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The December 2008 special issue of the Oxford Review of Education provided a review of education policy during Tony Blair's tenure as Prime Minister. This paper forms a response to the ten contributions to that special issue and discusses some of the issues raised in them. While a few positive aspects of education under New Labour were identified in the special edition, it focused more on the failures of New Labour than its achievements. A common theme to emerge from the papers included the government's pursuit of neo-liberal market policies at the expense of its professed commitment to social justice. While accepting that the government's failure to tackle the differences in educational outcomes between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils constitutes a major failing, the present author argues that significant achievements, such as early years provision, were neglected in the special issue. He also discusses the electoral considerations facing New Labour and the personal role of Tony Blair in determining policy. The paper goes on to consider whether New Labour's education policy has changed since the departure of Blair and identifies some hints of a potentially more progressive approach developing under Brown. It concludes by suggesting that contributing towards a debate about alternatives to Blairite policies should now become a priority for the 'educational establishment'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as an introduction to the papers that follow. It shows how well-being has become a significant focus of much educational policy in the UK, and explores how this has come about. Differing definitions of well-being are reviewed, as is the empirical base on which many of the interventions to improve well-being have been founded. Some of the major criticisms of this shift in policy are outlined, and the article includes a consideration of the validity of these criticisms. Finally it is noted that, while some elements of well-being are based on empirical research, much of the impetus for the focus on well-being has stemmed from the political agenda in the UK over the past decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From his very earliest days in office, Tony Blair believed that if he was to achieve his broader educational reforms then the teaching profession itself needed modernising—it had to become a '21st century profession'. This paper charts the background to this aspiration and the complex range of interrelated policies used to achieve that reform. They included: a changed role for initial teacher education; a more differentiated workforce; strategies to 'focus' professionalism (appraisal, standards and CPD); and a redefinition of professional knowledge. Through these policies, the Government hoped to harness teacher professionalism to their broader reform agenda. The paper concludes with a discussion of Tony Blair's legacy in this field both in England and internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to explore the design and implementation of early years educational policy in England in the period 1997-2004. First to be described are the innovations in policy (i.e. the promise), followed by the 'evidence base' for new policy (i.e. the research), the delivery of new services (i.e. the achievement), and finally the tensions and gaps which remain (i.e. the shortfall). The paper will focus on evidence concerning expansion of services and on the benefit of early years education on children's development. It is argued that early years education in England has been transformed through the following: integration of education and care at local and national level, the introduction of the Foundation Stage Curriculum 3-6 years and its birth-3 years supplement, and the firm focus on families as well as children in the delivery of services. There are, however, gaps and tensions to be resolved before the overall vision can be achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the range of research methods used by the UK education research community. Using insights from 25 interviews with key stakeholders it describes their views on the current strengths and weaknesses in methods, and of what methodological developments are needed for future improvement in this field. Using survey returns from 521 active researchers, the paper goes on to describe the techniques that are available for use, and those where further 'training' or experience is required. Using the 8,691 individual RAE returns to education, the paper then summarises the methods reported to be in actual use. Finally, it uses a brief analysis of journal contents as triangulating evidence.Our informants were generally in agreement that there is currently a widespread weakness in the quality of UK education research. Much of this weakness is attributed by them to a shortage of skills in 'quantitative' methods. Our other data sources suggest that the latter is less likely than the informants believe. A clear majority of education researchers report having used some quantitative methods, and the substantial number of publications involving quantitative methods supports this view. It is, perhaps, rather the type and quality of both quantitative and qualitative research along with unreasonable expectations by its users that leads to the poor public image of education research. Improvement is not going to come simply by enlarging the group of people using quantitative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper, first, outlines the official policy regarding education and training 14-19, second, picks out five areas within which that policy might be assessed, and, finally, raises questions about the educational thinking which underlies the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government has recently raised the issue of differential rates of participation in higher education. The overall aim of this paper is to present an example of the kind of detailed research necessary to identify factors associated with low rates of participation in higher education by some groups of young people. A number of studies have suggested that in addition to educational attainment, issues such as social class, gender and parental education also influence a young person's likelihood of entering higher education. In this paper we undertake exploratory analysis of a series of nationally representative data and through statistical modelling we then identify the factors that influence a young