This article critically examines the Labour Party's policies for local school systems, focusing on its proposals for regional Directors of School Standards, for academies and free schools, and for local democracy, and offers an alternative approach.

David Blunkett's "Review of Education Structures" for the Labour Party recognises that there is a chaotic and unsatisfactory situation in the English education system but its response is ambiguous and self-contradictory. Its proposals seek to normalise and regulate rather than remedy a system in which lack of democratic…

Various sociological frameworks strongly suggest that recent changes to the English literature GCSE syllabus content will have a detrimental effect on those individuals who come from an environment with few sources of educationally exchangeable literary and linguistic cultural capital. In an attempt to provide a more sociological position from…

This article examines the minefield that now surrounds admissions starting with a comparison of the relatively easy system of the 1950s and early 1960s and the complexity of multiple admission authorities of today. Taking evidence from a range of agencies, including government official bodies, and admission issues, the article aims to show that a…

Following his previous article in this journal on the centralisation of power in English education post the 1988 Education Reform Act ("The Era of Centralisation", "FORUM", 50[2], pp. 255-261), the author considers the apparent turn to school autonomy central to the Conservative Educational Revolution. He argues that the power shift to the centre…

This article argues that one of the central paradoxes of neo-liberalism is currently being played out in the UK Coalition Government's education policy. Rhetoric that talks of freedoms to be enjoyed by schools and teachers is at variance with a centrally imposed, reductive view of the curriculum, continuing high-stakes scrutiny and the forcing of…

Recent governments have transformed the English education system from an arrangement of local, democratically managed, groups of schools into a market free-for-all in which individual schools compete for pupils, status and resources. Elements of a market exist in the relationship between parents and private schools but much market behaviour is…

The author, a former headteacher and now a county councillor, argues that the structural changes to the education system put in place in the first weeks of the new government in the summer of 2010 will exacerbate the gap between the highest and lowest achieving schools, will destabilise the state-funded education system, will expose it to…

In this article the author offers a few interim thoughts on how those of us campaigning for a comprehensive future should think about, and publicly respond to, the education policies of the current Coalition government and the new direction of the Labour Party. (Contains 1 note.)

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 examines the changing nature of comprehensive schooling in Finland since the 1990s and focuses on analysing the impact of the changes on equity and equality of opportunity. Comparisons are made between the development of "school markets" in the south of the country and the situation in the north of the country where the case study…

This article looks at one of the dominant themes of English education over the past twenty years. It examines the various ways in which privatisation has affected schools and schooling since the early 1980s. It may no longer be possible to indulge in a blanket defence of the public sector; but we do at least have to recognise that privatisation in…

This article looks at the introduction of the diplomas as part of the 14-19 reforms in England. It questions whether they can survive the low initial take-up from students, the lack of interest from key parts of the schools sector, and the confusing messages about what sort of qualification they are meant to be. It also asks whether the diplomas…

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 analyses the ways in which policy entrepreneurs have recently influenced physical education (PE) policy and practice in England and Scotland and discusses some of the implications this might have for students' learning opportunities within comprehensive schools in future years. And, while considerations of this sort raise a plethora…