7. 3

7. 3 Secondary schools in Governance, policy and

Shirley Lawes

Introduction

Secondary has passed through three distinct phases since the end of the Second World War and in many respects it has been transformed. Education has moved from being a peripheral concern of government to being perceived as central to the economic well-being of the nation. Equally, there has been an increased emphasis on education as a vehicle for promoting social justice and greater equality of opportunity throughout society. This change has happened during a period of enormous social, political and economic change. This chapter will take a brief look at the origins of state-led education and consider the major reforms of the last 70 years that have in various ways transformed the organisation and ethos of secondary education and that have determined how schools are supported, monitored and made accountable. Over this period of time, not only has the English education system undergone fundamental organisational transformations, but also both the role of the teacher and views on the purpose of education have evolved as a result of government policy and broader changes in society. Government policy has both mirrored and led an increasingly instrumental view of the role and value of education that is most apparent in the importance placed on various ‘performance indicators’ as well as curriculum content. This account of the English education system will focus on mainstream provision in the state sector covering the 11–18 age range.

OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit you should be able to:

■■ have an overview of government policy that has affected secondary education in England; ■■ be familiar with the organisational changes that have taken place over the last fifty years in secondary education in England; ■■ be familiar with key pieces of legislation and government reports that have impacted on secondary education in England. ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 2

The current picture

The English state system provides for pupils of all abilities from the age of 11 to 18. Currently, 93% of pupils attend state-funded schools while the remaining 7% are educated in independent, fee-paying private schools, often known as ‘public’ schools. The education system in England as it exists today retains the skeletal structure that was established over the latter part of the 19th century, evolving throughout the 20th century. It is divided into stages based upon age, and compulsory schooling currently begins at the age of 5 and ends at 16, although there is an expectation that all young people continue in some form of education and/or training up to the age of 18. In the state sector education provision is divided into the non-compulsory Early Years Foundation Stage (ages 3–5), Primary and Secondary which are described as ‘key stages’. The Primary phase comprises the sub-phases of ‘infant’ and ‘junior’ schools covering Key Stages 1–2 for 5 to 11-year-olds ( class to Year 6). Secondary education is divided into 3 (Years 7–9) for 11–14-year-olds and Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) up to the end of compulsory schooling at 16. External examination, the General Certificate of Education (GCSE) takes place at the end of Year 11 and pupils are examined in a range of subjects, sometimes as many as 12, including English and Mathematics. Some schools also offer courses at Key Stage 4 leading to a General National Vocational Qualification (GNVQ). At age 16, young people wishing to continue in full-time academic education may then progress to a 6th Form (Years 12 and 13) which may be provided within a secondary school, or as a separate in the locality of the secondary school. At this point pupils choose three or four subjects to study to the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (GCE A Level) often as preparation for Higher Education. A Levels are the qualification required for entry to university. Alternatively, some students prefer to attend a local Further Education College (FE College) which provides a more vocationally orientated curriculum, vocational training or work-based learning, sometimes combined with academic subjects, and FE colleges frequently offer the opportunity to re-sit examinations as well as National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) at several levels. Although difficult to enforce and somewhat controversial (see for example Wolf, 2011), all young people are now expected to continue in some form of education up to the age of 18. This may take a number of forms other than 6th Form or FE, such as apprenticeships, traineeships or volunteering. Perhaps what has traditionally characterised the organisation of the English secondary school system, is the variety of types of school that fall within the state sector. Unlike many other countries, where state-funded schools are secular, in England there is a long tradition of Church of England, Roman Catholic and other faith schools which are partly state-funded and also benefit from funding from various charitable foundations. In some cases, these foundations actually own the lands and premises that the schools occupy. Faith schools are a significant minority of state-funded secondary schools, but their presence is a distinctive feature of the English school system. Traditionally, the supply of state-funded education provision was the overall responsibility of Local Education Authorities (LEAs), covering all aspects including buildings, staffing, teacher support and development. LEAs operated within Local Authorities (LAs) which are overseen by elected members and which are therefore politically driven bodies. So, for example we might talk about an LA being Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem (Liberal Democrat) controlled. Education policy in a local area, therefore, to some extent has reflected a political persuasion. However, as we will see, in recent years the power and responsibilities of LAs in the provision of education to local areas, has been eroded through fundamental changes to the structure, organisation and Secondary schools in England 3 7.3 ■ ■ ■ ■ funding of state education. Some of the work in ensuring that schools are operating efficiently and effectively is now the role of its Governing Body. It is the responsibility of every Head Teacher to appoint the school’s governing body, which is a group of interested people drawn from the local community, and usually including a parent representative, to oversee the working of the school and to hold the Head Teacher to account. These are unpaid positions that rely on the goodwill and commitment of individuals to support schools in striving to do its best for its pupils and to ensure a measure of accountability to parents and the local community, independent of Local Authorities. Now complete Task 7.3.1.