person's chances of entry into higher education and participating on a degree level course. Through sample enumeration, an innovative statistical methodology, we were then able to quantify the substantive effects of these factors. We found that net of educational attainment a number of factors (e.g. gender and social background variables) influence the likelihood of a young person entering higher education and participating on a degree level course. In addition our analysis highlights the interwoven effects of parental education and schooling and we discuss the complex nature of the effects of ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the performances and the progress made by pupils of minority ethnic origin between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 in British secondary schools. The data used in this paper were collected as part of a PhD study by Haque (1999). The paper discusses findings from multilevel modelling analyses carried out on 12 of the 20 schools in the research study. In particular, it reveals that whilst differences exist in the performances and the progress of pupils of minority ethnic background in their Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 examinations, these differences become substantially reduced when background factors (other than ethnic origin) are taken into account. The paper concludes that in order to identify accurately and reduce the nature of disadvantages for pupils from particular minority ethnic groups, policy-makers, schools and teachers need to differentiate these groups beyond their national origin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the post-compulsory education and training (PCET) systems of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, using cohort survey data for the early 1990s. It compares these systems with respect to four issues of current policy concern: participation, inclusiveness, academic drift and parity of esteem. It asks how a system's performance on these four criteria varied according to the degree of 'unification' of PCET, that is, the extent to which academic and vocational tracks were linked or combined within a unified system. In the early 1990s Scotland was the most unified system (with the weakest divisions between tracks) and Northern Ireland the least unified (with the strongest divisions between tracks). The paper finds no clear link between unification and participation in PCET. The two systems with the highest levels of participation were Northern Ireland and Scotland, respectively the least unified and the most unified systems. However the Scottish system was slightly less inclusive than the other three systems, as indicated by a slightly stronger association between participation and prior attainment and/or social class. Academic drift - measured by participation in academic rather than vocational tracks - was more pronounced in Scotland than elsewhere. There was no clear association between unification and parity of esteem, as indicated by the relative educational backgrounds of entrants to vocational and academic tracks: entry to academic rather than vocational courses was more skewed towards high attainers in both Scotland and Northern Ireland than in England and Wales. Participation in the academic track was also relatively skewed towards males in England compared with elsewhere. The paper concludes that there is unlikely to be a simple causal connection between unification and participation, inclusion, academic drift or parity. However it suggests that a strong work-based sector is more important for participation and inclusiveness, while a strong full-time vocational sector is more important for parity and for avoiding academic drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. Comments on the role of educational research in classrooms and schools in Great Britain. Usefulness of educational research; Different models of research; Links between research and the growth of professional judgement in trainee and experienced teachers.

This paper outlines the research evidence underpinning the National Literacy Strategy that was implemented in England in 1998. The paper summarises what the Strategy comprises and identifies several 'predisposing' influences. These were the international data on primary school pupils' reading performance, school effectiveness research and the findings from literacy programmes with underachieving pupils in the USA and Australia. School inspections provided additional evidence. The early success of the National Literacy Project provided a 'precipitating' influence, as it reflected much of what was implied in the other sources of research evidence. The main aspects of the National Literacy Strategy are discussed and the relevant research findings are indicated. The broadly complementary nature of these sources is noted and the paper concludes by suggesting that the Strategy offers the promise of significantly raising standards and of improving the life-chances of thousands of children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the changing relationship between research and inspection under both HMI and OFSTED, from the early 1980s to 1996. Drawing on a mix of internal and external sources it describes the changes within HMI to make traditional inspection methods more transparent and consistent and to make more use of quantitative data and performance indicators in the 1980s. However, changes within HMI were overtaken by events as education moved rapidly up the political agenda from the mid-1980s. With the demise of HMI in 1992, research within OFSTED took on a more prominent role and a modest but innovative research programme was established. However, the shift by OFSTED in the mid-1990s to take on a more explicit campaigning role to raise educational standards, rather than simply be a regulatory organisation, put the research under pressure to fit in with this new style. The paper draws on examples of the way these pressures worked out in both externally commissioned and internal research exercises. The result was that some studies were sidelined, while others were given excessive prominence that could not be justified by the scale and nature of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the 1997 White Paper, Excellence in Education policy reflects the continuing dominance of the School Effectiveness Research (SER) Paradigm in Great Britain. Origins of the SER Paradigm; Overview on the concept and consequences of a `value-added' methodology; Context of school performance.

