This article explains how education in Scotland is different from that in other parts of the United Kingdom, noting the importance of both traditional values and the current political context. Concerns about standards are discussed in relation to three main issues: the Scottish curriculum; the comprehensive principle; and attempts at structural…

This paper revisits the Macfarlane Report of 1980, the first draft of which recommended the dissolution of school sixth forms, sixth form colleges and other providers of post-compulsory education and training, and the establishment of a national system of tertiary colleges across England -- a programme of reform which would effectively have…

This article sifts the historical and philosophical soil out of which the comprehensive ideal in education has sprung. England's national school system emerged in the nineteenth century imbued with ruling-class assumptions about the education required for each supposed type of child destined to take his or her place in one of the three broad…

There are lines of demarcation between the political left and right, and also within the left, as regards central matters of education policy and how the purpose and value of education may be understood. This article details and distinguishes what is at stake, in particular between a revolutionary Marxist left and other currents, as regards a…

The post-war consensus has been dismantled in favour of a culture that rewards and empowers a small acquisitive elite at the expense of the great majority. This culture actively prevents the creation of a society of mutual recognition and respect. But without just such a society there can be no true comprehensive education. Where it exists,…

This article reflects on the two subsequent articles--the first by Mike Davies and the second by David Taylor--that provide exhilarating challenges to the diminishing and demeaning status quo of current education policy and practice in England.

This reflection does not pretend to be a scientific survey of curriculum trends but is, as the title suggests, a personal reminiscence of governorship across different phases of education, with snippets about the curriculum that my memory recalls.

This article is based on an inaugural professorial lecture given by Jane Martin at the University of Birmingham on 3 December 2014. It grew out of research in progress on the life and work of the leading educational reformer, Caroline Benn, wife of one of the most prominent and controversial post-war socialists in Britain, Tony Benn.

The author is a long-time advocate inside the Labour Party for ending selective education and the 11-plus. She outlines how Labour Party frontbenchers routinely ignore or deflect calls from Party members to stand up for comprehensive education in both word and deed. As UKIP, whose policy is to extend selective education more widely, rises in the…

It is 25 years since the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was abolished and management of education in central London transferred to 13 London boroughs. The author reflects on the experience of being an ex-ILEA head teacher, and of managing one of the new local education authorities in the immediate post-ILEA period. He begins by commenting…

This article argues that comprehensive reorganisation was not a one-off policy reform but a complex, bottom-up campaign for equity and fairness in education, with varied consequences and outcomes. Recent battles over student fees, free schools and academies show that the quest for democratic education does not lead to a permanent achievement but…

Anybody who has studied education over the past forty years is aware that secondary education in England is the subject of continuous and continuing debate. Everyone has been to school and therefore everyone lays claim to some expertise--the lot of teachers is never easy. But it is a contention of this article that teachers are at least partly…

Behind the thin veil of the Conservative regime's rationale of deficit reduction hides the final demolition of public comprehensive education and Raymond Williams's more expansive long revolution unfolding over a century of creating a democratic state that affords opportunity, voice and justice for all. Restoring the politics of a pre-war or…

Income inequality has been rising in Britain for two decades and wealth is also more unequally distributed now than when New Labour first came to power. Various factors have contributed to this, including education which, according to the PISA 2006 data, has more unequal outcomes in the UK than in all but 2 of the 29 tested countries. Comparative…

This article examines the curious position of the Academy model in the English school system and how a potential Hereford Steiner Waldorf Academy might figure in this. It sketches the background to the Steiner movement in the UK and goes on to set out the key aspirations and concerns of Steiner educators regarding an Academy. The article provides…