Task 7.3.1

The framework outlined above describes the most common organisation of schools in the English education system, but there are exceptions. Do you know of other ways that schools are currently organised in local areas based on age and ability? Discuss with a colleague what organisational variations there are in different parts of England.

Setting the scene: education and the State

Before we proceed further into the present context of the English school system, it is perhaps worth taking a glimpse at the past in order to better to understand the present. Although it is not possible here to do justice to the complex history of education in England, a very brief historical contextualisation may be useful and encourage the reader to look further into the rich and often inspirational educational heritage upon which our present system is built. Until the latter part of the 19th century, education provision was patchy, funded by the church, philanthropic societies, voluntary organisations and individuals. Access to schooling for most people was very limited and any education beyond basic reading, writing and numeracy was the exclusive domain of the wealthy. So-called public schools and to some extent, grammar schools that had existed in different forms since medieval times, catered for the privileged few. However, since the late 18th century and notably, the Industrial Revolution, demands for mass education had been closely associated with campaigns for workers’ rights and had also become more of an economic imperative. This was a vibrant period in the history of education in England which saw the first organised attempt at providing basic education for what was to become the working class. After a century of unparalleled social, political and economic change, the Elementary Education Act of 1870, or Forster Act, as it is known, established the right to education for all children between the ages of 5 and 13. ‘Elementary’ schools were created, supervised by school boards, funded by government and co-existing sometimes unhappily with church and other voluntary schools. This marked the beginning of a mass education system as such, where education was no longer a charity but a right, was compulsory and overseen by the state. Over the following century, how for all was understood developed from ‘the 3Rs’ (reading, writing and (a)rithmetic) to a broad curriculum framework of subject disciplines and much more besides (see Unit 7.2). Secondary education as a phase developed in the period ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 4 following the First World War, although only through the pre-existing grammar schools, and was established in statute in the 1944 Education Act (often known as the Butler Act after the minister responsible for its implementation). The 1944 Act, passed just before the end of the Second World War, heralded a new era in English education. It created the first Ministry of Education, and R. A. Butler became its first Minister. The Butler Act was one among many pieces of legislation passed in the post-war period, but it was the most significant in that it introduced the notion that education should be provided according to children’s age, aptitude and ability in the form of what was called the ‘Tripartite System’. Compulsory secondary schooling henceforth existed for all young people up to the age of 15 in three distinctive types of school. Grammar schools, already well-established, were set to provide an academic education of the sciences, humanities and foreign languages including Greek and Latin. A new examination, the ‘11+’ (11 plus) was introduced at the age of 11 in elementary schools to determine which pupils should continue their education in a prestigious . For those pupils who did not pass the ‘11+’, then the next tranche of pupils were selected to go to new technical schools where a diluted form of the grammar school curriculum, together with practical, work-orientated skills like woodwork and metalwork for boys, and typing and domestic science for girls was taught. The rest – the majority, went on to new secondary modern schools and the curriculum here was much in dispute. At this time, the curriculum was the responsibility of each school’s Head Master or Head Mistress. Some secondary modern Heads chose to offer a more limited academic curriculum, often cutting out ‘difficult’ subjects like Foreign Languages or Physics in favour of French Studies and General Science. Many commentators in the decades that followed levelled much criticism at the Tripartite System claiming that it perpetuated and even created inequality and division in the education system (Simon, 1991). Grammar school pupils were given the best opportunities of any schoolchildren in the state system. Initially, they studied for the School Certificate and Higher School Certificate, replaced in 1951 by General Certificate of Education examinations at O-level (Ordinary level) and A-level (Advanced level). In contrast, very few students at secondary modern schools took public examinations until the introduction of the less academic and less prestigious Certificate of Secondary Education (known as the CSE) in the 1960s. It was not long before the growing social and political concern over the Tripartite System grew to the extent that a series of reports showed that it was wasting a large amount of talent. The selection process with the 11+ examination was seen to be flawed and unfair. The incoming Labour government in 1964 had made much of reforming the Tripartite System in its election manifesto and upon election it set about abolishing the 11+ examination and grammar schools to establish a unified non-selective system. Within the state-funded sector, the introduction of comprehensive education in the mid-1960s represented a rejection of the selective system of grammar schools, technical schools and secondary modern schools, and heralded a more egalitarian approach to education. Although some Local Education Authorities were allowed to retain selection, the majority opted for the comprehensive system. The 1970s saw the expansion of comprehensive education across England and Wales, and at the same time, the quality of education became of more concern to central government. In 1976 Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan launched ‘The Great Debate’ on education in a landmark speech at Ruskin College, Oxford, in which he identified “the need to improve relations between industry and education” (Maclure, 1988, p.169). Importantly, the Ruskin College speech indicated for the first time that education should be linked to the needs of the economy and that educational decisions should not be left only to educators: government and other interested parties had a role to play in educational decision-making. At a time Secondary schools in England 5 7.3 ■ ■ ■ ■ of economic crisis, this marked a watershed in education policy. For two decades comprehensive education was seen as the way forward for advancing social justice and improving education for all. Now complete Task 7.3.2.

