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This article argues that reforms of higher education finance for undergraduates in England introduced by the Blair government in 2006 provided a progressive strategy for achieving the central objectives of higher education of quality (better), access (wider) and size (larger). Reforms in 2012 are a not a strategy but a collection of ad hoc arrangements. They include the good (a higher fees cap, a higher interest rate on student loans, better information and improved support for part-time study), the bad (abolishing most taxpayer support for teaching in the arts and humanities and the social sciences, and raising excessively the threshold at which loan repayments start) and the unspeakable (abolishing Education Maintenance Allowances and AimHigher). The reforms are fiscally costly and hence perpetuate the central problem of capped student numbers, and will not stand the test of time. The concluding section outlines the next White Paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In England, pupils aged 16 take the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations for a range of subjects. The current assessment models for GCSE include a two-tier structure for some subjects and a non-tier model for the others. The tiered subjects have a higher tier designed for high achieving pupils and a lower tier for low achieving pupils. The higher tier paper is targeted at grades A*–D (with A* the highest grade available), while the lower tier paper at grades C–G (with G the lowest grade). The UK government has proposed a comprehensive reform of GCSEs. It suggested that, with tiered papers, pupils are forced to choose between higher and lower tier papers, which will place a cap on the ambition of those entering for the lower tier. The government therefore suggests avoiding tiering in the reformed GCSEs when possible. This paper discusses the technical and equity issues with the use of tiered examinations in current GCSEs and reviews potential alternative assessment approaches for effective differentiation between pupils for the reformed GCSEs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is an attempt to think aloud about the current policy proposals in circulation in England that address pre-service teacher education. Rather than dealing with details of policy and points of specificity in practice, the focus of this paper is with how propositions are justified and the overall ways in which meanings are being managed; a fundamental aspect of policy analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three main programmes of the Geneva-registered International Baccalaureate (IB) have grown substantially worldwide over the past decade, although the programmes have found a natural ‘home’ in the United States. This paper charts the growth of the IB in the United Kingdom (UK) revealing that involvement there, mainly in England and mainly with the original pre-university Diploma Programme (IBDP), peaked at about 230 schools in 2010, but since then the IBDP has begun suddenly to decline. Yet, in no other country has there been a fall in IBDP provision. This paper offers some key explanations for this phenomenon, where a lack of funding and continued lack of university recognition in the face of Advanced Level (A-Level) reform and numerous ‘baccalaureate’ developments has led to many state-funded schools in particular dropping the IBDP. Thirdly, this paper discusses a number of implications, both for the IB itself and education in the UK in general. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Vocational qualifications in England are undergoing another round of reform. This paper starts by reviewing the alleged weaknesses of English vocational qualifications, but argues that these do not necessarily establish a case for radical reform. The issue is not so much whether the system needs to be changed as the nature of the change that is needed. The paper argues for a more deliberative and incremental approach and proposes five principles upon which this should be based. These are the following: that the process of change is as important as the content of change; that institutions matter; that the purposes of reform need to be clear, consistent and realistic; that reforms should help to create a more unified qualifications system; and that the interests of the UK’s other home countries should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

School-to-school collaboration has been central to many improvement efforts over recent decades. In an attempt to promote both improvement and equity current developments in England have included changing formal governance arrangements to promote collaboration for improvement through ‘federations’ and ‘chains’ of schools. However, federations and school chains remain a relatively under-explored area and there is a noticeable absence of research exploring the impact of such arrangements on student outcomes. This paper draws on a programme of research including the national evaluation of federations, the first quantitative study of the impact of federations on student outcomes and a longitudinal qualitative study of the development of federations to consider two key questions: What is a federation? And do federations make a difference? In order to achieve this, the paper provides an overview of the key characteristics of federations and considers their contribution to improvement efforts. In conclusion the paper reflects on a number of issues and implications associated with developing a federated school system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the connections between the school building programme in England and the raising of the school leaving age (ROSLA) from 14 to 15 in 1947 and then to 16 in 1972. These two major developments were intended to help to ensure the realisation of ‘secondary education for all’ in the postwar period. The combination led in practice to severe strains in the education system as a whole, with lasting consequences for educational planning and central control. ROSLA was a key issue for the school building programme in terms of both finance and design. School building was also a significant constraint for ROSLA, which was marred by temporary expedients in building accommodation both in the 1940s with ‘HORSA huts’ and in the 1970s with ‘ROSLA blocks’, as well as by the cheap construction of new schools that soon became unfit for purpose. Together, school building needs and ROSLA helped to stimulate pressures towards centralisation of planning that were