

Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)

Answer 18

is a means tested grant given to students in post 16 education. Students receive the EMA if they have good attendance and make good progress.

Question 19

Aim of Compensatory education
policies

Answer 19

Create social equality - it has helped increase the number of students in HE as well as to encourage more w/c students to stay in education for longer to give them a better chance in life.

Compensate w/c and e/m students for what they lack at home to help them do better at school and increase social equality.

Question 20

Criticisms of Compensatory education
policies

Answer 20

w/c and e/m students tend to attend ‘filing’ schools which limits their life chances because they fail as they are rejected by schools at the top of the league table.

Current government - scrapped the EMA so no more help for w/c students.

Question 21

5)OFSTED

Answer 21

The New Labour government increased the power of Ofsted to put failing schools into special measures. This means that if a school fails the Ofsted inspection, it can be threatened with closure unless it improves.

Question 22

Aim of OFSTED

Answer 22

Marketisation - Improve the info about schools available to parents to create informed parental choice of school.

Force schools to work harder to improve standards.

Question 23

Criticisms of OFSTED

Answer 23

Teachers are professionals and should be trusted to do their work without being checked upon.

Ofsted reports are not an accurate measure of how good a school is.

Question 24

6) curriculum 2000

Answer 24

Split A Level into AS and A2 to encourage students to acquire a breadth and depth of knowledge.

This allows students to choose a wider variety of subjects. In the past students chose 3 A-levels to study for 2 years. Now students could study 4 or 5 AS-levels and drop 1 or 2 at the end of their first year. At A2 students specialise in 3 subjects. This broadens their knowledge as they study a greater variety of subjects to a later age.

Question 25

Aims of curriculum 2000

Answer 25

Marketisation - Increase choice to students of the qualifications they get.

Create social equality – made A Levels easier so more w/c students did better, e.g. through re-sits.

Question 26

+c of curriculum 2000

Answer 26

Current government – going back to old style 2 year A Levels, getting rid of AS, linear exams = more difficult, more pressure, putting w/c students off studying academic courses.

Question 27

Criticisms on Labour reforms (Gillborn and Y)

Answer 27

Gillborn & Youdell – A-C economy and educational triage.

Question 28

Criticisms on Labour reforms ( gewirtz)

Answer 28

Gewirtz - the increase in marketisation continues to benefit m/c
as they have the e, e and c capital to select the good school for their children.

Question 29

Criticisms on Labour reforms ( whitty)

Answer 29

Whitty accuses New Labour policies of being cosmetic – they
present a positive image, but in reality they are not reducing
class inequality. For example, while EMA encouraged working
class students to remain in post 16 education, the university fees put them off HE.