Task 7.3.2

What are your views on education selection? Are the needs of individuals best met if they are taught in schools according to their ability? What other views might be considered when looking at how best education can provide for all children regardless of their ability?

The education legacy of Margaret Thatcher

As time passed, not all schools were seen to be of equal quality, and the Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher, in an attempt to improve schools in the 1980s, as well as fulfilling a political mission of offering choice to parents, introduced the ‘market’ into education (see Ball (2017) for a full account of this period). No longer would children go to their local comprehensive school as a matter of course, but parents would be given the right to choose what they saw as the ‘best’ school for their child. Thus schools were in competition with each other to attract the ‘best’ pupils. In order to assist parents in making their choice, a League Table of every school in the country was established in 1992 (by the Conservative government led by John Major), measuring school performance through examination results, notably the General Certificate in Education (GCSE). These league tables, together with the provision to parents of some degree of choice in the assignment of the school for their child were intended to encourage a ‘free market’ by allowing parents to choose schools based on their measured ability to teach the National Curriculum. The prevalence of ‘market forces’ and competition, necessarily meant that some schools performed better than others, and the less academically successful failed subsequently to attract the most able and middle-class pupils and thus their ‘performance indicators’ of good exam and inspection results declined and they became ‘failing’ schools. A new inspection framework for schools was also introduced in 1992 when the Office for Standards in Education, (, now called the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) was created to implement a more rigorous, nation-wide, centralised and, some would say, more punitive system of inspection that continues to the present time. Ofsted school inspections have changed and developed over the years, but they remain an important feature of government regulation and control. The powers and responsibilities of Ofsted are now wide-ranging and sometimes viewed with scepticism as the recent report by the think-tank Policy Exchange Watching the Watchmen (2014), reveals. The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 was perhaps the most significant policy intervention in education with far-reaching effects on secondary education. It signalled the intention by the Conservative government of the time to take more control over education. The stated purpose by the government was to improve the quality and performance of primary and secondary education, but it was also seen by some – notably many teachers themselves – as an ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 6 attempt to exert direct control over education and to curb ‘the loony left’ as some Thatcherite politicians viewed the profession. However, whatever the motivation for introducing a National Curriculum, the effect was to bring greater coherence to the secondary school curriculum (see Unit 7.2) and a support framework for teachers to work from. The creation of school league tables, Ofsted inspection and a National Curriculum are the three elements of government education reform that began a transformation of the secondary school system in England. As the ‘Blair Years’ replaced the ‘Thatcher Years’, we see not so much a reaction against right-wing policies, but more of a continuation and continuity. The key feature of education policy since the late 1980s that distinguishes the period from the past, is the huge increase in government intervention at all levels.