ultimately to undermine postwar partnerships in education, from the establishment of the Ministry of Education’s Architects and Building (A&B) Branch in 1948, through the Crowther Report of 1959 and the Newsom Report of 1963, to the assertion of central state control by the 1970s. The pressures arising from such investment and growth in education again became a key issue in the early twenty-first century with the Labour Government’s support for raising the participation age to 18 combined with an ambitious ‘Building Schools for the Future’ programme. The historical and contemporary significance of these developments has tended to be neglected but is pivotal to an understanding of medium-term educational change in its broader policy and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: ‘Creative learning conversations’, are methodological devices developed in two co-participative qualitative research projects exploring creativity and educational futures at the University of Exeter in England. Sources of evidence: Framed by Critical Theory, the projects, one on dance education partnership, the other on student voice and transformation, sought to open space between creativity and performativity to initiate emancipatory educational change. This was undertaken over the course of five years in English primary and secondary schools, prioritising humanising, wise creativity. Purpose: This paper re-analyses data and methodological processes to characterise and theorise creative learning conversations in terms of social spatiality and dialogue. The characteristics are: partiality, emancipation, working from the ‘bottom up’, participation, debate and difference, openness to action, and embodied and verbalised idea exchange. Main argument: This re-analysis theoretically adapts Bronfenbrenner's ecological model (The ecology of human development; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979) to situate layered engagement. Utilising Lefebvre's conceptualisation of lived space (The production of space; Wiley-Blackwell, 1991) and Bakhtin's work (Problems of Dostoevsky's poetics; ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson; Minneapolis: University of Michigan Press, 1984) on open-ended dialogue, the paper theorises creative learning conversations as producing living dialogic spaces. Conclusions: Creative learning conversations are a way of contributing to change, which moves us towards an education future fit for the twenty-first century. From a living dialogic space perspective, a creative learning conversation is the ongoing process without forced closure of those in the roles of university academic, teachers, artists, students co-participatively researching and developing knowledge of their ‘lived space’ together. Given traditional lethargy in the educational system as a whole commitment to changing education for better futures demands active involvement in living dialogic space, where our humanity both emerges from and guides our shared learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Curriculum and its associated assessment are at the heart of educational systems worldwide. In light of perceived national educational stagnation or decline, as well as of performance in international league tables such as Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), countries have embarked on curriculum and assessment reforms. This is particularly true in England, where currently wholesale changes are being introduced throughout the system. The curriculum and qualification system in England privileges that which is tested over any other expression of knowledge, which leads teachers to concentrate on teaching what is assessed, either externally through examination papers or internally through coursework. In the summer of 2012, following curriculum and assessment reforms to General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) qualifications, serious concerns were raised about the marking and awarding processes for GCSE English, culminating in legal action. Using that experience as an example of assessment policy and practice gone awry, this article explores the ramifications of rapid qualifications changes and posits that some of the problems that plagued GCSE English in 2012 could be repeated, albeit in different guises, after revised qualifications are introduced in 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon two research projects to evaluate a decade of reform concerning the professionalisation of further education teachers, and discusses future prospects under the new coalition government. It suggests that policy initiatives to regulate further education (FE) teachers have taken place within an industrial or occupational paradigm of the past that keeps FE separate from the more professional frameworks of schools and higher education. Drawing upon research, the paper also shows that after a decade of reform, successive standards and regulatory frameworks have not brought about national coherence. Rather, it has fragmented the system even further and diverted attention away from addressing more fundamental weaknesses such as developing stronger mentoring and workplace support. In conclusion, the analysis looks to the future, arguing that the threatened revocation of the 2007 regulations, combined with the present economic situation facing colleges, will lead to the marketisation of FE initial teacher training. This has profound implications for the quality of provision and the professional status of FE teachers, who seem to be returning to their voluntarist past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses some recent changes in the landscape of state education in England. In particular, it focuses on the way in which Academies, state-funded independent schools introduced by New Labour and now being drastically extended and taken further by the Coalition government, are contributing to the ongoing and increasing blurring of the welfare state demarcations between state and market, public and private, government and business; and are pointing up the shift in the role of the state from ''directing bureaucracies'' to ''managing networks'' (Smith 1999). Academies have been contracted out to a wide range of sponsors (entrepreneurs, business, charities, faith groups) and removed from local authority control (they are funded directly by central government). They involve a deliberate attempt to promote a new set of values and modes of action in public education, enterprise and competitiveness in particular. The paper will look closely at the case of one multi-academy