Policy Flashcards
What are policies?
Principles, rules, and guidelines formulated or adopted by an organisation to reach its long term goals
When was free, compulsory education introduced?
1872
Which policy introduced free, compulsory education?
Education Act
What were the aims of free, compulsory education?
- Creating a meritocratic society
- Raising educational standards
- Economic efficiency
Who discussed equality in educational opportunity?
Gillborn and Youdell
What are the types to equality in education?
- Equality of access- right and opportunities
- Equality of outcome- same benefits from education
- Equality of circumstances- same socioeconomic status at the start of school
- Equality of preparation- same experiences at school
What is the order of educational policies?
1944- Butler act/ tripartite
1965- Comprehensive system
1977- New labour policies
1988- Education reform act
2010- Coalition government
What were the aims of the tripartite system?
- Creating a meritocratic society
- Economic efficiency
Why is the tripartite system also called the Butler act?
It was introduced by conservative politician R.A. Butler
What did the tripartite system introduce?
- Free education for all
- 11+ exam based on belief that students had fixed ability by age 11
- 3 school types
What were the 3 school types introduced by the tripartite system?
- Grammar school
- Technical school
- Secondary modern school
Features of a grammar school:
- Focus on academic achievement
- Sit ‘O’ levels at 15
- Free to attend
- 15-20% of students attend
- Selective based on ability
Features of technical schools:
- Vocational education
- Teach mechanical, scientific, and engineering skills to serve industry
- 5% of schools
- Faded out over time
Features of secondary modern schools:
- Basic education
- No focus on exams
- No national curriculum
What aims does the comprehensive system meet?
Creating a meritocratic society
Which party introduced the comprehensive system?
Labour
Features of the comprehensive system:
- Direct action against the tripartite system
- Abolished the 11+
- Abolished 3 school types
- Most students attended comprehensive school by 2014
- 164 grammar schools left
- Selective based on postcode
How is inequality created inside schools?
- Streaming
- Labelling
What is streaming?
- Ability groups
- middle class pupils in higher streams
- working class pupils in lower streams
What is labelling?
Teachers make unfair assumptions about students (particularly working class pupils) and restrict their opportunities
Positives of the comprehensive system:
- All students gain the same education regardless of ability aged 11
- Working class and upper class students go to school together
- Boys and girls becoming equal
- Equal opportunities for all
Negatives of the comprehensive system:
- Groups are separated within the school depending on ability
- Teachers can negatively label working class
- Children go to closest school regardless of rating, middle class areas have better schools
Evaluations of the comprehensive system:
- Students buy into the idea of meritocracy
- Comprehensive system can’t fully exist if 164 grammar schools still exist
- Postcode selection means there are still ‘higher status’ schools with different achievement
- Students are sorted less by ability and more by class
What aims does the education reform act meet?
Raising education standards
Which party introduced the education reform act?
Conservative- specifically Margaret Thatcher
What did the education reform act introduce?
- Choice for parents
- Open market for schools
- National curriculum
- OFSTED
- School league tables
- Competition
- Vocational subjects
- Target setting for students’ achievement
- Allowed schools to be managed locally
What is marketisation?
- Give parents more choice
- Raise standards
- Schools run like businesses
- Every pupil brings the same amount of money (£6,200)
- Schools providing good products (grades) are oversubscribed
What is Brown’s ‘parentocracy’?
Parents having more rights and choice
What is the national curriculum?
- Standardised set programmes of study
- Standardised testing for all students in KS1,2, and 3 in form of SATS
- Teachers accountable for minimum attainment targets
- Took autonomy away from schools and teachers
Positives of the national curriculum:
- All pupils receive same education
- Teachers are accountable for results and so ‘care more’
Negatives of the national curriculum:
- Doesn’t stretch pupils
- Doesn’t support those who need alternative education
- Not all students have to offer it- independent schools can have their own
What is OFSTED?
- Introduced in 1992
- Gives regular inspections to state schools, sixth forms and colleges
- Tries to ensure all institutions meet standards
- Publish reports for public to read
- Monitor weaknesses
What are league tables?
- Gives parents the right to compare schools and their performance in tests, absences and exclusions
- Working class families may struggle to access and read league tables, or may not know about them
What is the myth of parentocracy?
- Tough and Brooks
- Middle class parents take more care over looking into the best school for their child
- Working class parents may send children to the local schools regardless of reputation
- High performing schools alienate working class
What is the local management of schools?
- Schools control budgets
- Opt out of control of local governments to be ran by parents
- Respond to needs of families in the area (e.g schools in deprived areas handed out food packages in covid)
- Schools can be managed by businesses (e.g Microsoft academies)
Advantages of the educational reform act:
- Gives pupils equal education through national curriculum
- Standards improve to get more funding
- Vocational subjects give less academic students a chance at qualifications
- Local management makes schools more personalised
Disadvantages of the educational reform act:
- Reproduces inequality through league tables
- Parentocracy is a myth
- Driving up standards is a cycle- low standards mean less students so less funding so low standards
- Choice creates chaos, no government regulation
What aims did new labour meet?
- Creating a meritocratic society
- Raising educational standards
Features of new labour:
- Continued with marketisation of schools
- Reduce inequality of achievement
- Focuses a lot on deprived areas and children
- Greater competition between schools
- ‘high skill high wage’ society
- 65% of schools are specialist
What is the money injection?
- Gave extra money to improve resources, buildings and teaching
- National max class size for primary schools is 30 students
- Introduced 15 hours of free education for all 3-4 year olds
- Introduces sure start centres
What was the impact of the introduction of uni fees?
Make it harder for those from disadvantaged areas to go to university
When were uni fees introduced?
1998
What are beacon schools?
- Close the gap between best and worst schools
- Work in partnership with other schools to raise standards
- Must be among best performing schools in the country
- Additional £35,000 funding per year
What are academies?
- Independently funded
- Introduced to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils
- Often sponsored by business
- Disadvantaged students can be covertly excluded
- Often paired with beacon schools
What are specialist schools?
- Focus on one area of curriculum (e.g. smiths wood sports)
- Parents get more choice
- Extra funding for specialist subject
- 10% of pupils selected based on ability in specialist subject
- Supposed to raise standards in specialist subject
What are EAZs?
- Education action zones
- Deprived areas
- Provided with extra resources
- £1m to spend
What is ‘Aim Higher’?
Programme aimed to raise aspirations of under-represented groups in higher education (think university visits and UCAS days)
What is EMA?
- Educational maintenance allowance
- Payments to students from low income backgrounds to help them stay in post 16 education
- Now called bursary
Why did new labour raise the school leaving age?
So there would be no more 16-17 year old NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training)
What is GIST and WISE?
- Girls Into Science and Technology
- Women Into Science and Engineering
- Reduce differences in typically male dominated subjects
What is ‘the new deal’?
- Gave training and employment to 18-24 year olds out of work for more than 6 months
- Tony Blair claimed it helped over 250,000 young people after 2 years
Advantages of new labour:
- Reduces number of 16-18 year olds out of education
- Smaller class sizes allow for more focus on individuals
- EMA helps students stay in education
- Policies to help girls achieve in STEM
Disadvantages of new labour:
- Specialist schools can focus on one gender
- Uni fees remove hope for disadvantaged
- Grammar and fee paying schools for the more advantaged still exist
What aims did the coalition government meet?
- Creating a meritocratic society
- Raising educational standards
Which parties introduced coalition policies?
Conservative and Liberal Democrats
Features of coalition government:
- Encourage excellence through competition and innovation
- Reduce influence of government through marketisation
- Education budget cuts
What are EBacc subjects?
- Emphasise on ‘traditional’ subjects
- Ball and Exley- changes made in light of what conservatives thought were ‘real subjects’
- English, maths, science, languages, history and geography
- 49% of students took EBacc subjects at GCSE in 2012, 22% in 2010
How did the coalition government further academies?
- Continued new labour academies
- Pushed failing schools out of government control
- 75% of secondary schools were academies in 2021
What is pupil premium?
- Students from poorer backgrounds who are eligible for free school meals
- School gets extra funding for pupil premium students
- Positive discrimination of poorer students
What changes did the coalition government make to the national curriculum?
- Made it more demanding and rigorous
- New GCSE and A Level system
- Removed coursework
- Exams at end of final year not modular
What is progress 8?
Progress across 8 main subjects based on year 6 SATs grades
Evaluations of the coalition government:
- Some academies are run by private education business are are state funded
- They decided which subjects should be compulsory
- Simpler regulations and targeted inspections
- £359m of education cuts
- Did not work towards equality in school
- Less spaces in higher education and higher tuition fee
- Scrapped EMA
What is globalisation?
The world is becoming more connected due to advancements in technology, travel, internet, industry, and the movement of people.
Globalisation and the formation of policy:
- Education policies are a mix of those from a round the world due to the passage of information
- DoE says taking comparisons of our education system and other society’s helps improve
Privatisation, marketisation, and globalisation
- Ball- education is a source of profit
- Hancock- in 2012 the ‘education service industry’ boosted the economy by £18b
- Global market through globalisation
International comparisons:
- PISA league tables
- Compare different countries on maths, science and reading
- Policies can be reformed or implemented based on comparisons
- Can lead to changes in national curriculum, assessment, or general policy
Policies formed as a result of international comparisons:
- 2 hours of literacy and numeracy every day at primary school
- Slimming down the national curriculum in English, maths, and science to essential info
- Raising standards for trainee teachers
Strengths of international comparisons:
- Good to compared educational spending and achievement
- Useful for benchmarking standards
Good for sharing knowledge of policies that do and dont work
Weaknesses of international comparisons:
- PISA tests based on narrow knowledge
- Kelley- globalisation makes schools focus on tests not cultural knowledge, well being, citizenship, and personal development
- Rankings aren’t always a measure of success
- Policy may be damaged by unreliable tests
