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Education in England: a brief history Introduction
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Education in England: a brief history
Chapter 6 1997-2007 The Blair decade: selection, privatisation and faith © copyright Derek Gillard 2007
Perhaps most importantly, selection for secondary education would finally be abolished. There were good grounds for believing this. After all, David Blunkett, then shadow education secretary, had promised the Labour Party Conference on 4 October 1995: 'Read my lips. No selection by examination or interview.' And the move would have had widespread public support. An ICM poll in 1996 had shown that 65 per cent of the population supported comprehensive education, while only 27 per cent favoured a selective system. (The Guardian 7 February 1996, quoted in Chitty and Dunford 1999) But it was all to prove a delusion. The first 'New Labour' government, swept to power in May 1997 with a Commons majority of 179, was to prove very different from any previous Labour government. Indeed, in many ways - its belief in market forces and its commitment to globalisation, for example - it would be virtually indistinguishable from its Tory predecessor. (See my article New Labour - New Values?) The Adonis Problem
A former journalist and Liberal Democrat, Adonis joined Labour in December 1995 after Blair forced the party to end its commitment to public ownership. (The Guardian 27 January 2005) He became a member of the Number 10 Policy Unit from 1998 (its head from 2001 to 2003) and in 2005 Blair gave him a life peerage and the post of junior education minister. He has exerted a powerful influence on New Labour education policies, coming up with a constant stream of ideas - including the academies programme - and, according to some, repeatedly interfering, for example over the vexed issue of university top-up fees. (The Guardian 1 November 2002) Several education secretaries appear to have suffered as a result of 'The Adonis Problem', as insiders dubbed it. It seems that their role was not to make education policy but to promote the policies devised by Adonis and Blair. The most notable casualty was Estelle Morris, who, it is widely believed, resigned because she felt undermined by Adonis. (The Guardian 1 November 2002) There were suspicions that Charles Clarke was told to keep quiet when he raised questions about the effectiveness of grammar schools. And Ruth Kelly found herself overruled when it came to some of the proposals in the 2005 white paper. (Daily Mail 17 October 2005; The Observer 23 October 2005)
1997-2001 Destroying the comprehensive ideal
Few were surprised, therefore, when David Blunkett (pictured), now secretary of state for education, announced that Chris Woodhead would be keeping his job as chief inspector of schools and head of Ofsted. In relation to selection, despite Blunkett's promise, the warning signs had been clear. The 1995 Labour policy document Diversity and Excellence: a new partnership for schools, for example, had set out the party's new thinking on grammar schools: 'Our opposition to academic selection at 11 has always been clear. But while we have never supported grammar schools in their exclusion of children by examination, change can come only through local agreement. Such change in the character of a school could only follow a clear demonstration of support from the parents affected by such decisions.' (Labour Party 1995) 
1997 White Paper: Excellence in Schools The new government's education policies were set out in the white paper Excellence in Schools, published in July 1997. It proposed that:
Selection The white paper made it clear that the Conservative policy of 'selection by specialisation' would be pursued. It said 'We will ensure that schools with a specialism will continue to be able to give priority to those children who demonstrate the relevant aptitude, as long as that is not misused to select on the basis of general academic ability'. (DfEE 1997) The government's aim was to have 500 specialist schools open by September 2000 and 650 a year later. Of comprehensive schools, the white paper said: 'The demands for equality and increased opportunity in the 1950s and 1960s led to the introduction of comprehensive schools. All-in secondary schooling rightly became the normal pattern, but the search for equality of opportunity in some cases became a tendency to uniformity. The idea that all children had the same rights to develop their abilities led too easily to the doctrine that all had the same ability. The pursuit of excellence was too often equated with elitism.' (DfEE 1997)With regard to grammar schools, the white paper proposed that 'local parents must have an interest in the decisions on whether their selective admissions arrangements should continue'. (DfEE 1997) The white paper's proposals were implemented in the 1998 School Standards and Framework Act which:
'Except in music and perhaps art, it does not seem possible to diagnose specific aptitudes for most school curriculum subjects. Instead, what seems to emerge from such testing is a general ability to learn, which is often, but not always, associated with the various advantages of coming from a middle-class home. How can head teachers know if the "aptitude" of a ten year old in German shows anything more than the parents' ability to pay for language lessons?' (quoted in Chitty 2004)Blunkett's pre-election promise 'Read my lips. No selection' now became 'Read my lips, no more selection,' which meant precisely the opposite: selection would remain in those areas which practised it unless parents voted against it locally. Indeed, the mantra of the Blair government's first term was 'standards not structures', by which it meant that it would be concerned with raising pupils' achievement rather than worrying about the types of school which they attended. It was pointed out by a number of educationists that this was a false dichotomy, since the type of school attended - grammar, secondary modern, comprehensive - did indeed have a significant effect on a pupil's achievement. In How can we know the dancer from the dance? (Forum Spring 1998), Peter Newsam demolished the argument - increasingly being implied if not stated outright by government ministers - that comprehensive schools had been a failure: 'Where schools that are comprehensive, in the full sense of admitting the full range of ability, have been developed, the pressure of places on them tends to be severe and the notion of middle class or any other form of flight from them is false. Such schools perform consistently well and, if properly supported, will do better still.' And writing in The Guardian (13 October 1998), Clyde Chitty commented: 'Guided by the oft-repeated "standards not structures" mantra, education ministers show a marked reluctance to tackle the anomalies and inequities inherited from the Conservatives. After nearly eighteen months of a Labour government, we have an education system in England and Wales ... that is as unfair and divided as it was during the eighteen years of Conservative rule. It might have been unrealistic to expect Education and Employment Minister David Blunkett to change everything overnight. What is really dispiriting is that New Labour policies are exacerbating rather than removing existing divisions.' (Chitty 1998)He concluded 'New Labour is clearly basing its education policy on the principles of competition, choice and diversity - the popular themes of all Conservative White Papers. Under the guise of "modernising" the comprehensive principle, the government is effectively destroying it.'But Blair and Blunkett weren't listening and the assault on the comprehensive school continued. 