sponsor, the charity Absolute Return for Kids (ARK), which was founded by a group of hedge fund managers and is rapidly expanding its involvement in state education in England (and in the USA, India and Uganda), taking up positions and roles previously reserved for the state itself and bringing new practices and methods to bear upon education problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has three key aims. First it examines the authors' attempts to use knowledge creation activity as a way of developing evidence informed practice amongst a learning community of 36 early years practitioners in the London Borough of Camden. Second, it seeks to illustrate how the authors approached the idea of measuring evidence use and our engagement with two separate measurement scales: the 'ladder of research use' and Hall and Hord's (Implementing change: patterns, principles and potholes, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, ) levels of use scale. Finally we examine the 'trustworthiness' of our approaches to measuring evidence use, which we explored via in-depth semi-structured interviews and the analysis of meeting notes. Our findings would appear to be encouraging, suggesting that knowledge creation activity provides an effective way of communicating research and keeping it top of mind; also that our data would appear to support the trustworthiness of our measurement scales as a means to ascertain levels of evidence use. At the same time the approach we have developed does have its limitations: namely, that it is only really applicable to situations where researchers are working regularly with practitioners on areas of practice development, where the general desire is that these areas should become evidence-informed. We suggest, however, that in school systems such as England's, where the expectation is that schools or alliances of schools should lead their professional development activity, often in partnership with universities, it is likely that these instances will soon be increasing in number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the activity of three secondary school mathematics departments in England in self-initiated states of change that led to overall improvements in students' achievements when compared to previous cohorts. This took place without intervention and without their participation in external projects. They provide examples of departments that can work effectively on their own development, and hence, their work adds to our knowledge of the potential for development through collaboration. The departments were monitored over 3 years, and data were analysed using the lens of activity theory. In contrast to departments in many studies, these departments worked overtly on mathematics pedagogy through the shared production and discussion of resources, shared planning and task design. Also in contrast to several other studies, they developed distinct ways to handle differences of subject knowledge among the teachers in the department. Their focus changed during the study from developing resource banks to supporting students' learning through hybrid teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 40 years, teacher education in England has been the focus of a stream of ‘reforms’ with the ultimate aim of placing provision into schools, the justification for such a radical policy being that higher education is alleged to be failing to provide good quality teachers thereby compromising the social and economic development of the country. The process whereby these reforms have been introduced is described and then used as a way of comparing and contrasting the way in which similar reforms can be identified in the international teacher education communities represented in this special issue of theJournal of Education for Teaching(JET). The paper closes by identifying lessons that can be learned from international comparators. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since coming to power in 2010, the UK Coalition government in power has implemented a range of reforms in relation to assessment at all stages of education in England. This paper focuses on two assessment reforms relating to children aged five and six years old, and considers their evolution from manifesto commitments to practice in classrooms. These reforms are the introduction of the Phonics Screening Check at age six, and the revised Early Years Foundation Stage Profile at age five. The main focus is on the coherence of these policies, both over time and as part of an overall government strategy on assessment in early years and primary education. It is argued that, despite claims of reducing bureaucracy, these assessment policies are driven by an agenda of increasing accountability in the first years of primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Education Reform Act 1988 in England proposed by the Conservative Party caused over 1100 public schools to "opt out" of local school authority control by becoming autonomous grant-maintained schools. Using a regression discontinuity design, this paper finds a causal effect of party control on school autonomy with British local election dataset. That is, a Labour party (not a Conservative party) win would consequently stimulate a considerable increase in local schools opting for autonomy. This could be the first empirical evidence of a remarkable cross-party consensus in education policy, which has so far been stressed only on theoretical grounds. Our findings not only improve the understanding of current government education policy but also suggest the role that government would play in future policy-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author explores the development of school staff who are employed to support pupils in the classroom, specifically the teaching assistant/higher level teaching assistant role. These roles have undergone considerable change following the introduction of Workforce Reform and Remodelling in English schools and the National Agreement. In practice, the introduction of this agreement into schools appears to have a powerful gendered aspect which limits choice and agency for individuals and prevents the development of a coherent workforce. I argue that the discourse of maternality within which the school support role has evolved supposes a level of self-sacrifice and conscientiousness which is gendered and conceals the exploitative nature of the role in terms of poor pay and career prospects. Furthermore, the growth of support staff in English schools to undertake roles previously assigned to teachers has had the effect of disaggregating and de-professionalising the teacher role and weakening the traditional job boundaries which defined the work of support staff. