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22452 results in Education

Page 493 of 1123

  • Chapter 3 - The early years

  • from Part 2 - Engagement in the early years
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 55-70

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To consider how the engagement of young children and families in preschool programs has been understood through particular discourses.

  • To appreciate the different ways young children and families are positioned by their experience of preschool.

  • To realise the potential of preschool programs as democratic sites to authentically engage disengaged families.

  • To explore possibilities and practices to redress family disengagement.

    • Introduction

    This chapter examines how the engagement of young children and families in preschool programs has been understood through particular discourses. Drawing attention to the importance of preschool as a site for igniting engagement with disengaged families, this chapter reflects on discourses of engagement and inclusion, which are considered in light of how such discourses position and reposition families in the early childhood context.

    Examples are drawn from two preschool (kindergarten) programs specifically designed to deliver high-quality programs in extremely disadvantaged geographic locations. Discourses of engagement and intervention will be interrogated to ascertain how they reproduce the notion of ‘proper’ participation. This notion of ‘proper’ family participation can exclude certain families by situating them outside of accepted expectations (Macfarlane 2006). A more critical understanding of how families are viewed and positioned by others enables an awareness to be brought to the forefront. This awareness can highlight the barriers that are present for families who do not engage and enable possibilities for other ways of thinking to emerge.

  • Chapter 6 - Physical education

  • from Part 3 - Curriculum-based engagement
  • Tarquam McKenna, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Marcelle Cacciattolo, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne, Mark Vicars, Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne
  • Book:
    Engaging the Disengaged
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    17 January 2013, pp 109-128

  • Summary

    Learning objectives

  • To develop an understanding of the current international and national evaluations of the physical activity levels of children and youth.

  • To gain knowledge of the cohorts of children and youth most likely to not be meeting recommended levels of engagement in physical activity.

  • To become familiar with international and national curriculum standards in the field of physical education.

  • To develop skills to identify and target those students who may become disengaged within physical education classes.

  • To be able to integrate an awareness of issues in relation to students’ engagement in physical education within current school pedagogy and practice.

    • Introduction

    Recent evaluations by the World Health Organization (WHO) (2011) have highlighted substantial changes in the dietary and physical activity patterns of school-aged children. Fortunately, WHO has continued to acknowledge the role that educational administrators, schools and teachers play in managing the negative trends observed in the health behaviours of young people. Opportunities for children and youth to extend their knowledge about physical activity are often created through the application of high-quality pedagogical practices within the primary and secondary school physical education learning environment. The work of the physical education teacher needs to be focused on the transmission of critical information that facilitates students’ understanding of the lifestyle choices that will support the ongoing positive development of their physical wellbeing. Curriculum in physical education utilises learning activities that engage students in physical activity; however, physical education cannot serve as a framework to directly improve fitness. It must operate as a platform from which students can utilise new skills and information within the context of their own lives and their own engagement in the activities to foster fitness through sport and physical activity.

  • three - The rise and fall of the planning model

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 53-72

  • Summary

    The 1944 settlement: the backdrop

    Under the 1944 Education Act (EA44), for the first time in English history, all parents could access secondary education free of charge for their children up to the age of 15, with all schools funded by the state required to work within the same legislative and regulatory framework. This constituted a step-change from what had been, before 1944, a far more confused and inconsistent environment of educational provision.

    In this chapter, it is argued that pre-existing and long-standing attitudes about schooling based on selection and differentiation contributed to the post-war development of a tripartite system of secondary schooling based on the division of pupils into different types of secondary schools via use of a test of intellectual aptitude at age 11; EA44 had suggested but not required that such an approach be adopted. Within the post-1944 system, local authorities had a clear mandate to organise secondary education according to the requirements of the locality and to account to their electorates for their actions. This chapter will track how problematic aspects of the tripartite system, with its promised ‘parity of esteem’, became increasingly apparent, and how changes in the relationship between central and local government, highlighted on occasion in the form of judicial decisions and legislation, eventually led to a shift in the relative rights and powers of the local authority, of parents and of central government, and laid the ground for a new system of parental ‘choice’ run through quasi-markets.

    In the post-War period up to the 1970s, Dale (1989, p 78) characterised education policy as conducted on ‘non-partisan’ and even ‘bi-partisan’ terms, and Ranson (1990, p 5) thought that the ‘partnership’ established by EA44 ‘formed a cross party consensus for a generation’. This is testament perhaps not just to a unifying post-War spirit but also to the broadly drawn nature of the powers and structures within the non-prescriptive legislation. This consensual style chimed with a pluralist view of democracy whereby different interest groups engaged with government decision-makers (and each other) in a way that respected other parties’ views and values, including democratic values, in order to arrive at a pragmatic and sustainable solution (see for example Dahl, 1967; and Held, 1996).