Describes the challenges faced by a local education authority from 1987 to 1997, ten years after the introduction of the Education Reform Act in Great Britain. Analyses on the Conservative Government's White Paper Self Government for Schools and the White Paper Excellence in Schools; Potential role of the local education authority in the future.

Challenges the conclusions obtained in James Murphy's recent article on British higher education which appeared in the `Oxford Review of Education' journal. Suspect interpretation of statistics; Selective reading of the literature; Weak conceptual foundations; Imperfection of markets for both vocational training and higher education.

Education for citizenship is firmly on the policy agenda throughout Britain, and there is an expectation that teachers will create a participative, consultative ethos in schools. This paper identifies three main vehicles for pupil consultation: elected pupil councils, democratic and participative classrooms and opportunities for pupils to engage with controversial issues within the curriculum. It focuses on a longitudinal study of pupils' experience of democratic practice in Scottish schools in relation to these vehicles. Evidence from a diverse sample of primary schools illustrates the way in which upper-stage pupils are encouraged to participate in decision-making processes and engage in the discussion of contemporary social issues of their own interest both in the classroom and during pupil council meetings. In addition, further evidence of the extent to which these same pupils' experience of the democratic process evolves following their transition to secondary school is reported. The paper raises new questions about the extent to which Scottish pupils may be exposed to a progressive model of democratic education, and suggests that children may be given more opportunities for consultation in primary school than they are in the early stages of secondary school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unprecedented extent of privatisation of provision in the school system on a for-profit basis is clearly one of the most significant transformations accomplished by the Blair government. However, another aspect of private sector involvement has proved much more problematic: the direct involvement of employers in the formation of the future workforce, in two forms: employer-led vocationally-oriented diplomas and state schools—Academies—run by business interests. Both strategies remain key policies of the Brown government and have been endorsed by the Conservative opposition. However, whether these two strategies can provide the basis of a stable policy settlement depends upon the extent to which they prove capable of delivering the 'human capital' the economy is claimed to require. This paper assesses the evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applications for places in UK Higher Education are usually made before the results of A-level examinations are known, so references from schools and colleges normally refer to expected (or predicted) grades. Inaccuracies in these predictions may be systematically related to key characteristics of the applicant and could lead to under-representation from various groups of students. This paper examines data on predicted A-level grades for 415 recently-enrolled university students. In contrast to the findings of previous studies however, we find that prediction bias is not particularly related to the gender, class or schooling of the student, but is closely linked to the predicted grades themselves—students predicted low grades performed above expectations, and vice-versa. The implications of this for current UK government initiatives intended to widen participation in Higher Education are considered briefly in the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative assessment has attracted increasing attention from both practitioners and scholars over the last decade. This paper draws on the authors' empirical research conducted over eleven years in educational situations ranging from infant schools to postgraduate education to propose a theorisation of formative assessment. Formative assessment is seen as taking place when teachers and learners seek to respond to student work, making judgements about what is good learning with a view to improving that learning. However, the theorisation emphasises formative assessment as being a discursive social practice, involving dialectical, sometimes conflictual, processes. These bring into play issues of power in which learners' and teachers' identities are implicated and what counts as legitimate knowledge is framed by institutional discourses and summative assessment demands. The paper argues that, rather than only paying attention to the content of learning, an ambition for formative assessment might be to deconstruct these contextual issues, allowing a critical consideration of learning as a wider process of becoming. The article suggests a model that might be useful to teachers and learners in achieving this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence suggests that teacher shortages in Western Society, largely attributable to social and economic change, are threatening the future of school education in many developed economies. Questions concerning the subject areas affected and the impact teacher shortages have on schools and on pupil learning are topics of mounting speculation. In contrast to the increasing body of research undertaken to explore these issues in other parts of the UK, much less is known about staffing patterns in post‐primary schools in Northern Ireland. This paper seeks to inform the debate and to present findings from the perceptions and experiences of 136 post‐primary school principals. Results suggest that most principals have experienced recruitment difficulties in a range of subjects; those most frequently cited include the sciences, particularly physics, mathematics, technology and design, home economics and ICT. Principals believe that staff shortages not only have a negative impact on teaching and learning but are also set to increase. This paper discusses these findings and argues the need for intervention and a change in government policy to break this self‐perpetuating cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that examinations have a complex role in creating and defining gender differences in performance in public examinations. To illustrate this