HND Social Science

Sociology A

New Labour’s Education Policy

• More private involvement in the management of schools (including ‘successful’ schools), with commercial companies taking over the running of new or failing schools.

• Further ring-fencing of school budgets.

• Increasing the number of specialist and faith-based schools.

• Insisting that at least 25% of a school’s pupils gain 5 A*-C grade GCSEs by 2006 – schools which miss this target will automatically be considered to have ‘failed’.

• Forcing LEAs to consult ‘external partners’ on tackling ‘failing schools’.

• Urging ‘successful schools’ to take-over ‘failing schools’.

• New powers to dismiss the governing bodies of a designated ‘failing schools’ and to replace them with ‘interim executive boards’.

• More emphasis on literacy and numeracy in years 7 and 8, including targets.

• A drive towards a 14-19 curriculum (which brings into question the role of GCSEs).

• Giving the heads of ‘successful schools’ more autonomy over matters such as the curriculum (parts of the national curriculum could be dropped), school hours and staff pay and conditions. (In DfES-speak, this is called ‘earned autonomy’.)

• Publishing year 9 SAT results in annual performance tables.

• Encouraging schools to provide ‘dawn to dusk’ services such as creches and after-school study facilities.

• More ‘tailored learning’ for pupils, with an emphasis on encouraging those identified as ‘gifted and talented’.

(In November, 2001, most of these proposals were incorporated in a 200 clause education bill.)

DfES green paper, 12^th February, 2002 – summary of main proposals:

• The green paper is concerned with the curriculum on offer to 14-19 year-olds. Its proposals have two over-riding and linked aims: to integrate the learning process in years 10 to 13, and to encourage more students to stay in full-time education after the compulsory phase ends at age 16.

• A new ‘Matriculation Diploma’ that recognises achievements through years ten to thirteen across a range of disciplines. The diploma might simply list achievements in years 10 to 13. Alternatively, it might be a three-tier award: ‘intermediate’ (good GCSE standard, suitable for those not going on to higher education)); ‘advanced’ (basic A level standard, giving access to higher education); and ‘higher’ (excellent A level standard e.g. an A and 2 Bs, plus an AS level or level 4 NVQ in another subject).

• Increasing the number of 14-16 year-olds who are excused sections of the national curriculum in order to pursue training courses (leading to National Vocational Qualifications), perhaps on day-release from their schools to local colleges and/or workplaces.

• Allowing able students to by-pass GCSEs (except in maths, science, English and ICT) after the year nine SATs, moving straight on to AS levels.

• Science to remain compulsory in years 10 and 11, but a more practical ‘applied science’ will become an option.

• The term ‘applied’ will also be attached to seven other vocationally-oriented GCSE courses, due to start in September 2002.

• The use of the term ‘applied’ is part of a hoped for ‘vocational renaissance’ to end the snobbery about practical-based work and to persuade more pupils to stay on at school. In addition to applied science, there will be new GCSEs in ICT, engineering, applied business, applied art and design, leisure and tourism, and health and social care from September, 2002.

• However, the word ‘vocational’ will be dropped from the titles of A levels currently bearing it – a move designed to dispel the view that exams designated as ‘vocational’ are second-rate. So, Advanced Vocational Certificates of Education (AVCEs) will simply be known as ‘A levels’. And the first, will be called ‘Applied GCSEs’.

• Students will no longer have to take a modern language in years 10. (However, on the same day as the green paper was published, a DfES special report, Language Learning, said that all primary-age children would soon be given an ‘entitlement’ to be taught a foreign language.)

DfES document, 16^th July, 2002 – summary of main proposals:

• A ‘ladder of improvement’ on which all schools can be placed, with Advanced Schools at the top and schools in special measures at the bottom.

• Explicit tying of Treasury grants to schools’ willingness to accept government policy (such as allowing classroom assistants to cover for absent teachers).

• £125,000 ‘leadership grants’ for 1,400 schools in challenging areas if they can prove to the DfES that they are being properly run – if not, governors might have to sack their headteachers to win the money.

4.7% 5.1% 4.7% 4.6% 5.1%

*

1992-93 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97

Tory gov’t £36.9 £37.9 £39.1 £39.0 £38.3

1997-98 1998-99 1999-00

Labour gov’t £38.4 £38.4 £40.1

In England and Wales, real-terms spending per pupil in state schools peaked in 1992/93 before falling until 1998/99. By 1999/00, average real-terms spending on each pupil in years one to six was just over £1,900, a slightly higher level than in 1992/93, but the secondary and higher education averages of £2,500 and £4,900 were respectively 7% and a third less. So, at the end of New Labour’s first term of government (which, according to Tony Blair, had three priorities – "education, education and education"), average per-person funding in the education system was lower than in the early 1990s. However, in 2002 the Chancellor promised that the share of GDP going to education would be increased ‘significantly’: