Labour government and marketisation of education 1997 - 2010 Flashcards
New labour policies on education
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) Nursery and primary education Specialist schools Education Action Zones (EAZ) Excellence in Cities Extended schools OFSTED Value added league tables Higher education Curriculum 2000 Behaviour + inclusion
Educational reforms, 1997 – 2010
Following their election in 1997, New Labour’s educational reforms remained faithful to the Education Reform Act 1988.
Therefore, the new policies introduced by the Labour government have been based on New Right thinking.
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
Means tested grant given to students in post 16 education. Students receive the EMA if they have good attendance and make good progress.
Aim:
Create social equality - it has helped increase the number of students in FE as well as to encourage more w/c students to stay in education for longer to give them a better chance in life.
Criticisms:
Current government - scrapped the EMA so no more help for w/c students.
Nursery and primary education
All 3 year olds have access to a free nursery place.
- was introduced as part of compensatory education to instill the values needed for success from an early age.
In Primary Schools:
Class sizes have been reduced to a maximum of 30 - 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.
Current government – introduced literacy testing for end of KS2, want to test children at the age of 4.
Aims:
- Improve results, give children skills, compensate w/c and e/m students for their deprivation.
Criticisms:
Coalition government – too much testing too soon.
Specialist schools
[different types of schools]
Schools that provide exceptional provision in one of 10 subject areas. 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. By 2007 over 75% of all secondary schools in England were specialist schools.
Aim:
increase choice, encourage competition and raise standards by enabling schools to excel in their specialism.
Criticism:
The fear is that this will lead to ‘selection by the back door’ as pointed out by Bartlett.
Faith schools
Different types of schools
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.
Critcisms:
these schools can use their right to select students by faith to select by ability as well.
Aims and criticisms of different types of schools
Aims:
Increase parental choice of schools (parentocracy) by creating different types of schools.
Help the ‘failing’ schools improve through extra funding from private investors.
Criticisms:
Parentocracy is a myth as only the m/c have the cultural capital to choose the school for their child - Ball
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.
Education action zones
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.
Criticisms:
even though improvements were made at KS1, the EAZs had no effect on attainment at KS3 or Ks4.
Excellence in Cities
Replaced EAZ in order to raise standards in inner city secondary schools by providing resources to stretch the more able students, as well as providing learning mentors, high quality ICT facilities, Learning support Units for students at high risk of exclusion.
This initiative did have an effect on KS3 and KS4 results.
Extended schools
A programme through which schools offer a range of services for the parents, students and the community, e.g. half-term activities, English classes for parents, etc. This scheme was introduced as part of compensatory education to help deprived students.
Current government – cut funding.
Aims + criticisms of compensatory policies
Aims
Compensate w/c and e/m students for what they lack at home to help them do better at school and increase social equality.
Criticisms
w/c and e/m students still end up in ‘filing’ schools which limits their life chances.
OFSTED
NL government increased the power of Ofsted to put failing schools into special measures.
Current government – increased their power further, e.g. can carry out inspections unannounced.
Aim:
Improve the info about schools available to parents.
Force schools to work harder to improve standards.
Criticisms:
Teachers are professionals and should b trusted to do their work without being check upon.
Value added league tables
Some school, particularly those in materially deprived inner city areas, tend to have low positions on exam league tables.
However, these schools do tend to add a great deal of value to the lives of their students.
For this reason, value added league tables were created. They show the students’ achievement levels when they first arrive at secondary school then measure how much the school improves on this level.
Therefore, they show the progress students have made, rather than just their achievement.
Aim:
Correct the superficial info gained from league tables.
Criticisms:
League tables are still seen as the main source of info about schools.
Higher education
Grants were abolished.
University top up fees were introduced in 1998.
Student Loans introduced.
Current government – increased fees to £9000 per year.
Curriculum 2000
Split A Level into AS and A2 to encourage students to acquire a breadth and depth of knowledge.
-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.
Key Skills were also introduced, e.g. communication, application of numbers, ICT, independent learning, working with others.
Aims:
Increase choice to students of the qualifications they get.
Criticisms:
Current government – going back to old style 2 year A Levels, getting rid of AS, linear exams = more difficult, less pressure, putting w/c students off studying academic courses.