  • two - The changing policy context

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 21-52

  • Summary

    A framework of analysis

    By tracing the history of themes and variations within reform of the school system over the last 60 years it is possible to shed some light on the underlying tensions which bear upon the current construct of ‘the admissions question’. The essential position adopted here is that issues relating to school admissions must be viewed in the context of the broader processes of school reform. Offering a narrative history here of the reforms that have taken place could be useful and interesting, but it is important that this does not become an end in itself, as excellent examples of such work can already be found elsewhere (see Simon, 1991; Carr and Hartnett, 1996; Tomlinson, 2005). Rather, this chapter will focus on those landmarks that signify most clearly the changing power relationships within the system. In practice, this means focusing on the locus of decision-making power and, given the agenda set in the previous chapter, the accountability arrangements relevant to the deployment of such power.

    What will become apparent is that, unsurprisingly, it is political debate and political power that has shaped the various settlements and re-settlements pertaining to education policy. It might therefore be expected that this would have also resulted in a set of values that would underpin the arrangements, but the processes of conflict and compromise inherent in the political fray have arguably left the value base much less strongly built than might be desirable. Indeed, the story that will emerge in this chapter is one of repeated compromise, the gravitational pull of pragmatism and the failure of political nerve and conviction in relation to the school system, at least as regards embedding a coherent set of educational values. While structural reforms have been introduced with commitment and vigour, much less movement is observable in terms of the introduction of a clear system of fundamental values for schooling. At the broadest level, a shift in emphasis is evident from the 1944 Education Act (EA44) to the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA) and later, when schooling as a civic and personal good in itself was increasingly superseded by a priority placed on education in the service of the national economic interest.

  • one - The admissions question

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 1-20

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Schooling is crucial, in its accreditation function, as a means of accessing employment and in its other tangible and intangible benefits for the individual and society. The path of our future life will be heavily determined by the quality of education we receive as children. Therefore, understanding the way that families access secondary schools for their children and the effectiveness (or not) of the school admissions systems and safeguards that the state puts in place is of profound importance. The significance of schooling is recognised explicitly in the Universal Declaration of Rights – the United Nations’ ‘common standard of achievement for all people’ – which includes the right to free education up to elementary and standard level (Article 26). But beyond such grand statements of intent or aspiration, the legal and administrative frameworks that individual states use to guarantee and deliver access to such educational provision may choose to be explicit (or not) about the expectations or entitlements its citizens will have.

    In the English school system that evolved following the passing of the 1944 Education Act (EA44), the allocation of places within a tripartite system of secondary schooling was certainly contentious, with the obtaining of a place at a grammar school being seen as offering an enormous increase in subsequent life chances. Despite the sentiment expressed in EA44 that all types of schools would have ‘parity of esteem’, from the 1960s to the early 1980s debate persisted, varying only in level of intensity, about the place and role of selective admission to grammar schools or the perceived non-selective alternative of a genuinely comprehensive school system. From the late 1980s, with the introduction of a range of quasi-market forces, initially under the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), the way in which school places are allocated has become a vitally important issue, relating to an increasingly diverse range of forms of organisation for state schools. Throughout this period, questions of social justice and social mobility have come in and out of focus in the context of ‘the admissions question’ and, along with expectations and claims relating to meritocracy, egalitarianism and citizenship, have dominated debate at different times.

  • five - The realities of choice and accountability in the quasi-market

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 105-136

  • Summary

    Introducing the practical realities of choice

    The harshest critics of admissions arrangements within the quasi-market for schooling offer much, often blunt, comment. When it is reported in the quality media that ‘An insidious mix of selection by ability, faith and postcode is wreaking havoc on the entire schools system’ (Fiona Millar, The Guardian, 12 April 2010), or that ‘School leaders are calling on politicians to end what they call “the misleading rhetoric” of school choice – which they say cannot be delivered’ (BBC, 2008), we have cause to consider seriously whether the outcomes of the system are consistent with democratic and constitutional expectations, and indeed the extent to which choice of school is a reality rather than an aspiration or empty promise.