1999 saw the inception of the Fresh Start scheme, which aimed to revitalise 'failing' inner-city comprehensive schools by appointing so-called 'superheads'. Within a year several of them had resigned and the scheme fizzled out. In January 2000 Tony Blair announced that hundreds of comprehensive schools would be turned into 'specialist colleges' over the following three years. The scheme, developed by Downing Street (Adonis?) and a new Policy and Innovation Division within the education department, would effectively consign the comprehensive system - the great egalitarian dream of the sixties - to history. Schools would achieve specialist status by raising £50,000 in business sponsorship, setting improvement targets and involving the local community. In return they would get a £100,000 capital grant and £120 extra per pupil per year for at least four years and would be allowed to select up to ten per cent of their intake on the basis of aptitude. Clearly Blair's New Labour government was not abolishing selection - it was actually extending it. A few weeks later, David Blunkett told The Sunday Telegraph (12 March 2000) that it was time to abandon 'Labour's historic campaign against grammar schools': 'I'm not interested in hunting the remaining grammar schools ... I'm desperately trying to avoid the whole debate in education once again, as it was in the 1960s and 1970s, concentrating on the issue of selection, when it should be concentrating on the raising of standards ... There are only 164 grammar schools - let's get on with the job of giving a decent education to all the kids.' (quoted in Chitty 2004)In the same month, the first parental ballot on selection - at Ripon in Yorkshire - resulted in the town keeping its grammar school. 1,493 of the 3,000 parents who were entitled to vote supported the selective system; 748 voted to abolish it. It was pointed out that a quarter of those voting lived outside the school's area and another quarter had children in independent preparatory schools. Nevertheless, the result was disastrous for supporters of comprehensive education and rendered it 'highly unlikely that groups of parents in other parts of the country would risk wasting time and money on a similar enterprise'. (Chitty 2004) Meanwhile, junior education minister Stephen Byers was busy 'naming and shaming' eighteen 'failing schools', a policy which - combined with the effects of league tables and parental choice - inevitably caused poorer schools (usually those in less affluent areas) to become even worse. As these schools become less popular, they found it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain good staff. It was a vicious circle. Rather than improve the situation for pupils in the poorer areas, therefore, government policies actually exacerbated the problem and widened the divide between successful and unsuccessful schools. Blair's determination to destroy comprehensive education in England was all the more extraordinary given the direction in which other parts of the UK were travelling. Research commissioned by the Northern Ireland Office, published in 2000, 'identified a number of the undesirable effects of selection, including the existence of a long tail of underachieving schools and a "polarity of achievement", as well as the under-representation of children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in grammar schools'. (Jones 2003) Scotland, which was fully comprehensive, had better GCSE results and less social class inequality than England. And the Welsh Assembly's first major statement on education envisaged 'a fully comprehensive system of learning' aimed at 'narrowing inequalities between advantaged and disadvantaged areas, groups and individuals.' (National Assembly for Wales 2001) 'New Labour has constructed a version of post-war history whose first purpose is to draw a line between itself and the Labour governments which preceded it. In education at least, the evidence that is offered in support of this interpretation is drawn almost exclusively from an English experience and there appears to be little interest in learning from the policy histories of other countries in Britain, even where these contain much that is relevant to thinking about the relationship between educational organisation, opportunity, achievement and social class.' (Jones 2003)
Privatisation Education Action Zones One of the earliest indications of the enthusiasm of New Labour for privatisation of the education service was the setting up of Education Action Zones (EAZs). These consisted of clusters of schools in deprived areas working together, with government grants and sponsorship from local businesses, and assuming some of the functions of the LEA. Schools in EAZs were allowed to dispense with the National Curriculum and were encouraged to innovate. Blunkett announced the first 25 EAZs in June 1998 and the first 12 of these started work in September 1998 with sponsorship from Blackburn Rovers, Cadbury Schweppes, Nissan, Rolls Royce, Kelloggs, British Aerospace, Tate and Lyle, American Express and Brittany Ferries. But the government's enthusiasm for EAZs was short-lived. In March 1999 it began the much larger Excellence in Cities (EiC) initiative, a three year programme to improve the education of inner city children. The aim was to drive up standards to match those found in the best schools - now to be designated 'beacon schools'. Unlike the EAZs, EiC operated through the traditional channels of Whitehall, LEA and school. 73 large EAZs were eventually set up, but in 2001 two reports - by the National Audit Office and the Institute of Public Policy Research - suggested that EAZs had largely failed to generate adequate private sponsorship or deliver on the promises made when they were set up. And in June 2003 Ofsted reported that in the 73 EAZs, the number of pupils gaining five A*-C grades at GCSE had gone down in two zones, risen in one, and remained static in the others. Truancy by secondary pupils was 'still disturbingly high'. Businesses were less than enthusiastic about putting money into the EAZs. In Newham, for example, construction giants Mowlem and Laing offered to show pupils round their training centre. That went down as a £40,000 contribution to the zone. (The Guardian 9 July 2004) Contracting out
In May 2000 school standards minister Estelle Morris (pictured) announced that consultants would be sent into the LEAs in Bradford, Rochdale and Waltham Forest to advise on how improvements could be made after Ofsted uncovered 'serious weaknesses' in their work. And the following month she announced the privatisation of Leeds LEA which lost control of its school services following a damning inspection report. City academies The creeping privatisation of education took a major step forward in March 2000 when David Blunkett announced that the government intended to create a network of 'city academies' - effectively private schools paid for by the state - closely modelled on the 'charter schools' in the US and the Conservatives' city technology colleges. City academies were to be public/private partnerships. Businesses, churches and voluntary groups would build and manage them, and they would be outside the control of local authorities. In return for a £2m donation towards the capital costs, sponsors would be allowed to rename the school, control the board of governors and influence the curriculum. Blunkett described the city academies programme as 'a radical approach to promote greater diversity and break the cycle of failing schools in inner cities'. (The 'city' was soon to be dropped to allow for the creation of rural academies). But, as Francis Beckett pointed out in The Guardian (9 July 2004): 'the government's big idea for education turns out to be the one the Conservatives invented 19 years ago, and abandoned as a failure shortly afterwards. It is even run by the same man: Cyril Taylor, the businessman appointed by the Conservatives in 1986 to create 30 city technology colleges.'