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past decade higher education policy in England has gradually switched from a stance of ‘government as purchaser’ to ‘government as informer’. During 2012 this policy stance has been intensified through new requirements for the advice provided by schools and the introduction of ‘Key Information Sets’ which are intended to ‘drive up quality’ through informed choice. This paper documents this policy shift and subjects it to critical scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Citizenship Education (CE) and the young people's voice agenda are both enjoying increasing popularity within England at the present time. Clear connections exist between the two, with CE placing an emphasis upon participation and responsible action and the young people's voice agenda advocating democratic procedures for involving young people in the formation of social policy. This paper explores these connections by presenting key findings from a citizenship consultation exercise conducted with 415 young people. It reveals the potential benefits of educators adopting a consultative approach to the implementation of CE. Through listening to the voices of their students, educators are better informed for creating apt, vibrant and engaging learning opportunities within CE. The findings from the consultations also indicate that CE is a necessary educational reform in order to respond to young people's high levels of concern over a wide variety of public life issues, and their interest in making a positive contribution within their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our investigations into the politics of the Academies Programme in England have generated thinking that draws on data about the conversion process from two projects. We engage with an early City Academy that replaced two ‘failing’ schools, and a recent Academy that replaced a ‘successful’ high school. We deploy Hannah Arendt’s political tools of natality and pluralism to illuminate the depoliticisation of educational reform in England. We identify that, while claims are made about innovation and new opportunities, there is little evidence of natality due to the Academies Programme as a conservative and neoliberal restoration project. Integral to this is the urgency of reform based on deferential common sense notions that elite groups know best. The denial of a plurality of options, debates and interest groups in the conversion process is delivered by co-opted educational professionals as reform managers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In England, more students from a wider range of backgrounds participate in higher education than in previous generations. This has led to a focus on how students from diverse backgrounds can fit better with existing higher education institutions. This is often framed in terms of 'deficits' that these students have to overcome to more closely resemble the 'implied' or 'ideal' students around which institutions are, often unconsciously, modelled. We flip this focus by thinking about how educational institutions can evolve in response to diverse students. We use the theoretical lens of the hidden curriculum to explore student perceptions of 'ideal' students. Findings are based on research with eight students as co-researchers and 24 further student participants in an academically selective English higher education institution. We find that there are many aspects of hidden or assumed practices within universities students encounter when first coming to higher education. Focusing specifically on learning environments and curricula, we found that ideas about an implied student were evident in the institution, that this mattered for the experience of learning – and that consciousness of hidden processes helps. We conclude by suggesting that instead of focusing on how to change students to fit institutions, institutions need to be open and adaptable to all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy discourses in support of school reform in England have linked the objective of raising standards with that of tackling inequality. The assumption that a single policy strategy can tackle both objectives simultaneously is problematic. In this article, I examine issues of equity by studying admissions policy and practice. Drawing on a programme of interviews with the staff of a secondary school in England, I provide evidence of the interplay between policy discourses, the values and ethos of the school, and the professional practice of those who work there. Discussions and debates about the school’s admissions policy reveal cognitive and ethical dilemmas relating to equity and educational inclusion, particularly in the case of children with special educational needs and disabilities. In a policy context that requires schools to operate in a regulated, competitive market, school leaders may reluctantly restrict opportunities for children who already face physical, educational and social challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses the redefinition and distribution of powers between central governance and local actors in English independent state-funded schooling. Earlier research on governance confirms the importance of the local and the school level in reshaping national-level reforms and steering policies. The research draws on data from interviews with national-level policymakers and an ethnographic school case study, thereby yielding contrasting views and perceptions of governance at the national level, and the day-to-day reality at the local level. The empirical analysis gives mixed results in that the national visions of innovative local practices seem not to be manifest at the local level. Despite the legal and financial freedoms granted to academy schools, the case academy is constrained by the national policy of steering by evaluation, namely inspection and testing, and the managerial practices of the sponsor. The article concludes that the real effect of academies is still under construction and meanwhile their space for action is strongly restricted by the tools of evaluation. As a more theoretical conclusion the analysis suggests that future analysis should concentrate more on action rather than structures and on evaluation as an embedded practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is argued in this article that the marketisation