education policies Flashcards
What are the four aims of social policy in education?
Raising standards
Marketisation of education
Educational equality
Economic efficiency
raising standards in education
Why are the governments interested in raising standards in the UK education system?
UK education needs to compete in a global education market and is ranked against other countries i.e. PISA
Its aim is to improve UK education
raising standards in education
What are the ways in which the govt looks to raise education standards?
Privatisation in education – changing the internal process of the education system to be more like a business
Privatisation of education – opening aspects of the education system to private businesses, e.g. catering staff, finance management, teacher training etc
Quality control – ensuring that all schools are providing the best possible education to pupils
raising standards of education
Conservatives 1979-1997 policies to raise standards in education
Ofsted:
- Inspector of state schools checks whether schools are providing the best education possible to their students
- Quality control policies
- Privatisation of education
:( might not be effective because some schools change what they are doing just for the Ofsted inspection, so not valid judgement on whether the education is of quality standard
Schools might also change their approach to teaching based on Ofsted reviews, even though it might not be the best approach for the specific students within that school
National curriculum:
- Is about quality control telling schools what the minimum requirement is
:) Become more flexible over the years so allows schools to shape their curriculum to meet the needs of the students whilst still meeting requirements of the national curriculum
National testing:
- End of key stage tests, e.g. sats tests in year 2, 6, and previously 9
- Not about individual achievement, it was to see how well schools were teaching
- Privatisation in education
- Quality control – if schools weren’t making progress with their students, then an issue was seen within that school
:) People calling for sats to be scrapped because they don’t mean anything for the pupils
raising standards in education
New Labour 1997-2010 policies to raise standards
Max class sizes:
- Only applied to ages 5-7, max class was 25
- Aim was to decrease ratio of students to teachers, so teachers can give more individualised learning
:( doesn’t exist anymore
Building schools for the future programme:
- A way to improve school facilities e.g. roofs didn’t leak, heating systems working
- Good buildings means that you can focus on learning rather than things such as being cold because heating is broken
- Privatisation of education schools had to bid to DFE to get the finding, building companies had to bid to DFE to get the contract
:( programme doesn’t exist anymore, conservative govt said it was too expensive and unnecessary
Education Action Zones (EAZ):
- Provided additional funding to deprived areas to support learning
:( policy doesn’t exist anymore
:) whilst it lasted, it did raise standards was able to provide children in poverty with the resources necessary to achieve in education
Business Sponsored Academies:
- State schools received additional funding provided by an external company
- Privatisation of education
:) large companies like google and apple that sponsor schools and provide equipment, financing, resources etc
:( When we experienced a recession and businesses not as big as google and apple were facing financial hardship, the first thing they did was stop sponsoring schools
raising standards of education
Coalition 2010-2015 policies to raise standards
Pupil premium:
- Children on FSM, children whose parents are in the army, children in or previously in foster care are considered pupil premium
- Additional funding would get provided to school if they had students that met the requirements
- Schools could therefore get additional resources specifically for these children from these funds
:) still available today, helps deprived children achieve educational attainment
English Baccalaureate:
- Said in order to achieve English Baccalaureate, students had to study certain subjects at GCSE English, Maths, a science (inc. PE and Computer science), a humanity, a language, 3 other subjects of choice
- Idea was to give a broader curriculum to GCSE students
:( Didn’t include any arts subjects so actually narrowed down subject choice at GCSE rather than broadening it
- Also changed grading from letters to numbers grade 9 was determined by top 10% of those who took the exam
- Aims was quality control as tried to ensure students didn’t narrow to much at GCSE level
Reform of exams:
- Under New Labour there were modular exams – exams taken at end of every modular, and all combine to final grade could resit module exams
- Changed to AS and A2 level – each exam worth 50%
- Coalition abolished this because it was easy to manipulate and again found some students would resit exams up to 5 times and then receive the best grade they achieved out of all 5 attempts disadvantaged w/c students as they couldn’t afford the resits
- Linear exams were introduced by Michael Gove – only sit GCSE at end of year 11 and a levels at the end of year 13
:) Did stop people gaming the system
:( Makes it much difficult for students to do well
Reform of national curriculum:
- Prescriptive nature of national curriculum was reviewed
- Reform gave schools more opportunity to shape the curriculum to the needs of their students
- Students therefore received the best education possible that fit their context
- Instead of curriculum covering what needed to be taught each year, it instead covered what needed to be taught each key stage allowed for more flexibility
Performance targets for schools:
- Privatisation in education putting business practices into schools
- Introduced value added measurement to see how much value schools had added to children’s education
- Took pupils sats results, and then what they achieved at GCSE and made a national average – schools then compared their own pupils grades to the national averages
- Negative score = children underachieved, 0 score = children achieved what they were meant to do
:) good way of ensuring that schools are providing the best education possible and to monitor the education that schools are providing
:( if there is a high achieving year group with lots of high targets, then you can’t get a high positive score, as you can’t achieve higher than the top grade
:( schools started teaching for the test rather than teaching a broad and balanced curriculum
raising standards in education
Conservatives 2015-present policies to raise standards
Independent schools to sponsor academies:
- Private schools provide additional resources to academies to support their students, e.g. letting the students use their sports hall
- Privatisation of education
Expand grammar schools:
- Saw these schools as providing a more academic education
- Good opportunity to provide more able students with the more academic education
Ofsted reform to focus on curriculum not data:
- Judged based on: intent, implementation, impact (3 Is)
- Ensures schools know why they are doing what they are doing and can reflect on the education they are providing
marketisation of education
What is marketisation?