Curriculum and testing National Curriculum The New Labour government seemed to have mixed views on the value of the National Curriculum. It announced that only English, maths, science, IT and swimming were now to be statutory requirements for primary schools, though the schools were still required to provide a 'broad curriculum'. National Literacy Strategy In January 1998 schools standards minister Stephen Byers announced ambitious literacy targets for every LEA in England and said he would 'expose' complacent primary schools which coasted along with above average test results. The targets were designed to raise the proportion reaching the required standard in English tests from 57 per cent in 1996 to 80 per cent by 2002. In 1999 the Moser Report Improving Literacy and Numeracy: A Fresh Start set out the National Literacy Strategy and introduced National Learning Targets. This represented a considerable increase in government interference in the curriculum. Whereas the Tories had told teachers what to teach, New Labour now told them how to teach it: the 'Literacy Hour' (and later, the 'Numeracy Hour') spelt out content and teaching methods in enormous detail. Special needs The 1997 Green Paper Excellence for all children: meeting special educational needs set out how the government proposed to improve the achievements of children with special educational needs in England over the following five years.
Other developments in the period 1997-2001 The 1998 Teaching and Higher Education Act established the General Teaching Council (GTC), abolished student maintenance grants and required students to contribute towards tuition fees. Chief inspector and head of Ofsted Chris Woodhead resigned in November 2000 and went off to write tirades against New Labour education policies for the Daily Telegraph. Some saw his departure as 'the final lifting of a deadweight on morale and hope'. (Mary Riddell The Observer 5 November 2000)
2001-2005 Diversity and faith With the Tories still in meltdown mode, New Labour won another landslide victory in the general election in June 2001. A Commons majority of 166 - only slightly less than in 1997 - meant that Tony Blair could push further his right-wing educational agenda without worrying too much about the views of his left-wing backbenchers. The two main themes of his first term - an increase in selection under the guise of specialisation, and the promotion of privatisation - would be taken further in his second term and would be joined by a third theme - a determination to increase the involvement of the churches and other religious groups in educational provision.
2001 White Paper: Schools - achieving success Following the election, Estelle Morris took over from David Blunkett as secretary of state for education. In September 2001 the white paper Schools - Achieving Success proposed:
Faith schools 7,000 of England's 25,000 state schools were already faith schools - 589 secondary and 6,384 primary. But the government was determined to press ahead and create even more such schools. Among forty projects already being planned were a £12 million Islamic secondary school for girls in Birmingham, an evangelical Christian school in Leeds and a new Jewish school in London. The Salvation Army and the Seventh Day Adventists said they were evaluating 'opportunities created by the white paper'. There was widespread public concern about the government's plans for more faith schools. A YouGov/Observer poll of nearly 6,000 people found that 80 per cent were against the proposal and only 11 per cent in favour. (The Observer 11 November 2001) The issue became even more controversial in the spring of 2002 when it was revealed that at least two state funded religious schools in England were teaching their students 'creationism' as science. Questioned in the House of Commons about the use of taxpayers' money to fund such teaching, Tony Blair avoided answering the question and claimed that 'a more diverse school system ... will deliver better results for our children'. Concerns about the place of faith in education continued throughout Blair's second term. In January 2005 chief inspector David Bell told a meeting of the Hansard Society that the growth of Islamic schools posed a challenge to the coherence of British society. Senior Muslims called his remarks 'irresponsible' and 'derogatory'. (The Guardian 18 January 2005) But Bell was supported by Commission for Racial Equality chair Trevor Phillips. 'We can choose ... whether we want to bring our diversity together in a single rainbow or whether we allow our differences to fester into separate cultures and separate communities', he said. (The Guardian 19 January 2005) Schools minister Stephen Twigg urged faith schools to 'promote understanding' between different religions. (The Guardian 18 February 2005) Glass in their snowballs - the faith schools debate; Creationism: bad science, bad religion, bad education; and Never mind the evidence: Blair's obsession with faith schools
Selection - the end of the comprehensive? Meanwhile, New Labour's assault on comprehensive education continued. In December 2001 school standards minister Stephen Timms announced a £500,000 scheme for partnerships between 28 grammar schools and nearby secondary moderns and comprehensives. It was the first time a Labour government had given extra money to grammar schools as a group. The scheme met with widespread criticism. Liberal Democrat education spokesman Phil Willis responded 'The last nail has been driven into the coffin of the comprehensive system. A Labour government that promised to end selection has now indicated a return to wholesale selection by ability. This is a sad day for those who believe in the principle of comprehensive education.'And Secondary Heads Association general secretary John Dunford said 'It is a bizarre use of public money to create a more diverse system and then have to provide additional funding for the diverse parts of the system to collaborate.' (The Guardian 8 December 2001) But the government's campaign against the comprehensive school was relentless. Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell denigrated them as 'bog standard comprehensives' and in June 2002 Estelle Morris announced that the days of the 'one size fits all' comprehensive were over. The number of specialist schools would increase to 1,000 in 2003 and to at least 1,500 by 2005, she said. They would be allowed to select up to ten per cent of their pupils by aptitude. Twisting the meaning of words to a degree that was extraordinary - even for a New Labour minister - Morris wrote: 'I believe in the comprehensive ideal. We have to encourage every single one of our secondary schools to develop their own sense of mission and play to their strengths. That's why we will invest in specialist schools and training schools, beacon schools and city academies, each school choosing its own identity within the comprehensive family.' (The Observer 23 June 2002)In September 2002 the first three city academies were opened. Head teachers criticised them as divisive.
