1. Educational reforms 1988 - 2011 Learning objective
All to be able to describe three policies which helped marketise education.
Starter
Work independently
Cut out the cards.
Some are stages of education, others are descriptions of the stages.
Match the stage of education with its description.
Glue them into your book in order from the first stage to the last.
15 Mins

2. Nursery (pre-school) education
Solution
Which of these are compulsory for your age group? Why? How is this different for younger generations?
This stage of education is for children under the age of 5. It includes nurseries and playgroups. These can be provided by local councils or privately. It provides early learning experiences as well as care.
Nursery (pre-school) education
This stage of education is for children aged 5 to 11. This type of education tends to be provided by the state and it includes teaching the core subjects as well as testing at the end of key stage 2.
Primary education
This refers to schools that take students aged 11 to 16. This type of education tends to be provided by the state through different types of schools such as specialist, academies and faith schools. It involves studying core and foundation subjects as well as testing at the end of key stage 4.
Secondary education
This refers to education beyond the age of 16 through a variety of courses such as A Levels, BTECs, etc. at 6th Forms and colleges.
Further education
Higher education
This is the final stage of education. It takes place at universities.

3. Marketisation of education
Between 1997 and 2010, the New Labour government continued to marketise education through policies such as:
Creating different types of schools (specialist, academies, faith schools)
Increasing competition between universities by introducing tuition fees.
However, New Labour also attempted to reduce social inequality through such policies as:
EMA
Education Action Zones
Excellence in Cities
Marketisation of education refers to running schools like businesses by encouraging them to compete against each other.
This reform was introduced through the Education Reform Act 1988 by the Conservative government through such policies as:
Formula funding
Open enrolment
Testing
League tables
The current Liberal Democrat – Conservative coalition government is also continuing to marketise education through:
Introduction of free schools
Expansion of academies
Students take notes
10 Mins

4. Task 1
30 Mins
Work in groups of 3
You will create a poster presentation on one of the following policies and be prepared to peer teach it to the other groups:
National Curriculum and testing
Formula funding and competition between schools
Open enrolment
League tables and OFSTED
Education Maintenance Allowance, Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities and Extended Schools
Different types of schools – specialist, faith, city academies and free schools
Students to use handouts and textbooks to create their poster.

5. Success criteria
Step 1: Read the hand-out and use the textbooks on your policy
Step 2: Answer the short questions on your hand-out
Step 3: Prepare a poster to teach the class about your policy in the next lesson
Each group will have 2 minutes to teach and present their policies to the rest of the class
You only have 30 minutes

6. Educational reforms continued Present your poster
Starter
Each group will have 2 minutes to teach and present their policies to the rest of the class
Everyone else should be taking down notes on the different policies
15 Mins

7. National curriculum
This is the programme proscribed by the government of what has to be taught in each subject at each key stage.
It brought in three core subjects (English, Maths and Science) which all students aged 11 to 16 must study and several foundation subjects (MFL, History, Geography, etc) which must be studied until the end of key stage 3 (Yr9).
It was introduced to help raise standards, in other words, to improve the results by ensuring that all students in all schools across the country receive the same, high quality, education. It was also introduced to create a greater equality between students, e.g. girls and boys, by making them take the same subjects.
The Labour government added RE to the core subjects.
The current Lib Dem – Conservative government has introduced the English baccalaureate - pupils will be encouraged to take GCSEs in English, Maths, Science, MFL and a humanities subject. This is an attempt to bring British education to the European standard as European education is currently seen as better than our own.
You can print out the following slides 5-13 as well as provide the hand-outs for each group. This will help them complete the poster.

8. Testing
SATs are tests students take at the end of key stage 1 (aged 7) and 2 (aged 11), while 16 year olds are tested through GCSEs.
There used to be SATs at the end of key stage 3 (aged 14), but the Labour government abolished these as they were said to place too much stress on students and that all teachers did is prepare students to pass the SATs rather than getting them to enjoy learning.
Testing is used to assess students’ progress formally against the government set national targets. Measures can them be taken by schools to ensure all students reach the required level. Therefore, testing is meant to help raise educational standards (improve results).