argument three aspects of examining are reviewed: styles of examinations and how they define achievement; coursework and the role it plays in contributing to gender differences in performance; and tiered entry systems in examinations and how they provide unequal opportunities for boys and girls to be successful. It presents the context in which research into gender, achievement and examining is now located by initially reviewing the recent media hype around gender and achievement. It then takes an historical look at gender and achievement and goes on to describe new gender stereotypes that influence current understandings of boys' and girls' achievement. There is much information that is ‘hidden’ behind examination results as they are commonly reported. This hidden information has more to do with how differences in performance are obtained, how subjects are assessed and how we choose to assess students. How all this interacts with students' perceptions and expectations alongside those of their teachers must impact on how boys and girls perform in examinations. This ‘hidden’ information has vital implications for whom we perceive to be under or overachieving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the practice of benchmarking universities using a ‘league table’ approach. Taking the example of the Sunday Times University League Table , the author re‐analyses the descriptive data on UK universities. Using a linear programming technique, data envelope analysis (DEA), the author uses the re‐analysis to demonstrate the major shortcomings of current league tables. Those shortcomings include the arbitrary allocation of weightings to performance indicators, the failure to differentiate between inputs and outputs, and the comparison of institutions with dissimilar comparators. DEA is used to exemplify how these three shortcomings could be overcome, and how a better approach to benchmarking could be developed. In particular, it is argued that a DEA approach to benchmarking allows for the recognition of diverse missions, which is more appropriate to universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of teacher education policy during the first two terms of the New Labour government. It argues that there is substantial evidence to support the claim that during their two terms of office, New Labour forged a policy on teacher education that was distinctively different from the Conservative administrations that preceded them. Like the Conservatives, they have seen the maintenance of a competitive market as essential for the governance of the system. But beyond that, they have significantly moved away from a concern with individual professional formation; individual professional formation has been seen as far less critical than it was, especially at the level of initial training. In the lives of young teachers, the state now provides far greater direct guidance than ever before in the definition of effective teaching, learning and assessment in both primary and secondary schools. And at more senior levels, opportunities for extended professional development are increasingly focused on and achieved through the school as an institution. Teacher education itself is no longer seen as a key site for the 're-formation' of professionalism. As a result, teacher education is no longer accorded the key political significance that it had under the Conservatives. In this sense, New Labour policies mark 'the end of an era'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

School diversity in the UK is not a new phenomenon. However, recent reforms to 'modernise' the secondary school system towards greater diversity of provision, primarily in England, needs to be explored in more detail. The article begins by proposing three phases in the development of state-funded school diversity and provision between 1944 and 1997. It then goes on to consider such reforms with the introduction of a Labour government in 1997. We argue that school diversity under New Labour represents a distinct fourth phase within this broad policy agenda. While there is some continuity in the expansion of school diversity this most recent phase is characterised by greater governmental intervention and a stronger commitment to provide greater resources for schools in disadvantaged communities. However, the paper then critically analyses the relationship between recent programmes of education diversity and equity. In particular, we go on to discuss the extent to which critics' fears about the emergence of a two-tier system are justified. We conclude that while the fourth phase in the UK school diversity agenda may aim to be more equitable, complementary and collaborative it perhaps fails to recognise that the education system today is more competitive and consumer-led. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practices of students, teachers, educational policymakers and managers are laden with assumptions of fact and value. Clearly, assumptions of value influence the way in which individuals and groups construe the nature and purpose of education, but this should not blind us to the existence of assumptions of fact about how to promote learning and improve the conduct and organisation of teaching. Many of these assumptions of fact may be false or inadequate, and as such they may limit the success of our educational endeavours. Using the UK's national literacy strategy as its principal illustration, this paper shows how a Popperian approach to science can advance our knowledge of what is the case about learning, teaching, and the organisation and conduct of formal education, and how such a non-positivist science can contribute to the improvement of educational practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new survey of the educational attainments of 15-year-olds was undertaken by OECD in Spring 2000 (the 'PISA survey'). Surprisingly, British pupils appeared to perform in mathematics much better than in an IEA survey carried out only one year previously. This paper examines four main differences in the objectives and methods adopted in the two surveys. (a) Questions in the previous IEA survey were directed to the mastery of the school syllabus by the relevant age-groups, whereas PISA was ostensibly directed to so-called 'everyday life' problems--which provides less guidance for policy on schooling. (b) The IEA survey was based on samples of whole classes including, for example, older pupils who had entered