But Clarke appeared to be somewhat shaken at the results of research into the effects of selection undertaken by Professor David Jesson of York University. Jesson compared the results of two local education authorities with similar profiles, one with a comprehensive system and one with a selective system. His research showed that in the comprehensive authority 52 per cent of pupils achieved five or more good GCSEs. In the authority with grammar schools the figure was 48 per cent. (The Guardian 15 October 2002) In December 2002 Clarke told MPs that he wanted local authorities to take a fresh look at the evidence that selective schools 'inhibited' educational opportunities for a wide range of young people. (The Guardian 12 December 2002) And in January 2003 he criticised Kent for its poor results. (Kent was - and still is - selective). After that, however, he said nothing more on the issue, leading some to suspect that he had been told (by Blair/Adonis presumably) to keep quiet about it. But the arguments over selection wouldn't go away. In February 2003 a report by the Institute of Public Policy Research said parental choice was an 'illusion' in London and it urged that control over admissions - including those to grammar schools, church schools and foundation schools - should be handed back to local authorities. Fiona Millar, a former adviser to Tony Blair's wife, argued that the government's policy on admissions to secondary education was 'neither coherent nor fair'. (The Guardian 11 November 2003) She criticised the way ministers congratulated 'successful' schools on their results. 'These schools are often wholly or partially selective by ability, or in some cases city technology colleges, former grant maintained or church schools, which are also able to set their own admissions and use opaque "banding" tests or interviews to engineer more favourable intakes for themselves.' In May 2003 the Labour-dominated Commons education select committee criticised the government for spending £400m on specialist schools without any real evidence that the policy was working and said there was 'a serious mismatch' between government rhetoric and reality over its claim that specialist schools brought more choice and diversity for parents. The committee also disapproved of allowing specialist schools to select up to ten per cent of their students on the basis of aptitude, which ministers repeatedly insisted was different from ability. 'We are not satisfied that any meaningful distinction between aptitude and ability has been made and we found no justification for any reliance on the distinction between them', the committee said. But none of this prevented the government from pursuing its policy of promoting a diversity of different types of school. In September 2003 nine more academies opened, bringing the total to twelve. Tony Blair opened the first purpose-built new academy - the Business Academy Bexley - a £31m publicly-funded independent school which replaced a former 'failing' school in Thamesmead, south-east London. The following month a report by Ofsted and the Audit Commission Schools, Places, Planning: the influence of school place planning on school standards and social inclusion warned the government that its policy of allowing parents to choose their child's school was polarising the education system and trapping poor children in the worst schools. Chief inspector David Bell said 'Local education authorities must take action to prevent unpopular schools from sinking further, fully aligning their strategies for overall school place provision with their strategies for individual school improvement. The expansion of popular schools is no solution by itself.' In November 2003 Blair gave a keynote speech on education to launch the next phase of the London Challenge which aimed to improve educational opportunities for inner-city pupils. He announced that five central London boroughs - Islington, Hackney, Haringey, Southwark and Lambeth - had all been identified as needing extra help and monitoring and had agreed improvement plans with the DfES. New academies were planned in Islington, Hackney and Lambeth.
Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners The government's five year plan, published in July 2004, would form the basis for its next education white paper. The plan 'sounded the death knell of the comprehensive system'. (Rebecca Smithers The Guardian 9 July 2004) It proposed:
In amongst all the talk of modernisation there were some extraordinarily traditional ideas, designed to stop middle-class parents taking their children out of the state sector: school uniforms, rigorous discipline, even the 'house system' popular in independent schools. (The Guardian 9 July 2004) Teacher unions and grassroots Labour supporters were appalled at the proposals and demanded a manifesto pledge to scrap grammar schools and end selection by aptitude. (The Observer 11 July 2004) They were, of course, ignored. NUT general secretary Steve Sinnott warned that 'parents will be faced with a confused and confusing array of schools rather than choice and diversity. Parents will not have the power to choose. Instead, that power will lie in the hands of the governing body and the head teacher - leading to selection by stealth and increased frustration and disappointment for parents.' (The Guardian 8 July 2004)
The academies programme Five more academies opened in September 2004, bringing the total to 17. The five year plan indicated that the government intended to have 200 academies open by 2010, despite the fact that no evaluation had been made of their cost-effectiveness. Charles Clarke himself admitted that academies were expensive and that there was no evidence that they were improving performance. Concerns about the programme centred around the following issues:
With 17 academies open and 42 planned, the government was, by the end of 2004, nearly a third of the way to its target of 200. But the problems continued. In March 2005 league tables based on test results for 14 year olds in English, maths and science, showed that nine of the 11 academies came in the bottom 200 schools in England. The Commons education select committee complained that 'it is difficult to detect a coherent overarching strategy for the government's proposals for education' and urged that the projected £5,000m budget for setting up 200 academies be withheld until they were proved to be cost-effective. (The Guardian 17 March 2005)