The Blair years (1997–2010)

In 1997, Tony Blair led New Labour to power on the mantra of “education, education, education”. The new Prime Minister thus signalled education as a priority for government action. What followed was an unprecedented involvement by central government in aspects of education hitherto left to educators to define and monitor. Besides significant spending on the sector, for the next 10 years, the government proceeded to implement a raft of legislation aimed at centralising control of education and increasing direct influence in the management of schools that reflected more of a continuity than a break with the previous Conservative government. Under New Labour, the social mission of education was heavily emphasised at the same time as the improvement of educational standards. There was increasing pressure on schools to perform and to take on greater responsibilities for solving social inequalities. School Improvement became an important aspect of government policy and targeting ‘under-performing’ schools through poor examination results and Ofsted inspection reports became a priority. Radical ways of getting schools to improve were sought. The National Curriculum took on a more socially orientated look (see Unit 7.2), with a highly generalised set of social and economic – as well as educational – goals. Throughout the New Labour years, the national curriculum sought to include what could be seen as political as well as educational objectives. For example, citizenship education was deployed to increase people’s engagement with politics. A new emphasis on healthy eating was expected to solve the perceived problem of obesity. The National Curriculum came to be used to promote environmental awareness. This trend went hand in hand with the idea that the Curriculum should be ‘relevant’ to the lives and experiences of children and young people. It was perhaps most clearly expressed in the 2008 version of the National Curriculum. However, for some critics, the National Curriculum by then had become overloaded and confused and more concerned with promoting ‘right’ attitudes and teaching skills for life rather than imparting subject knowledge to pupils. Social justice that had become an important driver of educational practices during this period with academics such as Geoff Whitty (Whitty et al., 1998) and John Beck (Beck, 2008) contributing to a growing debate which, arguably by 2018 has taken a less radical turn into discussions of ‘social mobility’. As discussed in Unit 7.2, the period from 1997 to 2010 marked a substantial increase in direct government intervention in the organisation and working of schools. This was sometimes seen as micro-management that curbed teachers’ professional autonomy and imposed greater regulation, organisational and working practices on the sector in an attempt to improve standards and increase coherence in education. The social aims of education were strongly reflected in the National Curriculum (see, in particular, the 2008 iteration) and the greater emphasis on ‘relevance’ and Secondary schools in England 7 7.3 ■ ■ ■ ■

‘useful’ knowledge and the erosion of the value of disciplinary knowledge and the growth of an instrumental view of education was embedded in education policy in this period. The gradual introduction of a more business-style managerial approach to school organisation, together with a heavy emphasis on performativity, accountability and improved leadership, could be seen to have had a profound effect on the ethos of schools as well as the professional role of the teacher. But the beginning of what subsequently became the most far-reaching change in the organisation of schooling was introduced by New Labour in the form of the City . A small number of City Academies (the prefix ‘city’ was dropped in 2002) were established in an attempt to improve inner city education. The objective was to replace a small number of under-performing schools in deprived urban areas by taking what David Blunkett, the then Minister of Education described as a ‘radical approach’ to school improvement:

In some of the most challenging areas, we believe a more radical approach is needed. Over the next year, we intend to launch pathfinder projects for new City Academies. These Academies, to replace seriously failing schools, will be built and managed by partnerships involving the Government, voluntary, church, and business sponsors. They will offer a real challenge and improvements in pupil performance, for example through innovative approaches to management, governance, teaching and the curriculum, including a specialist focus in at least one curriculum area. (Blunkett, 2000, in Curtis et al., 2008)

This experiment initiated by New Labour, under the particular guidance of Lord Adonis, a Labour peer, was to be taken forward and became the lynch-pin of the following coalition government (Conservative/Liberal Democrat) and then Conservative government that followed. Now complete Task 7.3.3.

Task 7.3.3

What are the distinctive features of government policy during the ‘Thatcher Years’? How do the ‘Blair Years’ compare? In the experience that you have gained so far in schools, what features of their education policies still feature in secondary education today?

A new era of change in education: innovation and experimentation or fragmentation?