of schools policy has a tendency to produce twin effects: an increase in educational inequality, and an increase in general satisfaction with the schooling system. However, the effect on educational inequality is very much stronger where prevailing societal inequality is higher. The result is that cross-party political agreement on the desirability of such reforms is much more likely where societal inequality is lower (as the inequality effects are also lower). Counterintuitively, then, countries that are more egalitarian - and so typically thought of as being more left-wing - will have a higher likelihood of adopting marketisation than more unequal countries. Evidence is drawn from a paired comparison of English and Swedish schools policies from the 1980s to the present. Both the policy history and elite interviews lend considerable support for the theory in terms of both outcomes and mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For three years from 2008 every school in England had a designated school improvement partner (SIP), portrayed as a critical friend, whose role was to support and challenge the headteacher. A mixed-methods study involving a national survey and face-to-face interviews evaluated the enactment of the national policy from the perspective of the direct recipients – the headteachers/school principals. Headteachers’ perceptions of their school improvement partners, and their experiences of the support and challenge provided by SIPs, varied. Much seemed to depend on individual SIP’s expertise and conduct. The SIPs’ prescribed agenda was seen as too focused on data rather than discussions about learning and teaching, and requirements for SIPs to report to the local authority and governors were in tension with trustful relationships with headteachers. The SIP programme could be interpreted as a commitment to the entitlement of headteachers to support and challenge, or as a mechanism for surveillance and discipline. Lessons are drawn for the ‘national’ and ‘local leaders of education’ who have replaced SIPs, and for anyone internationally concerned with support and challenge for school principals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The new Labour government that entered office in 1997 made early childhood education and care (ECEC) a policy priority, after decades of neglect. The article provides an overview of the subsequent policy developments, looking at three areas in more detail: governance and finance; the organisation and management of services; and the workforce. It then brings the story up to the present day, with policy developments since the 2010 election, during a period of severe public austerity. The article concludes by providing a critical assessment of these developments. From all the attention and activity that has surrounded ECEC in England in recent years, what actually has been achieved? Has it been a case of evolution or transformation? Overall, the article concludes that the period since 1997, despite some important gains, has overall been a story of missed opportunities, a case of more of the same rather than transformative change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focusing on data and policies from England, trends in educational disadvantage by area are traced from the late 1960s when the first pilot projects were established in the UK, to the present. The origins of these developments and the subsequent rises and falls of such area-based policies in England are reviewed. Specially collected data for the pilot areas from the 1960s and national data for England from 2000 are used to draw out some striking patterns of changes over the period. Though many of the areas remain highly disadvantaged, educational measures at age 16 and at entry to higher education (HE) indicate some important changes. Thus the settled, white working-class pilot area in the 1960s with just below average results had fallen back very substantially by 2013, particularly in entry to HE. By contrast the newly settled Asian immigrant area in Birmingham where educational performance was exceptionally poor in the 1960s had moved above average despite remaining highly disadvantaged. Analysis of the national results since 2000 using local area data showed that these trends were widespread across England. Disadvantaged ‘multicultural urban areas’ were doing markedly better than the disadvantaged white working-class urban areas, where in many cases traditional industries had closed. This was especially marked at entry to HE where multicultural areas had rates close to the national average of 40% while white working-class urban areas had rates of entry to HE of between 10% and 15% of the age group and this gap has widened rapidly in recent years. These trends are likely to be the source of major resentment, with one group finding itself increasingly excluded from higher level employment opportunities, and the other failing to find opportunities that match their expectations once they leave education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationship between pre-service teacher education (ITE) for primary schooling and primary teaching in England between 1974 and 2014, and explores the ‘fitness of purpose’ of the current system of preparing teachers for the classrooms of the twenty-first century. Our historical analysis suggests that, despite 40 years of change in ITE, there are still a number of unresolved issues in ITE. These include: how to prepare for the multisubject, class teacher role which the majority of primary teachers still undertake; how to equip future teachers to deal with the social and emotional aspects of primary teaching; how to ensure that they are creative and flexible practitioners, able to cope with the demands of future curricula, pedagogical changes and the new roles and responsibilities which will inevitably occur during the course of their teaching careers in the next decades of this century; and how to structure ITE to provide adequate long-term foundations for the necessary professional development as a teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recent reforms in England’s education system have been justified on the grounds that other countries have pursued similar approaches to education reform. Many such policies that by-pass or otherwise diminish meso-level institutions demonstrate a commitment to the idea of devolving authority to local actors. The current reforms in England and elsewhere reconfigure governance structures to diminish intermediate-level institutions on the grounds that these reforms