Curriculum and testing National Literacy Strategy Increasing concerns were expressed about the effectiveness of the National Literacy Strategy. Ministers announced that it would be reviewed, since it had failed to deliver any improvement in reading and writing scores in three consecutive years. (The Guardian 9 January 2003) Many - including some eminent writers - criticised the sterile nature of much of the strategy. In The Guardian (5 June 2003) award-winning author Philip Pullman wrote of a task recently undertaken by 200,000 eleven year olds in their Key Stage 2 tests: 'They were confronted with four crudely drawn pictures of a boy standing in a queue to buy a toy, and they then had to write a story about them, taking exactly 45 minutes. It was a task of stupefying worthlessness and futility, something no one who was serious about the art of storytelling could regard with anything other than contempt.'Bowing to pressure from the teacher unions and others, Charles Clarke announced that primary school tests and targets would be streamlined. The tests for seven year olds would be less formal and would form part of a wider teacher-led assessment. (The Guardian 20 May 2003) In November 2003 the QCA published materials designed to help teachers develop their pupils' speaking and listening skills. In December 2004 Ofsted published Reading for Purpose and Pleasure - an evaluation of reading in primary schools, which said that continued improvement in reading standards was being marred by an increasing gulf between schools which successfully tackled weaknesses in reading and those that did not. (The Guardian 15 December 2004) Foreign languages In 2002 the government published its strategy for the teaching of foreign languages: Languages for All: languages for life. But in September 2004 new arrangements for the Key Stage 4 (post 14) curriculum - to allow schools to develop a more personalised and flexible programme for pupils - led to a dramatic reduction in the number of pupils learning a foreign language. Tests, targets and league tables In February 2004 chief inspector David Bell warned the government that its enforced focus on maths and English in primary schools was creating a 'two-tier curriculum', with other subjects - particularly geography, history and religious education - being neglected. NUT general secretary Doug McAvoy commented 'history, geography and the arts are suffering because of the government's obsession with tests, targets and tables'. (The Guardian 5 February 2004) And a government-commissioned report by former chief inspector Mike Tomlinson warned that exam overload was harming pupils. (The Observer 15 February 2004) The obsession with tests, targets and tables applied only to England. Scotland had already abandoned tests in favour of teacher assessment; Wales had abolished tests for seven year olds and school league tables in 2001. Now, Welsh education minister Jane Davidson announced that the tests for 11 and 14 year olds were to be scrapped and replaced with a skills test for 10 year olds, supported by teacher assessments. (The Guardian 14 July 2004) Schools in England, however, would have to go on testing children regularly because the government believed such tests were necessary to drive up standards. Teachers had to share part of the blame. In December 2003 the NUT had balloted its members on a boycott of the tests for 7 and 11 year olds: the proposal was lost because only 34 per cent of the membership had bothered to vote. In February 2005 David Bell warned that more than ten per cent of state schools in England were failing to show 'sufficient progress' in raising standards and that only one in three secondary schools had acceptable standards of behaviour. (The Guardian 3 February 2005) 14-19 curriculum In May 2004 Charles Clarke announced an overhaul of the modern apprenticeships programme. There would be apprenticeships for 14 to 16 year olds, with pupils spending up to two days a week in the workplace learning a trade. He rejected criticisms that this amounted to a reintroduction of selection and insisted that the new scheme would attract motivated and able pupils. (The Guardian 11 May 2004) In October 2004 the working group chaired by former chief inspector Mike Tomlinson published its report 14-19 Curriculum and Qualifications Reform. Tomlinson identified the following problems:
Tomlinson's recommendations were backed by heads, by the chief inspector of schools and by the head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Barry Sheerman, chair of the Commons education and skills select committee, wrote (in The Guardian 21 February 2005) that the government's decision would be 'the most significant for education' during Tony Blair's premiership.
The newly-appointed education secretary, Ruth Kelly (pictured), told the Commons 'there are some who argue that to transform opportunities for our children, we should scrap the current GCSEs and A Levels. I do not agree. We won't transform opportunities by abolishing what is good.' The white paper proposed:
Many thought they could detect the hand of Andrew Adonis and the Number 10 Policy Unit behind the white paper. When Kelly appeared before the Commons education select committee to defend the white paper, she was supported by Tory MPs and attacked by Labour members.
Pupil behaviour In July 2003 the government abandoned a £59m behaviour management training programme for newly qualified teachers because it needed the money to avoid teacher redundancies caused by a shortfall in school budgets. (The Independent 29 July 2003) But concerns continued to be expressed - by David Bell among others - that too many children were starting school lacking even the most basic social and communication skills. As a result, in September 2003 the minister for young people Ivan Lewis announced a £5m pilot programme in 3,500 primary schools to tackle bullying and disruptive behaviour in children as young as five. (The Guardian 4 September 2003)
Teachers' pay and conditions In August 2002 the government announced that teachers' pay would, for the first time since the 'payment by results' scheme in the nineteenth century, be linked to test results or pupils' behaviour. (The Guardian 2 August 2002) 'Workforce remodelling' began in September 2003. This government initiative aimed to reduce teachers' workload by employing more unqualified classroom assistants. All the teacher unions cooperated except the NUT, which warned that it would result in larger classes and teaching by unqualified staff. Charles Clarke was so angry that he refused to attend NUT conferences and banned DfES staff from negotiating with NUT representatives. Eighteen months later two other unions - ATL and NASUWT - expressed anger over the workload agreement. They said heads were refusing to guarantee teachers time for planning and assessment. (The Guardian 22, 30 March 2005) Schools minister Stephen Twigg minister was booed and jeered by head teachers when he told them that no new money would be offered to cover the cost of giving teachers time for marking and preparation. (The Guardian 2 May 2005)
Every Child Matters In 2003, the government published its green paper Every Child Matters, following the death of Victoria Climbié, the young girl who was horrifically abused, tortured and eventually killed by her great aunt and the man with whom they lived. In November 2004 The Children Act established a Children's Commissioner to champion the views and interests of children and young people, and required local authorities to make arrangements to promote cooperation between agencies and other appropriate bodies (such as voluntary and community organisations) in order to improve children's well-being. To go with the Act, the government published Every Child Matters: change for children (December 2004) which set out the radical changes needed across the whole system of children's services, including schools.
School buildings In February 2004 the government announced Building Schools for the Future (BSF), a massive school rebuilding programme. More than £5,000m would be spent rebuilding or refurbishing every secondary school in England within 15 years, and a further £3,000m would be spent on capital programmes mainly benefiting primary schools. The programme would be financed partly from public funds and partly using the controversial private finance initiative (PFI).
Higher education In January 2004 the government just managed to get through the Commons its controversial bill to allow universities to charge variable top-up fees.