    The oversubscribed school is the precise point at which the rhetoric of parental choice meets the stark reality of limited places in popular schools, and in this context the power to choose seems to shift from parents to those managing the admissions process. Operating within a quasi-market context, there will be strong pressures on, or temptations for, those exercising the power of selection (in ‘non-selective’ schools) to prioritise choosing those pupils who will best serve the interests of the individual school, rather than any broader social priorities, a phenomenon implicitly recognised and addressed by policies such as the ‘pupil premium’ (see Chapter Four) and ‘fair banding’ (see Chapter Six) espoused by the 2010 Coalition. Though schools are required to state publicly their admissions criteria, in situations of oversubscription there is the possibility of the occurrence of what Chitty (1992, pp 96–7) identifies as informal selection, or what we might term ‘covert selection’, where published policies on admissions are not followed or factors or practices additional to published criteria are adopted, by schools claiming not to be ‘selective’. As Whitty (2002, p 130) suggests, ‘The covert forms of selection … may … produce greater inequalities, as socially advantaged parents learn to decipher the “real” admissions criteria’. From constitutional and democratic perspectives, equity and accountability in the exercise of such power of selection will be imperative. It might also be expected that such practices would on occasion be found to be unlawful. In the time since the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), reviewed in this chapter, came into force, the legal requirements, guidance, practices and routes of appeal have all changed significantly.

  • Preface

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp x-xii

  • Summary

    In this book we address key questions relating to admission to secondary schools, but we recognise that though education determines every child's future chances, it sits within a still broader social policy context. If radical social reform is the outcome, intended or not, of the processes and changes we have considered here, or the broader processes of reform of which they form a part, it will be important for focus to be maintained on the values and claims which attach to these reforms, individually and collectively. It seems to us that fundamental claims and values are far too rarely made explicit in relation to government policy in the modern era, yet all such policies do have some such justificatory values, even if recent reformers may be unwilling to specify them. While we have tried to remain focused on one very specific policy area, we hope that the task we have undertaken here, of engaging simultaneously in immanent critique of a range of competing approaches while scrutinising them also against background democratic and constitutional norms, offers a rigorous process for the scrutiny of current and future policy reforms relating to schooling, both individually and as a whole.

    In writing this book we have tried to ensure that the points we have raised are supported by reasoned argument and analysis, and we want to avoid lapsing too far into speculation or assertion here in the Preface. We feel it necessary, however, to project forward our thinking on some important themes that have been central to the approach we have adopted and to point, very briefly, towards planned legislative developments relevant to school admissions that have occurred since the completion of the main typescript.

    Through the 2010 Academies Act and the 2011 Education Act, the Coalition government has now put in place a structure and system of secondary education where entry to school will be largely determined at a meta level by the ambitions and views of the Secretary of State for Education and at a micro level by individual headteachers and college leaders, and, if an Academy chain, by the guidelines and goals set by the particular charity, organisation or company involved, albeit within the strictures (such as they are) of the 2012 School Admissions Code.

School Admissions and Accountability
  • Planning, Choice or Chance?
  • Mike Feintuck, Roz Stevens
  • Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013
  • Providing integrated coverage of the policy, practice and outcomes from 1944 to 2012, this book addresses the issues relevant to school admissions arising from three different approaches adopted in this period: planning via local authorities, quasi-market mechanisms, and random allocation.

  • seven - Conclusions

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 173-186

  • Summary

    Reviewing the realities

    In the preceding chapters, we have considered three approaches to school admissions based on planning, quasi-markets and randomness. As should be apparent, each of the approaches tends to result in a certain set of outcomes which relate as much or more to the processes utilised to allocate places as to any specified educational outcomes or objectives. Our analysis has been informed by two lines of questioning: first, does each approach deliver what it claims to, and second does each approach meet democratic expectations relating, for example, to equality of citizenship, and, constitutional expectations relating to accountability?

    Simply put, the evidence we have considered on the outcomes of each approach leads to the conclusion that the democratic expectations at stake in education are too important to be left to either quasi-markets or randomness. The reality emerging, from Chapter Five especially, is an increasing potential for schools to choose pupils rather than parents choosing schools. Given the market-driven interest of individual schools to attract and retain the ‘best’ pupils, while ‘excluding’ less desirable children via the admissions processes or via subsequent action (see Children's Commissioner, 2012), the interests of already vulnerable groups such as children with special educational needs (SEN), or with the highest socio-economic deprivation indicators, might be thought to be especially at risk.