school late, or had repeated a class: PISA excluded the latter pupils as it was based strictly on a 12-months' period of birth; issues of variability of pupils' attainments within a class--important for a class's teachability--cannot therefore be examined in this OECD survey. (c) England's response rate for schools was particularly low (60%, compared with 95% in leading European countries), raising serious doubts as to the inclusion of low-attaining schools. (d) The response rate of pupils (within participating schools in the PISA survey) was lower in England than in any other country, and lower than in the previous IEA survey, suggesting a greater upward bias in reported average scores. The paper concludes that it is difficult to draw valid conclusions for Britain from this survey and planned repeats should be postponed until the underlying methodological problems have been resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces local authority engagement with development of the primary curriculum across the century from 1902. It aims to extend an understanding of the LEA contribution to curriculum development, its benefits and its deficits, throughout the processes of decentralisation and centralisation which have characterised government policy over the course of a century following the 1902 Education Act. It argues that historical perspectives are needed to inform the pursuit of solutions to a fundamental dilemma: how best to engage teachers in curriculum development on a local scale at the same time as maintaining equal access to curriculum opportunities on a national scale. Drawing on the educational press as a primary source, it focuses on three key dates at 25-year intervals seeking to identify some of the leading issues and arguments, and references are also made to oral history evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing extensively upon local authority records and private papers, this article argues that the post-Second World War drive for comprehensive education was a grass roots initiative. A diverse group of English and Welsh local education authorities (LEAs) challenged the orthodoxies of tripartism or bipartism in the late 1940s, paving the way for officially sanctioned non-selective experiments during the following decade and the 1960s 'breakout' (after Simon, 1991) of comprehensive-minded LEAs. The article focuses upon the experience of going comprehensive at the local level and discusses some of the variables that influenced the type and timing of secondary reorganisation. It demonstrates that political and personnel factors were crucial to the success or failure of a particular scheme. Some LEAs became embroiled in bitter controversies relating to their proposed reorganisation scheme, but it is argued that this was the exception, rather than the rule. The vigorous debates of this period gave comprehensive reorganisation a democratic flavour, but they also regularly brought local government into conflict with the centre. By 1974, it is contended, the post-War 'partnership' was all but dead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the National Targets for Education and Training in England and Wales include indicators for lifelong learning, and the progress towards the targets set for these indicators has been lauded by politicians and other observers, much of this apparent progress is actually accounted for by changes in these same indicators at Foundation level. However, once the 'conveyor belt effect', of passing increasingly qualified 16-18 year-olds into the working-age population instead of less qualified 60 and 65 year-olds, is taken into account, then progress in qualifying those of working-age is much less. In fact, there is then very limited evidence that Lifelong Learning targets have had any impact at all. Certainly work-based training has not increased, and may even have declined over the last decade, while some socio-economic inequalities in adult participation in education and training have worsened. The paper examines this apparent weakness for the current approach and its implications for the measurement of progress, in the light of a research review carried out for the National Assembly of Wales. It therefore asks increasingly important questions about targets, such as what they are for, and whether those who set and monitor them are aware of their deficiencies and artificialities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with specific speech and language difficulties are frequently placed in mainstream classrooms with varying degrees of support. Yet little attention has been paid to class teachers' views about the children's problems and educational needs. This paper reports the findings of a two-stage project in two local education authorities investigating the characteristics and needs of children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLD). Teachers, educational psychologists, and speech and language therapists in two local education authorities identified 133 eight year-old children who experienced primary difficulties with speech and language. Fifty-nine children and a subsample of 10 children of the same age who attended specialist regional schools participated in further investigations. Each of the children was assessed using a battery of instruments covering language, basic attainments and self- esteem. In addition, their teachers completed behaviour rating scales and an individual interview. The teachers comprised those working in specialist provisions, but also those in mainstream schools. In this paper data derived from the interviews with the teachers, supplemented by information from the assessments of the children's skills, will be reported. The teachers faced three challenges: the additional difficulties experienced by the children, their own knowledge gaps, and the barriers to meeting the children's needs. The implications of the results for inclusive education are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 18 years of Conservative government in Britain, only two attempts were made to stimulate the 'supply side' of the quasi-market of schools. These were the introduction of City Technology Colleges and sponsored grant-maintained schools. This paper draws comparisons between the two initiatives. It is shown that, while the CTCs were largely a 'top down' policy, and the sponsored grant-maintained schools might be seen as the result of 'grass roots' pressure group activity, there