Collaboration-Autonomy-Collaboration? A history of school improvement in the UK

Collaboration-Autonomy-Collaboration?A history of school improvement in the UK Peter Rudd University of York

MA in Post-War Recovery Studies: Quantitative Method

Aims of this presentation1. To provide a brief history of school

improvement in the UK based on a cycle of collaboration-autonomy-collaboration

2. To discuss the pros and cons of these approaches and their potential applicability to other national schooling systems.


Cycle of school system interactions: Collabor-

ation between schools

Autonomy for

schools

Collabor-ation to

rebalance autonomy

?


Collaboration 1: Natio

nal Governme

nt

• Ministry/Department for Education• Secretary of State for Education

Local Governme

nt

• Local Education Authorities (LEAs) (152)• First created by the Education Act 1902

Schools

• Primary schools (age 5-11 years)• Secondary schools (11-16 or 18)



Towards school autonomy• City Technology Colleges (CTCs)• Local Management of Schools (LMS)• Grant Maintained Status (GMS)• [Faith and Grammar Schools]• Specialist Schools Programme------------------------------------------------------• Academies• Free Schools


“The Government wants schools to take more responsibility for themselves and each other in delivering a true self-improving school system. It wants schools to look not to local authorities for expertise but to each other… a self-improving system needs a degree of coordination and strong incentives to encourage schools to look beyond their own school gate. Otherwise there is a danger that many schools will operate in isolation rather than in cooperation.” Graham Stuart, Chair of Education Committee, 2013.


Challenges to school autonomyDriven by notions of parental choice and locally-run schools, school autonomy increased dramatically from the 1990s onwards. But there were three underlying issues:• School accountability• Central government direction• Was this improving attainment?


‘Partnerships’ to re-balance autonomy• Beacon Schools• Federations of Schools• Excellence in Cities• London Challenge • City Challenge• NLEs, LLEs and SLEs• National Teaching Schools• Academy Chains


The new Conservative Government• 500 more Free Schools • Challenge to ‘coasting’ schools• Many more academies

Back to autonomy? Husbands (2015) refers to “a largely autonomous system of competing schools” and says that “England’s school system will look like few others in the world”.

Revised title (since May 7th):Collaboration-Autonomy-Collaboration-AutonomyApproaches to school improvement in the UK [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


References and further reading:

• Education Committee (2013). School Partnerships and Cooperation. House of Commons Select Committee, London.

• Husbands, C. (2015). ‘Conservative victory means England’s school system will look like few others in the world’. The Conversation, 9 May 2015.

• OECD (2011). ‘School autonomy and accountability: Are they related to student performance?’ PISA In Focus. OECD,

• Whitbourn, S, with Mitchell, K. & Morris, R. (2000). What is the LEA For? National Foundation for Educational Research, Slough, UK.

• Woods, D. (2014). ‘Re-balancing a school-led improvement system – lessons learned from the London Challenge’. Institute of Education, London.