Since devolution, the Scottish Government has had powers for education and child family policy (The Scotland Act, 1998) which sit apart from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This is the Scottish Government's great strength. This article begins by exposing the Scottish early learning and childcare context across the spectrum of policy,…

This article traces how some features of school inspection in England and Wales have changed since Her Majesty's Inspectorate was first established in 1839. The article describes how the inspectorate began its work; how, later on, a series of reviews and changes to legislation affected the exercise of its accountability and advisory functions; how…

An education reform claimocracy is rule by assertion, and in this article we examine the claims made for the academisation and MATification of the provision of and access to school places in England. We examine the claimocracy at work in regard to the Conservative government white paper, "Opportunity for All. Strong Schools with Great…

Alongside new models for government-funded professional development, England's academisation policy has significantly changed access, provision and responsibilities for teacher learning. This article reviews this impact on professional learning in primary mathematics, pointing to increased variability for teachers in the development they…

In Spring 2022, the campaigning group Reclaiming Education organised two webinars to explore the impact of academisation and consider alternatives, principally a return to local authority oversight or the establishment of local education boards. Speakers at the second event included Nigel Gann, Georgia Gould, Anntoinette Bramble and John McDonnell…

Greta Thunberg, teen environmental activist, famously said on school and education 'why should I be studying for a future that soon may be no more, when no one is doing anything to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts when the most important facts clearly mean nothing to our society?'. Thunberg's speech at the 2018 UN Climate…

Since 2002, the number of academy schools in England has increased -- first gradually and then, since the 2010 Academies Act, rapidly. For some, a full academisation of the school system in England appears inevitable. In this paper, however, I explore how new teachers and senior leaders within academy primary schools quietly resist identifying as…

This article reports on a conference organised by Reclaiming Education about the situation facing technical, vocational and further education as the COVID-19 pandemic slowly wanes. Issues addressed include the changing nature of the student cohort, the reduced scope for practical experience, the value of BTEC courses as against the new T-levels,…

English school policy since 1988 has increasingly been defined in neoliberal terms, with an emphasis on markets, competition, and education in its narrowest sense (ENS). However, for a brief interlude from 2005 to 2010, school leaders were challenged by a new Extended Schools (ES) policy to look outside their classrooms and beyond their school…

This article uses data from a research project exploring grouping practices based on 'ability' in classrooms for children aged 3-7 years in England to consider the relationship between teachers' views of ability and their ways of organising children. The widespread use of grouping with young children and the concomitant 'fixed-ability thinking' by…

We live in a democracy and yet our schools are far from democratic. Decisions made by central government, implemented by headteachers and policed by Ofsted are rarely scrutinised or debated by those whose daily lives are significantly affected by them. Little surprise then that there is so much disenchantment on the part of teachers, disaffection…

In Austria the process of business-oriented educational reforms started 15 years ago but it is only now, after the implementation of the new school-leaving exams in the 2014-15 school year, that everybody has become aware of the profound changes made in the educational system. Despite the long-lasting debates and arguments, and the visible…

This article investigates how vested interests, particularly the teacher unions, responded to the British Labour government's school reforms designed to increase educational equality. Two significant reforms introduced to this end were Circular 10/65 on comprehensive education and the Learning and Skills Act of 2000 on the City Academies. The…

There are problems with considering children and young people in schools as quite separate individuals, and with considering them as members of a single collectivity. The tension is represented in the use of "voice" and "voices" in educational debates. Voices in dialogue, in contrast to "children's voice", are…

Here, at "FORUM's" invitation, is the text of the 2014 Godfrey Thomson Trust public lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Its backdrop is the centralisation of educational decision-making in England since 1988 and the power and patronage exercised by the Secretary of State. Taking as examples recent policies on childhood, curriculum…