lead to more effective and equitable educational systems. But in lieu of compelling evidence of such an impact, it appears that such policies are often instead simply a political attack on meso-level authorities, and may in fact represent an opportunity for new policy players to occupy the space left by receding meso-level institutions. This article surveys some of the specific policies that have emerged from recent policy trends, particularly those that have undercut established intermediate-level institutions in the USA and New Zealand. Reviewing the empirical record from these cases, I argue that, rather than simply devolving power away from intermediate authorities to local actors in order to produce more effective or equitable outcomes, many of these reforms have been more successful instead in creating the conditions in which new, non-state actors are able to accrue policy power for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The structure of the English school system has been the subject of almost continuous change since the late-1980s. The most recent was commenced by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government, which was elected in May 2010. This policy set in train, very quickly, processes through which all schools have been encouraged, and in some cases required, to become independent of local authorities (LAs) and funded directly by central government, the government’s vision being to create a complete system of publicly funded ‘independent’ schools. This article considers some of the implications of these aspirations and the ways in which they have been translated into policy and implemented. It begins by setting the policies of the Coalition government within a context of trends in education policy since 1988, showing how these can be related to three dominant themes: school autonomy, central control and diversity of provision. It then proceeds to consider how these developments can be theorized, suggesting that diversity of governance, legitimacy and agency provide a suitable framework for analysing the emerging English experience. These ideas are then used to examine this experience and draw conclusions about key issues for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the participation of ‘third-sector’ organisations in public education in England. These organisations act as a cross-sectoral policy network made up of new kinds of policy experts: mediators and brokers with entrepreneurial careers in ideas. They have sought to make education reform thinkable, intelligible and practicable in terms of a computational discourse consisting of code, networks, interactivity and feedback, and related ideas of decentralisation, open methods and personalisation. What characterises this style of thinking is an ‘anti-political’ preoccupation with computer-coded systems and the idea of networks as a model for new political and educational forms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents an analysis of the national curriculum for geography as it has evolved in England since its inception in 1991 following the Education Reform Act of 1988. Whilst the main contents of our original analysis are provided by way of a table, enabling the reader ready access to the broad trends we identify in how geography has been expressed in the national curriculum over a period of some 25 years, the main purpose of the article is to focus on the current reforms in England. This takes the form of a brief, and yet precise, “knowledge-led” national curriculum programme of study introduced to a radically marketised school system in which choice and local autonomy are emphasised and encouraged. Our discussion leads us to speculate on the possibility of teachers reclaiming professional responsibility for the curriculum rather than the state, based on a progressive discipline oriented vision of geography in education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses changes in the English Higher Education (HE) sector. Topics discussed include the concept of disruptive innovation and the ways this concept applies to the HE sector, an argument that the HE sector in England needs to be distinctive and focus on its strengths, and the use of university mission as a driver of organizational motivation.

This article explores how infant school reform took hold in London’s schools from the 1890s to the 1930s through examination of the work of two Froebelian head teachers, Elizabeth Mary Shaw and Frances Emily Roe. In contrast to teacher-led rote-learning methods and rigid discipline they implemented play-based activities drawing on children’s interests and introduced visits for nature study and projects. The research draws on logbooks, published accounts, reports of HMIs, local authority inspectors and school managers, and witness evidence submitted by Shaw and Roe for government reports. The data suggest that their work reflects developments in the educational experimentation which marked the period and demonstrates women’s agency in challenging conventional conceptions of infant teaching and expanding conceptions of educational spaces. The article illuminates how reform was disseminated and shows that as a result of their success both women achieved high professional status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article reports upon research investigating the rapid rise to prominence of distributed leadership in schools in England. Distributed leadership is located within wider structural reforms of education in England as part of the New Public Management movement in public service delivery and the marked discursive shift to leadership which took place largely during the New Labour governments of 1997 to 2010. Contradictions in the relationship between leadership discourses and this reform process are then examined and the strangeness of the rise of distributed leadership in this context is highlighted. Research from an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) funded project on distributed leadership in schools with teachers and designated school leaders is then used to further reveal this strangeness in terms of the discursive forms and social practices associated with distributed leadership, including the sometimes idiosyncratic meanings and practices linked to this discursive intervention. It is concluded that although the forms which distributed leadership takes within different school settings are in part shaped by particular contextual features within individual institutions the capacity of officially authorised discourses of distributed