9. Formula funding
This means that schools receive funding according to the number of students they have. Therefore, the more students a school has the more funding it receives. Thus, schools compete against each other to attract more students to join their school in Yr7.
This policy was introduced to reward the schools which attracted the most parents by having good results and being high up the school league table. Consequently, it forces schools to get high results so that parents will want to send their children to that school.
Therefore, the aim of this policy was to help raise standards by forcing schools to get their students to achieve 5+ A*-Cs.
Failing schools, the ones low down in the league table, would not attract many students as parents won’t send their children to bad schools, their funding would therefore be low and they would close down, while successful schools would expand as they got more students and more money.

10. Open enrolment and parental choice of school
The 1988 Act abolished catchment areas. Parents could now send their children to any school of their choice that had places.
The aim of this policy is to increase competition between schools as they have to get a good league table position in order to attract more parents to send their children to their school.
In order to promote themselves to potential parents, schools have to produce a prospectus, a governors’ report as well as publish their results.

11. League tables and ofsted
These are published annually to provide information to parents about the performance of schools so they can compare different schools and choose the best one for their child.
The aim of this policy was to raise standards by forcing schools to get many of their students to achieve 5+ A*-Cs in order to be high up in the league tables.
OFSTED is a government agency which inspects schools at least once every 6 years. The aim of this policy is to force schools to do a good job of teaching thus raising standards. The Labour government increased the power of OFSTED by enabling them to put ‘failing’ schools into ‘special measures’ and threatening them with closure unless they improve.

12. Education maintenance allowance (EMA)
This is a grant given to students in post 16 education. The amount students receive depends on how much their parents earn, and it varies between £10 and £30 per week. However, this has now been abolished. It has helped increase the number of students in further education by providing them with money for travel, books and equipment. Students receive the EMA if they have good attendance and make good progress.

13. Different types of schools
Specialist schools – these are schools that provide exceptional provision in one of 10 subject areas, e.g. Sport, MFL, etc. They receive extra funding to support their subject of expertise and they can select 10% of their students on the basis of their ability in the specialist subject. For example, FHS is a specialist Sports college, we get extra funding for this reasons and have the right to select 10% of all students based on their sporting ability. By over 75% of all secondary schools in England were specialist schools. The aim was to increase choice of schools for parents (so that they can send their children to the school that will best meet their needs and talents), encourage competition between schools and raise standards by enabling schools to excel in their specialist subject.
City Academies – these were ‘failing’ schools that have been closed down and re-opened with funding and control from private businesses and / or individuals who are required to contribute £2 million while the government provides £25 million to improve the school. The idea was to raise standards in failing schools by providing them with extra funding. The current coalition government has expanded city academies. Now even schools graded as outstanding by Ofsted can apply to become city academies. This will mean that they can be run by a religious organisation, a business or even individuals; it is free from local education authority control and can select students.

14. Different types of schools
Faith schools – these schools were expanded to include non-Christian schools. This is because faith schools are seen as having high standards, support the community and in order to increase parental choice. However, critics point out that these schools can use their right to select students by faith to select by ability as well.
Free schools – are the latest type of school created by the coalition government. They are state funded schools which are set up by parents. They are free from local education authority control, do not have to follow the National Curriculum, do not have to employ professional qualified teachers and can set their own admissions criteria.

15. Education Action Zones, Excellence in Cities and Extended Schools
Education Action Zones – are the most deprived, inner city, areas in the country. Schools in EAZs receive extra funding. By 2003 the government had created 72 EAZs. The extra money is used by schools to run breakfast clubs, homework clubs, etc. in an attempt to help working class children do better in exams. It did help improve primary school results, but not secondary so it was abolished.
Excellence in Cities – is a policy introduced to replace EAZs in order to raise standards in inner city secondary schools by providing resources to stretch the more able, gifted and talented students, as well as providing learning mentors and Learning Support Units, such as SID, for students at high risk of exclusion. This initiative did have an effect on GCSE results.
Extended schools – is a programme through which schools offer a range of services for the parents, students and the community, e.g. half-term activities, English classes for parents, etc. the idea is to give students from deprived backgrounds experiences that will help them in education such as educational trips as well as to help parents help their children with their school work. For example, by providing free ICT classes for parents, the parents can then help their children with their homework or coursework.

