Sociology - Educational Policy - 1997 (New Labour) Flashcards
Which government introduced the 1997 Education Reforms?
The Labour Party
What were the aims?
- increase equality for WC students
- improve standards
- improve health and well-being of students
- save money
What are uni tuition fees?
Tony Blair introduced a sum of money that must be paid if you attend university, starting at £3000 / year
What was the aim of uni tuition fees?
- to support the large sums needed for growth
- to fund tuition for undergraduate and postgraduate certificates
Strengths of uni tuition fees
- reduces the tax burden on the rest of the UK population
Weaknesses of uni tuition fees
- makes it harder for working class students to attend uni
- creates issues with student debt
What is E.M.A (Educational Maintenance Allowance)?
A claim that students from low income family can get per week of £35
What was the aim of EMA?
- to encourage people who used to leave school at 16 to carry on to A-Levels
- aimed to reduce the amount of children experiencing in educational failure / engaging in offending or antisocial behaviour / suffering from ill health / teenage parents
Strengths of EMA
- extremely beneficial for the working class families
- the money went straight to the children
Weaknesses of EMA
- wasn’t a substantial enough amount to make a difference
- just because students are now able to stay in school, doesn’t mean that they would necessarily perform well
What is SureStart?
- centres that were opened in low income community areas which offer preschool books and toys, parenting classes, help for children to get them jobs and help them with English
Aims of SureStart
- to give children a better start in life
- to improve standards
Strengths of Sure Start
- massive impact on WC
- really helping and targeting the home life aspect and helping young children before it was too late to help
Weaknesses of SureStart
- scrapped
What is Every Child Matters?
- a gov initiative in England and Wales that aims to keep children safe and healthyA
Aims of Every Child Matters
- to improve health and well-being of students
- to raise standards
- to keep children healthy and safe
Strengths of Every Child Matters
- allowed children to not fall behind
- provided personalised teaching to make sure that every child had what they needed
- introduced safeguarding to make sure that the children were healthy
What is healthy schools?
A gov campaign to promote healthy eating in schools
Aims of healthy schools -
- to promote health and well-being of students
Strengths of healthy schools
- provided children with the knowledge and skills to improve their quality of life, to look after themselves and to help them in the long term
Weaknesses of healthy schools
At the time people would find ways around it
What is Numeracy and Literacy strategy?
- gov introduced a recommended approach at the way in which English and Maths should be taught during each key stage
Aim of Numeracy and Literacy strategy
- to improve standards and the whole education of the countru
Strengths of N + L strategy
- good for middle class students as they would continue to do better
Weaknesses of N + L strategy
- WC students would just suffer more as they would struggle to keep up and this in turn would further widen the class gap
What are academies?
- academies are schools that receive funding directly from the government and are run by an academy trust
- if a school was failing and really bad, they would become an academy
- to re-brand themselves, they would rehire teachers to support themselves to stop them from failing
- there was no choice in this
- got lots of extra money from private investments
Aims of academies (1997)
- Designed to replace schools deemed to be failing by the school inspection body, Ofsted
Strengths of Academies (1997)
- good way in modernising school buildings and getting a big investment of money
Weaknesses of academies
- failing schools remain failed
What is Curriculum 200?
- Campaign that made it easier for students to get their A-Levels.
- Modular exams, after each set of a module they would sit their exam and were able to resit their exams in January or June.
- Able to keep resitting their exams and so students started doing really well and were able to go to university.
- Improved opportunities for all students
- Helped those who were not as academically advanced for large exams and so this helped them.
Aims of Curriculum 2000
- save money
- help those students who are not high-achieving / academic by providing them with more chances to succeed
Strengths of Curriculum 2000
- more opportunities for people to pass
- more vocational subjects were the best way of assessing
- did not penalise the students who weren’t as good at big assessments (benefited working class student)
What is Aim Higher?
- gov funded project aimed at sixth from students from a working class background, to encourage them to go to uni and to have high aspirations
Aims of Aim Higher
- increase equality for working class students
Strengths of Aim Higher
- really good and encouraging more students to go onto uni
Weaknesses of Aim Higher:
- however, if there are low aspirations at home and parents are encouraging you to go straight to work - not particularly useful
- encouraging people to ‘aim higher’ is one way of attempting to motivate people and reduce the inequality, however such aspects such as uni tuition fees are being raised simultaneously, this does not become any easier
What are Educational Action Zones (EMA)?
- an educational action zone is based on a cluster of schools, usually in a local area, which aims to develop imaginative approaches to raising educational standards in seriously disadvantaged areas
Strengths of EMAs
- encourages diversity
- encourages new opportunities for pupils in deprived areas
- increases participation
- raises expectation and achievement
Weaknesses of EMAs
- financial control in zones is criticised as “deficient” and targets for school improvement were “not clear”.