were many similarities between the two programmes. In practice, both initiatives stalled at just 15 schools, but it is argued that their significance is far greater than their numerical strength would indicate. Both can be seen as examples of increased privatisation and selection, and it is shown that what may develop from them is a greatly changed education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports from one of the projects of the Economic and Social Research Council's Learning Society Research programme. The project compared initial and continuing education in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in both cases relating these to performance in England. This paper presents results from the fieldwork in Scotland, involving focus groups and individual interviews in a number of economic sectors. It discusses the use of social capital as a central concept in the research, which led to a focus on the nature of relationships between stakeholders: providers of education and training, employers, the state, the community and professional bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments in the British system of school inspections have been attracting a great deal of interest over the past number of years, arguably in a politically motivated 'policy' debate in the main, but importantly and increasingly in an educational value context. Questions about the process and its impact, and the cost of undertaking such intensive programmes as currently exist, are being asked ever louder. As a result, and in order to inform it, the debate is attracting more empirically based analysis; the work reported here is a contribution to this knowledge base. In comparison to the body of research undertaken to examine the English model of school inspections, little is known about the effects of school inspection on teachers and schools in Northern Ireland. This paper addresses this issue and presents findings from a study of the perceptions and experiences of some 70 Northern Ireland primary and secondary-level schools. The results suggest that most school principals in Northern Ireland consider the inspection programme to be professional and supportive. However, there are clear reservations about the extent of anxiety induced by the process, the amount of time necessary to prepare for the inspection and the inclusion of lay persons in the inspection team. This paper discusses these findings in a UK context and argues the need for independent research into the inspection of schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current proliferation of baseline assessment schemes for Reception pupils has a number of aims, one of which involves the concept of 'value-added' from Reception to Key Stage 1. This paper looks at results from data collected for three baseline schemes, and investigates what can be said about national levels of performance. It also looks at evidence on relationships between baseline and Key Stage 1 test results, and critically evaluates the extent to which such data can be used for 'value-added' analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses changes in the educational policy for 14-19 year-old students which began in 1980 in Great Britain. Description of the 14-19 education and training system; Organization and funding structure; Stages of development of a national 14-19 education system; Establishment of a national qualifications framework; Expectations and planning for the 14-19 phase education.

Reviews the research papers `A Vision for Higher Level Vocational Qualifications,' by the British Employment Department and `GNVQ's at Higher Levels: A Consultation Paper,' by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications.

Despite there being significant numbers of state maintained Catholic schools in England, they have, until recently, proved to be of interest only to a minority of researchers. Government initiatives to promote greater scrutiny and accountability through the publication of school test and examination results have generated interest in their academic performance from proponents and critics. Early attempts by government to compare school performance using 'raw' examination and test scores were severely criticised. Newly introduced 'Contextualised Value Added' measures, when correctly applied, have largely overcome the deficiencies of earlier datasets. This paper presents new CVA performance data provided by Ofsted that may help the debate about Catholic school effectiveness to progress. Possible reasons for the CVA findings are explored and further areas for research are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forty years ago, sociology, psychology, philosophy and history had a secure position in the academic study of education in the UK but that is no longer the case. The policy context that has increasingly come to influence our teaching and the funding of our research, with its pressure on the production of knowledge which stresses use value, has, we argue, increasingly marginalised the potential of disciplinary contributions to the study of education. In this introductory paper to this special issue, we begin by examining competing definitions of what a discipline actually is and then chart the rise and fall of the influence of the different disciplines in education over the last 40 years. Following Barnet (1990), we do that through examining both their 'sociological' undermining (changes in their mechanisms and sites of production) and their 'epistemological' undermining with the growing public and self doubt about their contribution. The result, we suggest, is that now we have a large number of professionals working together but, when compared with other social science disciplines, lacking in intellectual autonomy and coherence. But, we ask, does that matter? Do sociology, psychology, philosophy and history—and indeed the whole range of disciplinary based perspectives—economics, geography—have anything to offer research, scholarship and university teaching in education now and in the future? We suggest that this is the challenge that the disciplines of education now face in the UK and it is the challenge we posed to the contributors to this special issue of the Oxford Review of Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enquiries into police action in the Stephen Lawrence murder, the Macpherson report and the subsequent race relations legislation have altered the political, professional