16. Task 2: Draw this table into your books and match the Solution
To raise standards (increase the % of students getting 5+ A*-C grades)
To marketise education by creating competition between schools
To reduce social inequality by helping working class students do better
Formula funding
Open enrolment
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
Excellence in Cities
National Curriculum
Education Action Zones
Faith schools
Extended schools
League tables and Ofsted
Specialist schools
Testing (SATs and GCSEs)
City Academies

17. Draw this table into your books Solution
To raise standards (increase the % of students getting 5+ A*-C grades)
To marketise education by creating competition between schools
To reduce social inequality by helping working class students do better
Testing (SATs and GCSEs)
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)
Formula funding
National Curriculum
Education Action Zones
League tables and Ofsted
Excellence in Cities
Open enrolment
Extended schools
Specialist schools
City Academies
Faith schools

18. Task 3
10 Mins
The successive governments had good intentions when they introduced these policies; they wanted to improve the quality of teaching in order to improve the students’ results and to help the poorer students do well.
However, research carried out by Sociologists has shown that these policies have not had the impact the governments intended them to.
Match the policy with its criticism on the worksheet, then glue it into your book.

19. Policy
Criticism
National Curriculum
This policy only benefits middle class parents as they are the ones with cultural capital so they understand how the system works, e.g. they know to look at league tables and read the OFSTED reports. On the other hand, working class parents are culturally deprived so they don’t know how the education system works. They tend to choose the school nearest to where they live regardless of its league table position.
Testing
This policy forces schools to compete against each other to get the most students. This focuses them away from co-operating together for the benefit of their students by, e.g. sharing good teaching ideas and instead turns them against each other.
Open enrolment
This policy prevents teachers from responding to the needs of their students by being told exactly what to teach. Some have accused the policy of being racist as some topics in some subjects promote white British culture and make it seem superior to all others.
Formula funding
Some schools, e.g. specialist, academies and faith schools, are allowed to select the students who go there. This may lead to good schools only selecting high achieving students from middle class backgrounds and rejecting applications from working class and some ethnic minority children. This will create a system with high achieving schools full of middle class children and low achieving schools full of working class children.
League tables
This policy has been criticised for putting too much pressure on young children and giving them a sense of failure if they don’t reach the set targets. Also, teachers spend too much time preparing students to pass exams rather than getting young people to enjoy learning.
Different types of schools
A school with many working class students may have excellent teaching, but the students will still get low results, as they are materially and culturally disadvantaged, so the school will be placed in a low position in the league table. Also, in order to maintain a high position in the league table, some school do not enter low ability students for exams. Therefore, league tables are not an accurate measure of how good a school is.

20. Task 4
5 Mins
Sit up, stand up
If you are in favour of league tables. Can you explain why?
If you are opposed to testing at the end of each Key Stage. Can you explain why?
If you are in favour of open enrolment. Can you explain why?
If you are in favour of the scrapping of EMA. Can you explain why?
If you are opposed to scrapping of Extended Schools? Can you explain why?

21. Exam question
5 Mins
Describe one way in which recent governments have attempted to raise standards in schools and explain how successful the policy has been.
(5 marks)
One way the government has tried to raise standards is...
This has/hasn’t been successful because...

22. Review You must each attempt to answer a question.
10 Mins
You must each attempt to answer a question.
If you don’t know the answer, you can ‘call a friend’ or ‘ask the audience’.

23. Questions What was education like before1870? Name the Act of 1944.
Identify one criticism of the comprehensive system.
Identify the four stages of education in Britain.
What was the tripartite system?
Identify one policy introduced since 1997 to reduce inequality.
What is open enrolment?
What is comprehensive education?
Within the tripartite system, which school had the lowest status and why?
What is a catchment area?

24. Questions When was vocational education first introduced?
What is the meaning of the term meritocracy?
What is vocational education?
What are school league tables for?
When was the comprehensive system introduced?
Identify one policy introduced since 1997 to raise standards.
How did the tripartite system continue class inequalities in education?
Identify one policy introduced since 1997 to promote diversity of schools.
What is the difference between the core and foundation subjects?
What is meant by the term marketisation of education?

25. Questions How did the educational system change in 1870?
Identify a course which is a part of vocational education.
What was the 11+ exam?
Identify one criticism of the marketisation of education.
What is formula funding?