In 2010 the newly elected Coalition government, like their Labour predecessors, wasted no time in forming a new education policy. In the White Paper, The Importance of Teaching (2010), Michael Gove, the Conservative Secretary of State for Education outlined a number of reforms, notably the re-writing of the National Curriculum with the intention of giving teachers more autonomy through a renewed emphasis on a knowledge-rich curriculum. Reforms in both GCSE and A Level examinations, as well as teacher training were also announced. Like New Labour over a decade previously, the Coalition government saw education as a prime ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 8 target for intervention and reform. The Importance of Teaching heralded sweeping changes in the state education system: “We want every school to be able to shape its own character, frame its own ethos and develop its own specialism” promising to “increase freedom and autonomy for all schools” (DfE, 2010, p.11). As well as through curriculum reform, this was to be achieved primarily by increasing the number of Academy schools and by vigorously promoting the introduction of free schools. The Academy Bill passed by parliament in July 2010 sought to actively encourage all primary and secondary schools to ‘opt out’ of the mainstream state system, their aim being to free-up schools to provide a locally based education appropriate to local needs. They receive their funding directly from the Education Funding Agency (EFA) rather than from local authorities. Academies have subsequently grown in number and now over 50 per cent of secondary schools have obtained Academy status and a sizeable proportion are Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) with private sponsorship. Academies are publicly funded independent schools “that provide a first-class education”, according to government claims. In exchange for up to £2m, private sponsors have a strong influence in the running of an academy, including setting the school’s ethos and appointing its governors. The government funds the rest of the costs through the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). Any school now can apply to become an Academy, and is indeed encouraged to do so. Academies thus have a far greater degree of autonomy and freedom to organise themselves more or less independently of the Local Authority, but within the state sector. These schools are directly responsible to the , and are charged with providing education appropriate to the local area. So the original mission of giving low-achieving schools freedom to innovate and improve their exam results and all-round performance has been expanded to include all schools. Schools that have not become Academies remain within the remit of Local Authorities. However, at a time when LA funding has been cut, these schools are often hard-pressed to compete with what are perceived as ‘better-off’ local Academies. However, it is also true that currently, some MATs are experiencing their own financial difficulties as being entirely responsible for all aspects of provision including pre-service, and in-service training presents its own challenges. ‘Freedom’ was the government watchword in the promotion of the Academy system. Academies are free and independent to recruit staff, establish pay and conditions and operate entirely outside of LA control. They do not have to follow the National Curriculum (although many do) and have the freedom to change the lengths of terms and school days. They are free to establish partnerships and sponsorship arrangements, appoint governors and operate their own financial systems, answerable only to Ofsted and directly to the DfE. Sponsors come from a wide range of backgrounds including successful schools, businesses, universities, charities and faith bodies. Sponsors are held accountable for improving the performance of their schools and in turn tend to operate rigorous accountability procedures for staff and are closely concerned with pupil attainment and examination results. Academy schools also have greater freedom in budget management and greater autonomy in respect to governance. They are required to have at least two parent governors. The fairly rapid transition from an entirely state-funded national system of secondary education, to a more quasi-privatised system operated under government supervision has drawn both praise and criticism and has been the subject of much heated debate in ideological division within education and the media. Critics, such as Miller (2011) complain of ‘short-termism’, others such as the Anti- Academies Alliance, founded in 2005, brought together groups of trade unionists, parents and politicians opposed to what was seen as the privatisation of state education and the removal of local democratic control and the inevitable draining of resources from the diminishing maintained sector. The desire to top the league tables has led, it is claimed some schools to avoid particular, vulnerable Secondary schools in England 9 7.3 ■ ■ ■ ■ pupils. Astle and Ryan (2008), on the other hand, in a collection of papers argued that Academy schools were pioneers in educational change and that the removal of LA control was a financial incentive for schools to take on greater responsibility for their improvement and a liberation from the burgeoning micro-management that had been imposed on them in the preceding decade. The creation of free schools was a further major education reform which took the notion of independence a step further. Free schools have been controversial and arguments have centred on their value for money, freedoms over the curriculum, how well they meet demand for places and serve the local population. The Department for Education created the opportunity for any interested group of parents, teachers, religious group or other interested parties, to open a school, financed directly by the Department for Education and independent of local authority control to respond to local educational needs. Like Academies, they are state-funded schools with the same legal status as academies and subject to Ofsted inspection in the same way, but also like academies are not obliged to follow the national curriculum. The first 24 free schools opened in September 2011 and this increased to 425 by early the start of the 2016/17 school year. Critics like Melissa Benn (2011) accuse the government of favouring the middle classes and contributing to an already confusing educational landscape. Others claim that the opportunity to experiment and innovate can only be of benefit to education. Toby Young, the journalist and founder of the West London defended the principle of free schools as being exactly a way for middle-class parents to obtain a good liberal education for their children without resorting to the fee-paying independent sector (Young, 2011). David Perks, founder and Principal of the East London Science School is passionate about giving the children of East London the best education possible and is convinced of the value of good education especially to children who are not normally offered it. According to Perks,

A good education should open doors to new worlds and expand a pupil’s horizons. No subject is too challenging and every child should be expected to succeed. I want each pupil to have the opportunity to study the subjects that will equip them not only to understand the world but to change it for the better. … What makes the East London Science School different from other London state schools is a commitment to deliver a high quality academic education to all pupils regardless of background or ability. We aim to give all our pupils a solid foundation of knowledge which they can draw on the rest of their lives-. (www.eastlondonscienceschool.co.uk)

The conviction and vision of educators like David Perks cannot be denied. It remains to be seen whether Academies and Free Schools can radically change and improve the landscape of education in England in the coming years. Perhaps what we may conclude from Perks is that the fundamen- tal issue is not what sort of buildings or internal organisation schools adopt, it is whether broader society has a belief in education, not as an instrumental good with a contingent relationship to the needs of economy, but as a good in itself (Lawes, 2010).

The drawing back of the state and the politicisation of education

Besides the fundamental structural changes to secondary education in England in recent years, the 2014 version of the National Curriculum and subsequent reforms of GCSE and A level examinations further reflect the government’s avowed intention to free teachers up to reclaim ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 10 their professional autonomy and to reshape the curriculum. However, there may be a number of barriers to this aim. Firstly, it is difficult for teachers to suddenly reclaim their autonomy, after decades of increasing intervention and regulation by government. Secondly, the pressures of Ofsted inspections and the benchmark of achieving good examination results may militate against experimentation and autonomy. Moreover, prevailing attitudes see little intrinsic value in education; ‘useful’ knowledge seems to be valued more highly, so from this perspective, the study of anything that does not contribute to examination success is in danger of becoming a marginal pursuit. When education is presented to young people as being of only instrumental value in getting a job, it is reduced to a set of ‘skills’ that places to one side ideas of opening of minds and developing the intellect. Perhaps the preoccupation with what is ‘relevant’ to young people, with what relates to their limited experience of the world in an instrumental sense, has prevented us from seeking to broaden their horizons and provide an education that helps them to understand the world through knowledge of subjects. At a time when the political status of schools has become elevated, education has been seen as the solution to manifold social, political and economic problems. At the same time the curriculum has been instrumentalised and as a result, education today is rarely seen as an end in itself, as having intrinsic value in its own terms. The instrumental approach might be well meaning, but it has a significant and negative impact on schooling. Particularly damaging is the way education is increasingly treated as a preparation for work. School has come to be regarded as a place where children should develop skills and competences for employment, rather than a place of learning for the sake of learning. Thus the blurring of the boundaries between school and society has facilitated an approach where knowledge is treated as a means to achieve other aims. While it is true that education and politics are mutually dependent, they are nevertheless distinct spheres even though politics requires educated citizens, and education requires dynamic politics to give it a wider purpose and certainty. However, we should be aware of the unintended negative consequences that may arise from the casual and thoughtless politicisation of education that distracts teachers from their central intellectual and cultural responsibilities. Schools cannot provide solutions to economic problems. Now complete Task 7.3.4.

Task 7.3.4

Teachers are often accused of ‘teaching to the test’ at the present time. What is meant by that? Is there anything wrong with it and if so, why do teachers do it? Think about the subject(s) that you teach. What. If any, do you think is its intrinsic value as a body of knowledge in the secondary school curriculum?