leadership to reach into the social practices of schools remains strong. Indeed, the very strangeness of the forms which distributed leadership takes in different institutions is shown to be intimately linked to the strength and intensity of this official discourse as designated school leaders and teachers seek to accommodate this notion into their practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In changing times for higher education that are dominated by a neoliberal ideology, we set out to uncover how Heads of Departments (HoDs) perceive their role with respect to supporting their staff and their academic freedom. Freedom to pursue academic research is seen as key to the generation of new knowledge yet it is potentially constrained by funding regimes and university accountability systems. As HoDs operate at the interface between university systems and individual academic projects, how they perceive their role can have a profound influence on the working environment of their departmental staff. The research study is located in two successful departments in a research intensive university in England. The study shows that the HoDs were not captured by the neoliberal discourse and aimed to protect their staff so they could ‘get on with their work’. In so doing they interpreted university demands to the best advantage of their departments but were not active in challenging university driven changes, thus raising questions about the effects of accommodating to change, so risking incremental change, and of how less successful departments might be able to protect their staff and their academic freedom. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Teacher leadership has become an area of significant interest in research and policy terms in recent years. However, as a form of leadership it remains orthodox and conservative, rooted in largely traditional managerialist hierarchies, and disconnected from a critique of the wider policy imperatives that shape the contexts in which leadership is constructed. This article reports on an evaluation study of the work of Union Learning Representatives in a major teaching union in England and suggests that their role offers a new and more fruitful way of considering teacher leadership. Such leadership needs to be genuinely democratic and focused on cohering a professional voice amongst teachers. It is not a leadership concerned with providing ‘vision’, but one rooted in a dialogic and critical process, from which genuinely transformatory possibilities emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bernard Barker's thesis that schools have been undermined over the past quarter of a century by a damaging combination of top-down, centralised reform and a desire to impose a market philosophy on education is powerful. This article analyses the nature of the apparatus of control – both statist and free-market – which has been applied to schools over this period. In particular, it will focus on the key control mechanism: the use of test and examination results as apparent measures of schools' quality. It will assess the success of this system, comment on its design faults and its problematic implications for the broad conception of education as understood in The Pendulum Swings, and argue that the concluding note of optimism sounded in Barker's book – about a future of communities exerting greater influence over education locally – appears not to be being realised in policy under the new coalition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the United Kingdom there appears to be a move to reduce the influence of 'top down' or centrally driven teaching and learning reforms in favour of returning control to schools and teachers to make necessary improvements at a local level. In this context, ideas about 'professional learning communities' or 'communities of practice' are potentially fruitful. This article, drawing on the author's own research, suggests that if we are to take subject English into a life beyond the National Strategies, it would be worth our remembering how one English 'community of practice'- the London Association for the Teaching of English - helped to shape one model of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key feature of current school-sector reform in England is the restructuring of teachers' work and the increased use of support staff to undertake a range of activities previously undertaken by teachers. Supporters speak of a new teacher professionalism focused on the "core task" of teaching. Critics fear deprofessionalization through a process of de-skilling, work intensification, and labor substitution. This article uses labor process theory and empirical data to analyze recent developments in teachers' work and links these to the different ways in which teacher trade unions have bargained over reform. The article argues that workforce reform cannot be analyzed separately from the trade union strategies that seek to influence policy and that the emergence of a type of "reform unionism" in England represents the integration of product and process in policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Government's consultation document, A Quality Strategy for Social Care (2000) seeks consistency and excellence in care services and enhanced service partnerships. It states that this requires improved training for social workers and raises the prospect of a new social work curriculum in which learning for interprofessional and inter-agency practice will be strengthened. The document stresses the importance of evidence in decision-making in social care and this principle applies equally to training but there are few recent research findings on interprofessional and inter-agency learning in the social work curriculum. There are, however, findings from an earlier study which contributed to the mid-1990s review of the Diploma in Social Work but which have not previously been published in the mainstream media. These findings are reported and show: the kinds of organisations and professions with whom social work practitioners were in close contact in their jobs; the importance attached by social workers to defined skills in working with them; the perceived usefulness of training in developing relevant knowledge and skills; perceptions of shared training; and marked differences of learning experience reported by practitioners who had taken different training courses. Each set of findings is described and used as the basis of questions for the new social work curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]