2005-2007 Third term extremism New Labour won a historic third term in office at the general election in May 2005, though with a much reduced majority in the Commons. For the first time ever in a British election, the winning party gained fewer votes than the number of people who didn't vote at all. Blair berated the public for its apathy. But it wasn't apathy that kept people away from the polling booths. It was a combination of disgust at Blair's decision to support Bush's Iraq war and the blatant lies which had preceded it; lack of enthusiasm for a Tory opposition which had run a distasteful campaign focused on immigration; and the fact that, in terms of policies, there was nothing to choose between Blair and the Conservatives. There was a public outcry when Blair proposed making Andrew Adonis a minister. He had no ministerial experience, had never been elected, and was widely seen as one of 'Tony's cronies'. Blair ignored the concerns and gave Adonis a life peerage and the post of junior education minister. Blair's overall aim in his last term as prime minister was that 'the state should no longer be primarily a direct provider of services, but instead become a regulator and commissioner of services purchased from public, private and voluntary sectors. In one shape or other, markets are being introduced into the public sector - "contestability", in the jargon - in which providers compete not necessarily over price, but quality.' (Patrick Wintour The Guardian 25 October 2005)
2005 White paper: Higher standards, better schools for all The white paper clearly demonstrated that the longer a party remains in power, the more extreme its policies become. It proposed that:
This caused problems for education secretary Ruth Kelly, who warned that the proposal to create trust schools was ill-thought through. She was overruled by Adonis and Blair and was warned by colleagues that if she didn't go along with them her ministerial career would be a short one. (Daily Mail 17 October 2005; The Observer 23 October 2005) But it wasn't only Kelly who was unhappy with Blair's proposals. Teachers and Labour MPs were furious and even cabinet members (including Gordon Brown and John Prescott) were worried. Former education secretary Estelle Morris described the white paper as 'one of the most contradictory documents ever produced by government'. (The Guardian 22 November 2005) More than a hundred Labour MPs threatened to rebel. Their main concern centred, once again, around the issue of selection. Blair pointed out that selection on grounds of ability had been illegal in new schools since 1998, but his critics argued that this still left a large - and probably increasing - role for covert selection. The white paper's proposal to take many more schools out of local authority control and give them greater autonomy in determining their selection procedures would make the situation worse, and the proposed code of admissions did not have statutory force. In mid December, a group of 58 Labour backbenchers - including nine former ministers - published an alternative white paper. They said the plans for trust schools were likely to 'strengthen rather than break' the link between being poor and underachieving in education. (The Guardian 15 December 2005) Kelly responded that trust schools were not 'a new category of school' and would be no more independent from local authorities than existing foundation schools. (The Guardian 20 December 2005) This was disingenuous, to say the least, and she was given an extremely hostile reception by local government officials at the North of England education conference in Newcastle. (The Guardian 7 January 2006) By mid January, more than half of Labour backbenchers had signed up to the alternative white paper. (The Guardian 18 January 2006) Kelly made matters worse by telling them they 'didn't understand' the plans. (The Guardian 21 January 2006) Relations deteriorated even further when it was revealed that Kelly had suppressed a crucial report warning that her plans would widen the educational gulf between rich and poor children. (The Observer 22 January 2006) And the Sutton Trust published new research showing that top-performing comprehensives which controlled their own admissions were already excluding poorer pupils. (The Guardian 24 January 2006) As the first reading of the education bill drew nearer, attempts were made to find compromises, especially on the issues of admissions and the role of local authorities. Deputy prime minister John Prescott caved in. 'My ideas have developed about how we can take forward the traditional values of comprehensive education in a modern setting', he said. (The Guardian 4 February 2006) Having made a number of concessions, Blair refused any further changes to his bill (The Guardian 7, 9 February 2006) and Kelly insisted she would retain her right to prevent local authorities opening new comprehensive schools. (The Guardian 27 February 2006) Many backbenchers deeply disapproved of the mass handover of publicly owned, democratically accountable schools to unelected private bodies. The bill, they argued, represented 'the first irreversible step towards the privatisation of the state schools system'. (Matthew Taylor The Guardian 20 February 2006) The first reading of the Education and Inspections Bill took place on 15 March 2006. As expected, Blair was forced to rely on Conservative MPs to get it through. 52 Labour MPs voted against and a handful abstained. (The Guardian 16 March 2006) During the third reading, in May 2006, 67 backbenchers voted for a rebel amendment which would have required schools to hold a parents' ballot before they became independent trusts. (The Guardian 24 May 2006) But with Tory support, Blair got his bill, by 422 to 98 votes. It was the largest rebellion ever suffered by a Labour government at third reading. (The Guardian 25 May 2006)
2006 Education and Inspections Act The Act's main provisions were:
The academies programme Meanwhile, the government was pushing ahead with its academies programme, despite continuing problems and persistent criticisms. Among the problems:
Yet still Blair was determined to pursue the controversial policy - indeed, he now said he wanted to see 400 academies across the country. And in his first public pronouncement on the subject, Gordon Brown praised the 'tremendous success of the academy movement'. (The Guardian 20 March 2007)
Faith schools The 2005 white paper's proposal to allow religious organisations to control more schools was widely criticised. A Guardian/ICM poll revealed that two thirds of the public believed that 'the government should not be funding faith schools of any kind'. (The Guardian 23 August 2005)
Faced with the growing tide of hostility to religious schools, the new education secretary Alan Johnson (pictured) announced that the government would require new faith schools to admit up to a quarter of their pupils from families of other faiths or none. The Roman Catholic Church and the Board of Deputies of British Jews expressed outright opposition and the suggestion was dropped. (The Guardian 17 October 2006) Schools minister Andrew Adonis proposed that faith schools should be allowed to favour members of their own religion when appointing support staff. The GMB union and the National Secular Society said the change would extend discrimination. (The Guardian 24 October 2006)