The process whereby serviced like education are pushed towards operating like a business based on supply and demand – students are considered consumers rather than pupils
marketisation of education
What are the three components of marketisation?
Independence – giving schools more independence over how they operate and what they offer
Competition – making schools compete with each other for students
Choice/Parentocracy – giving customers (parents/students) more choice in where they go to school
marketisation of education
What policies did the Conservative 1979-1997 government implement under the marketisation aim?
League tables:
- A way of ranking schools
- Creates greater competition between schools as all schools want to be at the top of the league table
- This is because they want to attract students
Funding formula:
- Every school gets a certain amount of money per school per year
- Schools therefore compete for students because they want more funding
Open enrolment:
- Parentocracy
- Can apply to send child to any school you want, regardless of catchment area
- If school is undersubscribed, then the child can go there
- If school is oversubscribed, there is a process to determine whether or not the child gets a space all applications go to local authority, they then identify looked after children who get their first choice of school, spaces left then go to SEN and pupil premium students, next goes to siblings, next goes to catchment area
:( there has been a covert selection process as suggested by Tuff and Brookes – ways that schools focus in on the child they want for their school – e.g. high uniform costs to attract m/c pupils
Ofsted:
- Created competition within schools
- Schools wanted to have the ‘outstanding’ label
marketisation of education
What policies did the New Labour 1997-2010 government implement under the marketisation aim?
Specialist schools:
- Created competition between schools for the specialist school title
- A specialist school was a school that had a particularly good department in a particular subject
- Schools had to apply for specialist school title
- Couldn’t have 2 schools in the same geographical area with the same specialist school label
- Gave persons more choice as it gave them more information about that school
Business sponsored academies:
- More independence with schools
- Lessened the control of local authority
- E.g. apple schools would be an IOS school
- Able to shape schools the way they wanted
marketisation of education
What policies did the Coalition 2010-2015 government implement under the marketisation aim?
Free schools:
- Schools were free of local authority control
- Could shape curriculum how they wanted
- Charities, businesses, parents could all apply to open a free school
- Only be opened in areas where there weren’t enough school places
- Created independence
- Creates more competition
- Gave parents more choice
New style academies:
- Multi-academy trusts
- Group schools together under an umbrella leadership to increase standards
- Gave schools more independence because they were freer from local authority dictation
- Creates competition and parental choice
marketisation of education
What policies did the Conservatives 2015-present government implement under the marketisation aim?
Remote teaching:
- Different schools using different platforms
- Schools have more independence on how they approach learning and teaching
equality of education
What are the 4 types of equality in education according to Gillborn and Youdell?
- Access – being able to attend a good school regardless of socio-economic background
- Circumstance – pupils should all start school at a similar level regardless of socio-economic background
- Participation – all pupils should have the chance to fully participate in all aspects of their education
- Outcome – all pupils should have the same chances of academic achievement regardless of socio-economic background
equality of education
How did comprehensivisation aim to create equality in education and did it succeed?
Got rid of the 11+ exams and made it so all students would get ‘parity of esteem’ and ‘equality’ within education
:( comprehensives are large schools so lacked individual attention
