What Is The 1988 Reform Act To Present

Education both influences and reflects the values and aspirations of a society. It is therefore important to recognise a set of common aims, values and purposes that underpin a school curriculum and the work of schools in a range of countries (DfE, 2008). This comparative study will explore the curricula of England and Finland - discussing the history, structure and contents; and consider which of the above are more useful in preparing young adults for life in the modern society. With reference to the modern society, it is important to understand that what makes a society modern is entirely a subjective ideology. This takes into consideration that the views and expectations of one modern society may differ from the views and expectations

Acting on the recommendations of the 1987 Black Report, the British government brought in the 1988 Education Act. Parents were treated as if they were customers and pupils became both clients and products. What is important about the act is that it involved increased state control over the content of education. The act brought; the introduction of the National Curriculum, with achievement targets set for all pupils aged 7, 11, 14 and 16, Schools being allowed to opt out of local Education Authority (LEA) control if the majority of the parents voting in a ballot wished to do so, the financial management of schools was switched from the LEA to the boards of governors and City Technology Colleges were introduced.

Education Act 2002/2006 - Schools which have innovative ideas to improve education, but are prevented by an existing law from implementing them, will be able to apply for exemption from that law. Schools which demonstrate a high standard of teaching will be given exemption national controls such as the national curriculum, agreements on teachers' pay and conditions and the way the scheduling of the school day and terms. The act imposes various minimum standards for independent schools in areas such as health and safety and space requirements

“Why should schooling change at every state border?”, was written by the Deputy Principal of Narrenwood Secondary College, Stephen Buckle, in response to the proposal for a national curriculum. Using a well judged tone, Buckle argues that Australia needs to have a “common curriculum” in order to achieve unity across the country as Australians are “one people”. Opposing this proposal an anonymous writer of, “A single curriculum is not the answer” published in The Age contends in a dubious tone that a “Canberra-controlled curriculum” does not support independence. A cartoon by Job also responds to the issue of whether Australia should have a single national school curriculum and is condemning of the idea. Throughout the three different articles there is a range of different tones used in order to create different perspectives on the issue according to the audience of the pieces which is aimed commonly at people involved in the education system as well the parents of the children mentioned.

A study conducted in 2003 by Ofsted that involved England, Denmark and Finland, showed England’s national curriculum compared to the other two countries was:

Educational policies researcher Joel Spring (1996) discussed many arguments and historical background about various education topics found in the United States. For example, Spring tells us about the historical development of the Common Schools movement and the underlying groups—such as workingmen and political parties—that influenced the movement. In addition, Spring points out some of the implications the movement had on religious, ethnic, and multicultural groups. One particular idea that caught my attention was from the chapter entitled, “The Ideology and Politics of the Common School.” Indeed, my entire conceptual understanding of K-12 education had been predicated on the idea that high schools were part of the original conception of public

The government’s expectation for teachers to achieve outstanding has been slowly increasing and has been placing educators under more stress for their pupils to succeed. The delivering of the curriculum should be the most important aspect of a child’s school vocation as this provides them with the foundation of knowledge they will need to gain employment in the future. The expectation from the government on schools within the United Kingdom is to consistently be providing respectable exam results annually and this is how they are being judged by such departments as Ofsted. Should the teachers be continuing to stay within the guidelines of the curriculum? Or should more emphasis be put out there to question whither effective primary teaching is all about just delivering the curriculum to children or based on annual exam results that are collected each year to critic the educational setting. This essay will critically discuss what effective primary teaching is and cover if teaching and learning is really all about results rather than nurturing the child to be prepared for life.

The Education system of England and Wales underwent a number of important changes since 1944. This essay seeks to concentrate on these major changes describing the rationale and impact they had on the British education system.

Morrison argues that a democratic form of education was rooted in pre-industrial societies. Imitation, modeling and communication were present through societal life in place of formal schooling (Koonce, 2015).

Education is considered a right in most first world countries and compulsory public education has been in effect in the United States for over a century. So, why do governments have trouble assigning a purpose to public education and experiencing student growth across the board? How can schools change their approach in order to ensure that their students are ready to create their own opportunities? Scholar and politician Winston Churchill notes in his autobiography, My Early Life, “But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man’s Life must be nailed to a cross of either Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.” (p. 113) From this it can be concluded that Churchill believes the purpose of education is to teach students how to be active in their community along with the importance of judgement and choice, in order to further the success of their country.

The Act established a system of 'school boards' to build and control schools in areas where they were needed. Children were taught a standardised curriculum of reading, writing and arithmetic. A Durkheimian would consider the Education Act to be a standardised way of passing down the same information to all of the children in the country. Durkheim believed that ‘for each society, education is the means by which it secures, in the children, the essential conditions of its own existence'. (UNESCO, 2001). Some would say this statement means that education is considered a key mechanism of passing on and preserving society’s culture. The new generation acquires and develops the central values of their society.

being rejected by universities because the thing they were good at it in school did not matter. This ethos appeal persuades the audience to believe of the displeasing points Sir Ken Robinson makes and changes their judgment in regards to the public education system as a whole. Moreover, the ethos appeal discussed within this speech does no

Schools also have a hidden curriculum in which values and norms of behaviour are transmitted. For example, wearing a school uniform and keeping to a set timetable can all be seen as activities that encourage particular standards of behaviour which could be viewed as producing disciplined future workers. Therefore the hidden curriculum implies that pupils not only learn formal subjects such as English or physics but also receive hidden messages about their class, ethnicity and gender from their experience of schooling. Through the choice of teaching strategies and characteristics chosen to be employed by educational institutions it indirectly conveys to students the norms, values and expectations. This is what we refer to as the hidden curriculum. As we will later explore there are many that argue the hidden curriculum and processes within schools help to produce inequalities between children of different social classes. Whitty and Young (1976) view the

Bowles and Gintis felt it was important to write this article, because they believe that the politics of education are better understood in terms of the need for social control in an unequal and rapidly changing economic order. This point is illustrated on page 396 when the authors say, “The unequal

The period between 1965 and the latter end of the 1980s witnessed significant developments in the provision of post primary education in Ireland. This coincided with changes in Irish and indeed worldwide society. What makes the changes that came about so significant was the fact that for so long education policy in Ireland had remained practically untouched. From the 1920s to the 1950s, Ireland was still a place where education was seen as Ideological and a “preserve of the middle classes”. The church/religious