Selection Conservative leader David Cameron pledged there would be 'no return to the eleven plus' or to grammar schools under a Conservative government. (The Guardian 10 January 2006) Less than a fortnight later a poll showed that three quarters of his party members disapproved of his statement. (The Observer 22 January 2006) While Blair steadfastly defended the existence of England's remaining 164 grammar schools, in Northern Ireland plans were announced to abolish selection and replace the eleven plus with a new 'pupil profile' drawn up throughout a child's primary education and used as a basis for teachers to advise parents which secondary school their child should attend. After 2008, all pupils between 11 and 14 would get a comprehensive education. (The Guardian 7 February 2006) New research by York University's David Jesson showed that children who did not pass the eleven plus were condemned to lower standards of education than if they went to a comprehensive school in a non-selective area. (The Observer 19 February 2006) Parents' leaders called for an end to selective education after exam results showed that most of the worst performing schools were in the shire counties which still had grammar schools. (The Independent 20 January 2007) Brighton's Labour-controlled council caused consternation among parents when it announced it would be allocating some places at secondary schools by lottery. (The Guardian 1 March 2007)
Curriculum and testing At the end of November 2005 Ruth Kelly announced that primary schools would be forced to teach reading by 'synthetic phonics', a method which had first achieved prominence in 1998, when a study showed improved reading abilities in Clackmannanshire four year olds. The proposal was universally condemned by experts in the teaching of reading, who pointed out that the study had been tiny and flawed. Kelly ignored them all. QCA chief executive Ken Boston admitted that pupils faced a huge and excessive exam load which had distorted the balance of what was taught in schools. He said he was determined to reduce the number of tests that pupils in England and Wales were forced to sit. (The Observer 26 March 2006) Schools minister Jim Knight announced that GCSE exams in English and maths were to be made harder as part of a major government drive to raise basic educational skills (The Observer 20 August 2006) and education secretary Alan Johnson said that primary school maths lessons would focus more on mental arithmetic. Children would be expected to master their multiplication tables by the age of eight. (The Guardian 8 September 2006) In Teaching 2020, the government set out its vision for schooling in the future. The report suggested that pupils should have more choice in what they studied, should mark their own work and grade their teachers' performance. Traditional grades would be replaced by feedback, and pupils would be entered for exams as soon as they were ready, rather than waiting until they reached a certain age. Teachers gave the report a guarded welcome. (The Guardian 4 January 2007) Alan Johnson announced that pupils in England would face more but shorter national tests if pilot schemes in ten local authorities were successful. National targets and league tables would remain. They were 'non-negotiable', he said. (The Guardian 9 January 2007) Johnson also proposed that all teenagers should stay in some form of education and training up to the age of 18. The idea was broadly welcomed, though teacher unions warned that raising the school leaving age - for the first since 1973 - would need to be be properly funded. The change may take place in 2013. (The Guardian 13 January 2007) The new arrangements for the Key Stage 4 (post 14) curriculum, which had been introduced in 2004, had led to a dramatic fall in the number of children learning foreign languages. In February 2007, therefore, ministers announced a shake-up of foreign language teaching. Schools would now be allowed to teach Mandarin and Urdu rather than the more traditional French or German. (Anushka Asthana and Alexander Christie-Miller The Observer 4 February 2007) The QCA published new plans for Key Stage 3 (11 to 14 year olds). The proposals were designed to give schools greater flexibility in deciding what to teach and make it easier to allow children of different abilities to progress at their own speeds. There would be a greater focus on 'life skills'. (The Guardian 5, 6 February 2007)
Middle schools By 2006 only three local authorities - the Isle of Wight, Bedfordshire and Northumberland - were still exclusively three-tier. A few other authorities had small areas with middle schools. Bedfordshire's 33 middle schools remained open in September 2006 following a successful parents' campaign. In Northumberland parents had lobbied hard to keep their middle schools and no decision on their future had yet been made. In Suffolk, where about half the schools were in a three-tier system, ideas for restructuring were being considered. 97 per cent of children in England were now in two-tier systems with transfer at age 11. (The Guardian 5 September 2006) Useful links Middle School Research
The National Middle Schools Forum
Truancy In January 2006 the Commons public accounts committee said the government had squandered £885m over seven years in a futile attempt to reduce the number of truants. It found that, despite numerous initiatives to improve attendance and behaviour, the number of children missing lessons each day in England had risen by almost 5,000 in a year. And in September 2006 DfES figures revealed that nearly 1.4 million children - one in five of all pupils in England - had played truant from school in the previous year. (The Guardian 22 September 2006)
Higher education In February 2006, six months before the introduction of student tuition 'top-up' fees, the university admissions service UCAS reported a 3.4 per cent drop in the number of people applying to university - the first fall for six years. (The Guardian 16 February 2006) Research carried out by a team led by Nick Foskett at Southampton University suggested that those worst hit by tuition fees would be middle-class students whose families were just above the threshold for financial support. (The Guardian 3 April 2006) Top-up fees came under attack again in July 2006 when figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed a small drop in the proportion of young first-year university students from low-income families. The percentage of students coming from state schools and colleges had also fallen. (The Guardian 20 July 2006) And in October 2006, UCAS revealed that 15,000 fewer students had started university compared with the previous year. Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Sarah Teather said 'The evidence is now undeniable - top-up fees deter people from going to university. Ministers must reconsider this mistaken policy that has such a negative impact.' (The Guardian 19 October 2006)
Ofsted
Christine Gilbert (pictured) replaced David Bell as head of Ofsted and chief inspector of schools on 1 October 2006. She had been a teacher and a head and had had various local government posts including that of chief executive of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. On 1 April 2007, as decreed by the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, Ofsted became 'The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills'. In addition to its existing schools inspection role, the new Ofsted took on responsibilities from three other existing inspectorates: the Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI); the work relating to children of the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI); and the work relating to the children and family courts of HM Inspectorate of Court Administration (HMICA).