and wider social climate of debate on equality issues, including inequalities in minority ethnic exclusions. The paper analyses the meanings given to racism and institutional racism, and the contested political territory which shapes and limits the possibilities of responses working towards equity. It considers the evidence on the extent to which the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 (RRAA) has been implemented, reporting particularly on sustained disproportionality in exclusions experienced by some minority ethnic groups. Disproportionalities, in terms of exclusion and attainment, are deemed 'institutionally racist' outcomes produced annually as a consequence of organisational practices, limited will and low levels of investment at national, local and school levels. Critical Race Theory and writings about 'white supremacy' attempt to explain the normal and enduring character of racism, but the outcomes of 'passive racism' are best comprehended as a product of neoliberal policy-making which limits interventions in aggregate performance for a group, giving primacy to individual effort and talent as explanatory concepts. The RRAA, in force since 2002, can, with hindsight, be seen as a legalistic, rhetorical step too far, unable to marshal governmental or institutional will and financial commitment to implement its requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Realising the potential of new technology' was one of the central educational themes of New Labour's 1997 election manifesto, with 'information and communications technology' (ICT) established subsequently as a prominent feature of the Blair administration policy portfolio. As such New Labour can claim rightly to have made an unprecedented and sustained political commitment to technology in education, directing over £5 billion of funding towards educational ICT during the 1997 to 2007 period. Yet the fact remains that the New Labour ICT agenda has failed to achieve the much promised technological 'transformation' of the UK education system. With this in mind the present paper develops the argument that New Labour's concern with educational ICT was driven primarily by concerns over enhancing competitiveness in a globalising economy, creating a lifelong learning system fit for a successful knowledge economy and modernising the formal education sector. Thus whilst New Labour's ICT agenda may well have had the short term impact of increasing the physical presence of ICT resources in all education institutions, its longer-term educational legacy was compromised by the wider macro-level issues it purported to address. As such the legacy of this high-profile segment of policy-making should be seen primarily in terms of establishing ICT as an ideological presence in the UK education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the leadership of Tony Blair New Labour committed itself to raise standards, tackle educational failure and use education to combat disadvantage. This paper examines New Labour's approaches to school improvement, particularly the origins and enactment of 'zero tolerance' strategies, the different groups of schools identified as needing remedial action, different intervention strategies for poorly performing and failing schools including inspection, Fresh Start, Academies and the London Challenge. It explores evidence of their impact on school improvement, educational standards and equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a coherent 14-19 phase of education and training has been a major feature of the last ten years of the Labour government. This has been the case, too, of the Welsh Assembly Government since its establishment in 1999 with its separate education policy and arrangement. The English 'project' might be characterised by (i) a more holistic approach to the total welfare of the young person, reflected in the attempt to join up the various services which affect welfare in general and educational achievement in particular; (ii) the 'personalisation' of learning; (iii) collaboration or partnership between the different providers of education and training; (iv) a reform of the whole system of qualifications; (v) a revamp of the training and apprenticeship system; and (vi) increased central 'management' of the system to ensure targets are reached. The Welsh 'project' has been different in many respects—an interesting contrast as the two systems increasingly diverge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The comparability of examinations in different subjects has been a controversial topic for many years and a number of criticisms have been made of statistical approaches to estimating the 'difficulties' of achieving particular grades in different subjects. This paper argues that if comparability is understood in terms of a linking construct then many of these problems are resolved. The Rasch model was applied to an analysis of data from over 600,000 candidates who took the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) examinations in England in 2004. Thirty-four GCSE subjects were included in the final model, which estimated the relative difficulty of each grade in each subject. Other subjects failed to fit, as did the fail grade, U. Significant overall differences were found, with some subjects more than a grade harder than others, though the difficulty of a subject varied appreciably for different grades. The gaps between the highest grades were on average twice as big as those between the bottom grades. Differential item functioning (DIF) was found for male and female candidates in some subjects, though it was small in relation to variation across subjects. Implications of these findings for various uses of examination grades are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are some important ambiguities in discussions about the implications of 'evidence-based practice', both for educational research and for the work of teachers. In this paper we explore several of these through examining the Evidence-based Practice in Science Education (EPSE) study—part of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), a major UK research initiative that is explicitly committed to improving the contribution of educational research to policymaking and practice. The field of science education is in some ways a critical case, given that the notion of evidence-based practice treats scientific research as a privileged source of evidence. We