The Education System Flashcards
Radical Transformation
• New academies
Thousands of new academies were created from 2010 onwards, bringing them out of local authority control and granting much more control over their admissions and operation. This went along with the increasing size of academy chains.
Radical Transformation
• Free schools
Free schools gave the power to parents and faith or community groups to create their own schools and to control their own admissions and curriculum but with state funding
Radical Transformation
• GCSEs assessment
The overhaul of GCSEs represented a marked shift away from the last 25 years of educational assessment
Radical Transformation
• Vocational education
The shift away from the expansion of vocation education, including the downgrading of many vocational qualifications and encouragement of more ‘traditional subjects’ was a clear reversal of Labour policy
Radical Transformation
• Teachers pay
There have been a great changes to teachers pay and conditions, including to their pensions and pay structure, and the abolition of a single national framework
Radical Transformation
• Tuition fees
The tripling of tuition fees represented a major shift in the funding and structure of Higher Education
The Coalition did not radically overhaul UK education
• Academies - Labour idea
Academies were not an original policy but simply an expansion of a Labour idea.
The Coalition did not radically overhaul UK education
• Forced academisation
Although initially the process was targeted at ‘successful schools’ it quickly shifted to the forced academisation of ‘failing schools’ as under the previous government
The Coalition did not radically overhaul UK education
• GCSEs reform was watered down
The reform of GCSEs was greatly watered down from the original proposals of their abolition, or return to a two tier system of qualifications
The Coalition did not radically overhaul UK education
• Measure of success remains
There has been little change to the measuring of success in education. League tables and Ofstead remain largely unchanged with only minor changes to the criteria used
