Using various official sources (such as Ofsted reports), the article explores competing conceptions of the under-achieving school which have been operationalised in recent years. It suggests that there have been multiple, potentially conflicting definitions in policy discourse to which recent innovations have merely added a further layer of…

The Smith Report has generated central questions about the mathematics education of UK adolescents. This paper highlights the close match between the goals of school mathematics, adolescence and exploratory pedagogy. This is contrasted with the prescriptive nature of current regimes. In particular, without careful attention to pedagogy it is…