    Allen and Burgess (2010, p 6) observe that different ‘admissions policies will simply alter the set of parents who are able to achieve their choice of school’. In such a situation it is worrying to find think-tanks of very different political orientation reaching remarkably similar conclusions: SMF (2004, p 6) conclude, ‘School admissions in England and Wales do not sit well with equity and fairness’, while IPPR (2007, p 4) note that ‘the current admissions system is a cause of segregation by social class and ability across our schools system … [and] … is likely to lead to systematic unfairness in terms of whose preferences can be satisfied’. In Chapter Five we pointed towards strong evidence that such choice as parents enjoy in practice depends crucially on the family’s income and social capital – ‘some parents are … better equipped to work the system to make sure they get what they want’ (IPPR, 2007, p 17).

  • four - Admissions in a quasi-market system: policy developments 1988 to 2012

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 73-104

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter and the next, accounts are given from two different perspectives of the introduction of choice as the organising principle for school admissions. This chapter will examine the political steps, and the legislative and regulatory approaches taken by central government to secure the necessary pre-conditions for establishing choice as the key policy for school admissions: the creation of a quasi-market through school diversity, greater freedom to control admissions at school level, and the limiting of local government powers. This account will be presented in three phases: the phase of policy initiation that started with the Thatcher governments and found its greatest expression in the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA); the period of continuity and expansion as the market ‘baton’ was passed to the New Labour reformers in government in the period from 1997 to 2010; and, at the time of writing, the current phase of policy acceleration under the Coalition government. In Chapter Five, the focus will be on the outcomes of school admissions processes within the quasi-market: how parents and pupils have experienced, and how schools and local authorities have reacted to, the realities of choice in admissions, and the responses of the relevant legal and administrative processes when parental preference has come into conflict with school admissions practice.

    The move away from the planning mode of school admissions was marked by the Thatcher government's emphasis on the use of market and business models to respond to ‘inefficiencies’ in the delivery of public services; in essence, how to transfer ‘the logic, model and visions of a private company’ (Ball, 2008, p 7) to the organisation and distribution of school places. Since 1988, school admissions have been increasingly based upon a quasi-market system predicated on choice, though, as will be demonstrated in this chapter and the next, there is plentiful evidence indicating that the ‘choice’ is not always, as had been originally promised, that of parental choice of school but rather of school choice of pupil.

    From the Conservative government's perspective, the most significant impediment to progressing this agenda was the power of the local authorities in determining the running of schools. In the general context of explaining public service reform, Loughlin (2003, p 521) identifies ‘a disintegration of the constitutional tradition of local government’.

  • six - Admissions by lottery

  • Mike Feintuck, University of Hull, Roz Stevens
  • Book:
    School Admissions and Accountability
    Published by:
    Bristol University Press
    Published online:
    07 September 2022
    Print publication:
    16 January 2013, pp 137-172

  • Summary

    Introduction

    The previous three chapters have charted how a system of school admissions premised, in theory at least, on parental choice came to supersede a system centred on admissions policies determined and managed by local education authorities (LEAs). The two different models appear to represent contrasting responses to the wide range of expectations, values and priorities underlying debate regarding school admissions. Competing for priority, in this context, are agenda items relating inter alia to equality, equity of treatment, national economic needs, local democratic expectations and individual choice. The LEA-centred and choice-based models discussed previously will inevitably give different priorities to these and other factors implicated in decision making about admissions. In general terms, while the LEA-centred model might be expected to emphasise collective and local democratic values, on occasion to the detriment of individual preference, the choice model (with choice exercised unevenly) may be likely to prioritise individual choice over collective planning agendas. As will be clear from previous discussion, neither approach can be considered wholly successful on its own terms and, inevitably, both will be subject to heavy criticism from alternative perspectives.

    With little if any sign from any major political party of plans for any return to an admissions system centred on local authority powers, attention in recent years has inevitably focused on perceived failings in the parental choice model introduced from 1988 onwards, and on proposals for its reform. In this regard, criticisms come from two prominent and quite distinct perspectives. The first is from parents disappointed at their children not having been admitted to an oversubscribed school of their choice. As noted in previous chapters, though relatively small in numbers, complaints from disgruntled parents, especially perhaps those from affluent and articulate groups who may have bought a house in the proximity of a popular school only to find a place not available for their child as a result of oversubscription, are persistent and prominent in the popular media, even if coverage might be thought to overstate the degree of dissatisfaction. It should be unsurprising if the rhetoric of choice in schooling perpetuated since 1988 leads to genuine feelings of frustration and anger when choices are not met. The second is from commentators concerned with questions of equity and equality of opportunity who point towards the clear tendency, discussed in Chapter Five, of the parental choice system to reproduce social stratification and segregation.

Page 493 of 1123