Government policies on education (1980s onwards) Flashcards
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 was influenced
by ideas of the New Right
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - 1988 Education Reform Act - Growing independence and local management of schools (LMS)
- transferred control of school budgets to school governors and headteachers and away from the local authority
- further education and sixth form colleges also became completely independent of the local authority
- schools were encouraged to opt out of local authority control and become independent self-governing Grant Maintained Schools funded directly by central government
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - 1988 Education Reform Act - Formula funding
- schools and colleges were funded by a formula which was largely based on the number of students they attracted
- this was intended to drive up standards by rewarding successful skills and giving less successful schools the incentive to improve
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - 1988 Education Reform Act - Parental choice and open enrolment
- parents were allowed a free choice of school
- under the open enrolment regulations any school with vacancies had to accept them
- unpopular schools risk losing pupils and therefore money
- however, most parents don’t really have that most choice as the most popular schools are usually filled up from the catchment area
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - 1988 Education Reform Act - the National Curriculum and National Testing
- to ensure all students had access to the same high-quality curriculum, the 1988 Education Reform Act set up the national curriculum, a range of subjects and set programmes that all schools in England had to study
- there are attainment targets with formal teacher assessment and National Curriculum Tests at the end of Key stages 1 and 2
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED in England - other names in rest of the UK)
- established in the 1992 Education Act
- conducts regular inspections of all state-funded schools, sixth-form and further education colleges
- aimed to ensure schools were doing a good job by publishing reports and requiring action to be taken on any weakness
- OFSTED reports are often used by parents to help them to choose a school
Conservative party government policy 1979-1997 - School Performance Tables (league tables)
- in the early 1990s, the Conservative government established parents’ right to know about comparative school performance through the publication of Performance tables
- including test and exam results and absence rates for all schools and colleges
- these became known as ‘league tables’
- designed to help parents decide how well schools are doing to help them choose
Labour party government policies 1997-2010 continued with
many of the marketisation policies that began in Conservative years and continued the drive to increase school diversity and parental choice, and raise standards, though with a new emphasis on the most disadvantaged areas
Labour party government policies 1997-2010 - more money for schools, more nursery education and smaller primary school classes
- established a national maximum class size of 30 for all 5-7 year olds
- allocated extra money to schools to enable them to provide the staff, materials, buildings and facilities to provide a high quality learning environment and improve standards
- emphasised importance of early learning to ensure children had the best start
- all children 3-4 years old were given a guaranteed 15 hours of free nursery education a week
- Sure Start Children’s Centres were established, especially in the most disadvantaged areas, to provide advice and support to aprents
- Literacy and numeracy hours were established in primary schools to raise standards
Labour party government policies 1997-2010 - Helping the most disadvantaged
- Education Action Zones (renamed Excellence in Cities) - extra funding for schools in disadvantaged areas
- establishment of academies in 2000 - independent publicly funded schools, often sponsored by private businesses and not controlled by local authorities, originally established to replace and give a fresh start to under-performing schools in disadvantaged areas
- academies programme is highly controversial - some evidence suggesting raised standards is due to covert selection
Labour party government policies 1997-2010 - introduction of tuition fees for higher education in 1998
- made access to higher education more difficult for the most disadvantaged students, who feared potential student debts
Labour party government policies 1997-2010 - Specialist schools
- originally began in 1994, but Labour massively extended the programme
- specialist schools have a special focus on their chosen subject area (technology, languages, business, music etc)
- originally had to raise money from private businesses but later got extra money from government
- specialist schools are allowed to select up to 10% of pupils by their ‘aptitude’ in the specialist subject
- intended to raise standards, not just in specialist subject but across whole curriculum
- almost all secondary schools now have a specialism, but very few select any students based on aptitude
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government policies 2010-2015 were described by Ball and Exley (2011) as a mixture of ‘something old and something new’
- ‘something old’ refers to traditional conservative emphasis on parental choice and independence from local authorities, as well as an emphasis on traditional subjects and teaching methods
- ‘something new’ refers to new form that these traditional policies took (eg EBacc, new-style academies etc), as well as continuing the previous Labour government’s attempts to tackle educational inequality
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government policies 2010-2015 - New-style academies
- after 2010, all state schools were encouraged to become independent academies, free from local authority and the national curriculum
- huge increase in the number of academies (in October 2023, 80% of secondary schools were academies)
- poorly performing schools were forced into becoming academies
Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government policies 2010-2015 - Free schools
- all-ability state-funded independent schools
- very similar to academies
- set up in response to what local people say they want and need to improve education in the community
- generally presented as a way of improving standards and meeting parents’ wishes in disadvantaged areas where existing schools were seen as inadequate
- designed to be run by groups of teachers, parents, charities, faith groups, education experts or private companies to satisfy local demand