The teaching profession in England: teaching today

Teaching in recent years has changed fundamentally in a variety of ways and links to the past seem more tenuous. Becoming a teacher, learning to teach, has also changed considerably. In the 1970s Secondary schools in England 11 7.3 ■ ■ ■ ■ and 1980s most secondary school teachers qualified to teach after completing a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). This qualification was university-based and besides a short period of ‘teaching practice’ in a school, was largely an academically orientated study of the so-called Foundation Disciplines, that is the Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History of education together with ‘Method’ courses that considered the specific didactics of subject disciplines. In the wake of the 1988 Education Reform Act and the introduction of the National Curriculum the government of the day turned its attention to reforming Teacher Education and to wrest control from the university sector. In 1994 an entirely new system of initial teacher training was introduced in England. The ‘partnership model’ as it became known, shifted the emphasis from university- based teacher education to a more practical initiation into teaching whereby two-thirds of the one year course was spent in two different schools which worked in a contractual collaboration with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Qualified Teacher Status was obtained at the end of the year by achieving all the competences laid down by government (through the now defunct Teacher Training Agency, which was part of the DfE). Over the intervening years, the role of higher education in the education of teachers has been gradually eroded as government policy was based on the belief that the act of teaching is a craft that can be learned on the job through working alongside experienced teachers (Gove, 2010). In recent years therefore the aim has been to give schools a lead role in the training of teachers, and the introduction of the ITT scheme ‘School Direct’ gave schools the lead in the recruitment and initial training of teachers. This policy continues to be pursued by the current Conservative administration and while it is tacitly understood that university education departments retain an involvement in teacher education, their role has become increasingly marginal. Nevertheless, learning to teach remains a challenging experience for student teachers and the knowledge and experience gained during this initiation period is a valuable foundation for future professional learning. Reforms come and go, education systems develop and shift in different directions and the pendulum in terms of professional demands and priorities swings back and forth all too often, but it is the power of knowledge and ideas that moves education forward. The enduring essence and fundamental raison d’être of teachers committed to their profession is their passion for their subject, a belief in the capacity of knowledge to inspire and a delight in seeing young people develop and grow intellectually.

SUMMARY AND KEY POINTS

■■ This unit has introduced some of the key developments in the English education system since the beginning of state education. ■■ Important aspects of education policy have been discussed and the impact of their implementation considered critically. ■■ The unit has attempted to demonstrate how some knowledge of the history of education can help us understand current developments and inform our educational thinking in relation to the future. ■ ■ ■ ■ The School, curriculum and society 7 12 Š Further resources Gillard, D. (2018) Education in England: A History, viewed 5 January 2019, from www.educationengland. org.uk/history This online resource provides an exhaustive account of the history of education in Britain from early times to the present day. It includes important contextual background including profiles of key educational figures and politicians together with online access to a huge number of education documents, articles and legislation. An excellent resource. Simon, B. (1991) Education and the Social Order 1940-1990, London: Lawrence & Wishart. Brian Simon is widely acclaimed as one of Britain’s foremost historians of education. This book, which examines the recent past is a readable, scholarly work that provides fascinating insights into education over the second half of the 20th century. An essential read for anyone interested in the history of education.

References

Astle, J. and Ryan, C. (eds.) (2008) Academies and the Future of State Education, London: CentreForum. Ball, S.J. (2017) The Education Debate, 3rd edition, London: Policy Press. Beck, J. (2008) Meritocracy, Citizenship and Education: New Labour’s Legacy, London: Continuum. Benn, M. (2011) School Wars: The Battle for British Education, London: Verso. Curtis, A., Exley, S., Sasia, A., Tough S. and Whitty, G. (2008) The Academies Programme: Progress, Problems and Possibilities: A Report for the Sutton Trust, London: Institute of Education, University of London. DfE (Department for Education) (2010) The Importance of Teaching: The School White Paper, from https:// www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-importance-of-teaching-the-schools-white-paper-2010 Lawes, S. (2010) The Parochialism of Localism, Institute of Ideas, from www.battleofideas.org.uk/2010/ battles/5421 Maclure, S. (1988) Education Reformed: A Guide to the Education Reform Act, London: Hodder & Stoughton. Miller, P. (2011) ‘Free choice, free schools and the academisation of education in England’, Research in Comparative and International Education, 6(2), 181. Simon, B. (1991) Education and the Social Order 1940–1990, London: Lawrence & Wishart. Waldegrave, H. and Simmons, J. (2014) Watching the Watchmen, viewed 13 March 2018, from https:// policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/watching-the-watchmen.pdf Whitty, G., Halpin, D. and Power, S. (1998) Devolution and Choice in Education: The School, the State and the Market, Buckingham: Open University Press. Wolf, A. (2011) Review of Vocational Education, London: Department for Education. Young, T. (2011) How to Set Up a Free School, London: Penguins Special.