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This article looks back in imagination from the mid-21st century at the development of education policy and practice in England's school system since 1944.

After exploring what we mean by 'public', this article advances the argument that there have been two distinct periods in the post-war English schooling system and argues that the latest one, of markets and managerialism, ushered in on the back of neoliberal economic theories during the 1980s, has internal contradictions if, as both parties declare, their aims for the schooling system are to secure 'equal opportunity', 'equity' and 'social mobility'. It concludes with an argument for changing five systemic influences external to schools--namely: governance; pupil admissions; finance; curriculum exams; and accountability, and the existence in their present form of private schools--in order to make the system fairer.

This contribution is an edited version of the "Alumni Lecture" organised by the Department of Education of the University of Oxford at Lady Margaret Hall on 15th September 2011. The article reviews the drift towards the centralisation of power in the way the schooling system is run, the conflict between a desire for equity in education and the promotion of the influence of market forces. It reviews standards of outcome in schools over time with a brief look at similar tensions in the influences on universities and ends with a call for a review of the distribution of powers among central government, local government and the schools.

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. (Contains 4 notes.)

This article is a personal view of the career of Sir Alec Clegg. It outlines some of Clegg's achievements in the West Riding, and why he was so influential on those that he worked with. Finally, it retells one of Alec Clegg's favourite stories "The fable of Fred".

Thoughts on changes in Britain's attitude to prescribing curricular content suggest that the current curricular blueprint is faulty with a huge imbalance of information at the expense of skill development. The author identifies important third millenium skills in the areas of education for survival, understanding our place in the world, understanding community, and understanding our personal responsibility. (DB)

This paper complements the article elsewhere in the journal by Mick Waters. It traces the origins of the present focus within the UK on school leadership, outlines the importance of applying well-judged approaches to Appreciative Inquiry, Problem Solving and Ensuring Compliance to leadership practices in establishing organisational cultures and managing complex change and briefly suggests a re-setting of schooling purposes and aims for a new age in schooling better adjusted to our citizens' present and future needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Passionate leadership is about energy, commitment, a belief that every child can learn and will learn, a concern with social justice and the optimism that people can make a difference. The authors argue that passion survives and prospers and is a moral driving force in ensuring children becoming all they can become. That brings them to the other thing about their definition of passionate school leadership--for them it's a passion to change things for the better, a passion with a moral foundation. The authors hope that leaders in education will use it to reframe and reignite their own passion for learning and education which is at the cornerstone of all they do. In this article, the authors share some ideas on what passionate leaders do.

This article discusses the New Labour Party's policy towards education in the United Kingdom, comparing it with the previous Conservative Party government's policies, which had applied theories of economic liberalism to education. The author evaluates Prime Minister Tony Blair's educational policy for its transactional record, its tone and tune, and its guiding principles; concluding that Labour has laid the groundwork for more reforms, but is narrowly drawn.