This article responds to Henry Tam's article in this issue of FORUM by exploring opportunities for co-operative problem-solving for staff and students of the Royal Docks Community School in the London Borough of Newham. Becoming a co-operative trust helped the school move out of special measures and develop a strategy of participation and…

Reddish Vale Technology College was the first co-operative trust in England. The democratic and co-operative nature of the experiment mean that students have gained a greater voice in the organisation of the school. As a result, new social enterprises, environmental interventions, connections with the community and with the wider co-operative…

This contribution is an edited version of the "Alumni Lecture" organised by the Department of Education of the University of Oxford at Lady Margaret Hall on 15th September 2011. The article reviews the drift towards the centralisation of power in the way the schooling system is run, the conflict between a desire for equity in education and the…

The UK's Coalition Government completed its second year in office in May 2012. Many of its policies and pronouncements have been divisive and are contributing to the dismantling of the state education system as we have known it. Here, reflecting George Orwell's observation that "Every joke against the established order is a tiny revolution", Colin…

The relationship between academies, and school autonomy more generally, and the wider system is a crucial issue in the battle to improve school-level education. International experience indicates that emphasising choice and competition to drive improvement is not effective and that changing structures does not yield better results for students. A…

The Decorated School is an interdisciplinary research network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The article situates current academic and wider community engagement concerning the purpose and significance of art as part of the school building and grounds in an historical context. It goes on to discuss emerging patterns of…

This article explores the reasons why transformation of the school system is urgently needed. It is suggested that the system will implode as a result of a growing dislocation between what schools need to achieve and the inadequate, if not damaging, practices forcefully promoted by increasing numbers of school leaders and politicians.…

This article, updated and expanded from one written for "The Times Educational Supplement", 10 December 2010, asks whether politicians are right to quote the country's performance in international tests in support of such policies as re-introducing O levels. It finds reasons to doubt that the tests give an adequate picture of children's learning,…

In October 2010 Perry Beeches school, an 11-16 Local Authority controlled community comprehensive in Birmingham, was widely featured in the national media as the "most improved school in the UK"--Ever. Some of the ways in which this was achieved are explored. Whether the changes undergone by this school reflect a pattern that has become more…

This article traces the career of one teacher through his involvement in a number of school based curriculum design innovations. The idea of "depth" or distance is used to discuss a number of dimensions against which it is possible to judge the worth of a curriculum from a range of perspectives, most especially that of the student. The discussion…

This article was originally presented at a seminar run by the Secondary Umbrella Group on the theme of "A Review of Labour's Achievement: Where next for secondary education?" It looks at the struggle of one secondary school and its local community to improve educational opportunities and life chances for its students. The author, a long-term…

This article reviews the current state of education reform in the United Kingdom and uses the BBC film "The Choir to explore alternative ways of improving the quality of learning and teaching in schools.

This article outlines the main education reforms that have taken place in Greece from the 1960s until the present. The author discusses how the direction of these reforms has been influenced not only by "global" pressures for "modernization" but also by the distinctive socio-cultural Greek context. The conclusion stresses that despite the various…

The Freedom of Information Act (FOI) was used over a three-year period to investigate the curriculum of state schools and academies. The resulting data has shown that spectacular apparent school improvement, in terms of five or more A*-C GCSE /GNVQ passes has been largely brought about by the substitution of mainstream curriculum subjects by much…

This article looks at the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme and its stated intention to "transform learning" from the perspective of the author's involvement as an architect/facilitator. Reflecting on his experiences, he focuses on the possibilities of the programme as a learning and change process, rather than as simply a…