examine the assumptions built into the EPSE study, and how these relate to the classical medical model of evidence-based practice, and to some other approaches to educational research that are concerned with closing the gap with practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All countries in the developed world aspire to ever higher standards of education and training. Clearly this depends, at least in part, on having a sufficient supply of high-quality schoolteachers. In the UK on the two occasions in the last 75 years when there were reviews of this need (the McNair report of 1944 and the James Committee of Enquiry 1971), more attention was paid to the recruitment and initial education and training of teachers than to the need for their continuous professional development. Moreover, what priority afforded to the issue was largely ignored by governments of the day whose successors have continued to pay most attention to tinkering with the supply routes and the initial training of teachers rather than their in-service professional development once they have been appointed. This paper, having accepted the crucial importance of the sustaining of teaching quality to the call for ever higher standards of pupil outcomes, sketches and evaluates the history and the present needs and proceeds to set out a menu of measures which should be considered by a third commission/committee of enquiry along the lines of its two predecessors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an empirical study concerning educational professionals' understandings of self-harm in primary school children. There is little research available about self-harm in primary-school aged children, and literature searches for the current study have revealed no research on primary school professionals' understandings of self-harm in their pupils. This is remarkable given the role that such professionals play in pastoral care. The present qualitative research involved interviewing 15 staff members of six schools in the North of England and analysing transcribed data using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings of this exploratory study suggest a cyclical relationship between the experience, understanding and awareness of self-harm as described by primary school professionals. This research is presented as a springboard for improving understandings of how self-harm is experienced and managed in primary schools. It is hoped that the findings might contribute to a long term goal of working with school communities to develop system-level interventions that cultivate existing resources for addressing self-harm in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher change in mathematics education is recognised to be a difficult and at times painful process. This is particularly so in countries such as England where primary mathematics is taught by non-specialist teachers, who have often had negative experiences of their own school mathematics. In this paper we explore primary teachers' emotional relationships with mathematics, in particular what motivates teachers to persevere with professional learning. We examine the case of a primary teacher who developed an identity as a teacher of mathematics. We argue that emotion has both individual and social elements and consider the implications for teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at underlying patterns of school effectiveness through analysing a GCSE examination data-set over a period of ten cohorts (1993-2002) in one very large English school district. Both value added and raw score approaches were explored by employing different statistical multilevel models to examine time trends of school and pupil performance from two perspectives: consistent (linear) and inconsistent (non-linear) school improvement. Overall, levels of measured attainment for the vast majority of the schools increased over the decade and the results indicate that one in four schools had significantly higher value added improvement trajectories (linear) than would be expected over the decade - in comparison to the average school. Those schools with a lower value added starting point in 1993 were more likely to make significant improvement. However, underlying these linear improvement trajectories it appears that only one in 16 schools managed to improve continuously for more than four years at some point over the decade in terms of value added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years there has been a re-appraisal within political science of the characteristics of various kinds of public policy failure. At the same time, the political significance of education has grown in most liberal democracies. The present paper examines public policy in British education since the mid-1970s and asks: What goes wrong in policy-making and when does manageable failure slide into full-scale crisis? Various episodes of policy are explored and set against the theoretical framework developed by Mark Bovens and Paul t'Hart in an attempt to distinguish those policies in recent British education that have been controversial, those that have been manageable failures and those that turned into disabling fiascos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1993 the UK Economic and Social Research Council funded the Parental and School Choice Interaction (PACSI) Study into the marketisation of education, conducted by the author along with Philip Woods and Ron Glatter of the Open University. The findings from the PACSI study highlighted the localised and complex nature of markets in education and reported the ways in which senior school managers adopted a variety of strategies to respond to the local competitive arena in which they found themselves. In more than ten years since this study the UK Government has changed from Conservative to Labour and policy discourses on choice and competition have been situated alongside those of collaboration and partnership. In this shifting policy landscape the paper utilises analytical tools and findings from the original study to revisit one of the case study areas and examines the market environment in which senior school managers find themselves today. The findings reveal a stronger ‘parent as consumer’ marketing orientation and responsiveness on behalf of schools and an environment in which competition and rivalry has intensified and continues to discursively predominate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]