School buildings A survey by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment found that half the schools built between 2000 and 2005 were poor, with only 19 per cent rated as excellent or good. Nine of the ten worst-designed new schools were built using the controversial private finance initiative (PFI). (The Guardian 4 July 2006) The chief executive of the government's £45,000m Building Schools for the Future scheme admitted that the plans were 'over-ambitious and not deliverable' and that local authorities were struggling to manage the complex construction contracts. (The Guardian 16 January 2007)
Other developments in the period 2005-2007 In November 2005 an NFER report concluded that the £386m Excellence in Cities scheme had failed to raise rates of achievement at Key Stage 3 or at GCSE because pupils were entering secondary schools without 'the appropriate skills and attitudes'. (The Guardian 25 November 2005) Following a series of revelations in the media, Ruth Kelly announced new measures to prevent sex offenders from working in schools. (The Guardian 20 January 2006) In September 2006, the General Teaching Council reported that schools in England were facing a leadership crisis with only 4 per cent of teachers wanting to become heads within the next five years. At the same time, more than a third of head teachers said they were planning to retire by 2011. (The Guardian 5 September 2006) The Primary Review was launched in October 2006. Sponsored by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and led by Professor Robin Alexander, this independent review aims 'to gather evidence from a wide range of sources, sift facts from rhetoric, and stimulate debate about the future of this vital phase of education'. It will culminate in a report containing recommendations for future policy and practice. An employment tribunal in Leeds decided that Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant who had refused to remove her veil when male colleagues were present, was not the victim of religious discrimination. She was sacked. (The Guardian 20 October, 25 November 2006) A report for the DfES by PricewaterhouseCoopers said schools should be allowed to appoint business executives as heads, even if they were not qualified as teachers. (The Guardian 18 January 2007)
In conclusion ... This history has focused on the long struggle to create for England's children an education system which values them all. It has, in many ways, been a sad story. In the 19th century there was hostility to the very idea of mass education and, when that argument was eventually won, the system which evolved was based on the entrenched class divisions of English society. In the first half of the 20th century these divisions continued, only now they were presented as being based on spurious theories of intelligence rather than on social class. For a brief spell - in the 1960s and early 1970s - it looked as though, finally, England might get a truly comprehensive public education service. But since 1976 the trend has been back to division and elitism, with market forces replacing public service. Forty years ago, in his book The Long Revolution, Raymond Williams argued: 'It is a question of whether we can grasp the real nature of our society, or whether we persist in social and educational patterns based on a limited ruling class, a middle professional class, a large operative class, cemented by forces that cannot be challenged and will not be changed. The privileges and barriers, of an inherited kind, will in any case go down. It is only a question of whether we replace them by the free play of the market, or by a public education designed to express and create the values of an educated democracy and a common culture.' (Williams 1965)Tony Blair - a Tory cuckoo in the Labour nest - chose the 'free play of the market'. In just one decade he and his adviser Adonis have effectively dismantled England's state system of education, destroyed the comprehensive ideal, and encouraged religious crackpots and used car salesmen to take over the nation's schools. Writing in The Guardian (25 January 2006) Simon Jenkins noted that the 1944 Education Act and the abolition of the eleven plus in the 1960s had 'sought to break the dominance of religion and class over public sector schooling in Britain' and that 'to a large extent they succeeded'. But he warned: 'Ever since, religion and class have been fighting their way back. Blair and Adonis are their latest champions. This is archaic.' If only Blair and Adonis had heeded the advice of Chitty and Dunford in 1999: 'Only when the Labour government understands the importance of creating a single unified system of fully comprehensive secondary schools under local democratic control and without selective enclaves, will the country have an education system of which we can truly be proud.' (Chitty and Dunford 1999)It seems likely that Gordon Brown will take over from Blair as prime minister some time this year. Whether education in England will fare any better under a Brown premiership remains to be seen. Derek Gillard
References Beckett F (2004) 'Business class' The Guardian 9 July Chitty C (1998) 'Selection fever' The Guardian 13 October. (This article is not available on The Guardian website - email me if you'd like a copy). Chitty C (2004) Education Policy in Britain Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Chitty C and Dunford J (eds) (1999) State Schools: New Labour and the Conservative Legacy London: Woburn Press DfEE (1997) Excellence in Schools Cmnd 3681 London: HMSO Hodgson A and Spours K (2005) 'Divided we fail' The Guardian 1 March Jenkins S (2006) 'Blair and Adonis are taking our schools back to the 30s' The Guardian 25 January Jones K (2003) Education in Britain: 1944 to the present Cambridge: Polity Press Labour Party (1995) Diversity and Excellence: a new partnership for schools London: Labour Party Millar F (2003) 'Admissions impossible' The Guardian 11 November Morris E (2002) 'Why comprehensives must change' The Observer 23 June National Assembly for Wales (2001) The Learning Country www.wales.gov.uk Newsam P (1998) 'How can we know the dancer from the dance?' Forum Vol. 40 No. 2 Abingdon: Symposium Journals Pullman P (2003) 'All around you is silence' The Guardian 5 June Williams R (1965) The Long Revolution Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Wintour P (2005) 'Blair's public service crusade' The Guardian 25 October 
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Many teachers hoped - some even dared to believe - that the election of the first Labour government for eighteen years, led by Tony Blair (pictured), would usher in a new golden age in education. Tests and league tables would disappear, chief inspector Chris Woodhead (who had become something of a hate figure for teachers) would be sacked, Ofsted scrapped, and grant maintained (GM) schools would be brought under local authority control.
Throughout Tony Blair's ten years in office, his principal education adviser was to be Andrew Adonis (pictured).
The new administration did immediately scrap the Assisted Places Scheme and make a commitment to reduce some class sizes, but it quickly became clear that New Labour's education policies would be little different from those of Thatcher and Major. 'This meant an endorsement of much of the 1988 Education Reform Act and its successors, in relation both to "parental choice" and to competition between schools in a diverse and unequal secondary school system.' (Jones 2003)
The government began introducing private contractors into other bits of the education service. Various 'failing' local authority services were put out to tender (as in Hackney and Islington) and even schools were handed over to private companies. King's Manor School in Guildford was the first. (See my article 
Estelle Morris resigned in October 2002. Charles Clarke (pictured) was appointed education secretary and immediately announced that he would speed up the creation of specialist schools.
In the event, the government rejected most of Tomlinson's recommendations and in its white paper 
There was mounting concern about the teaching of creationism as science in some of the academies. Organisations representing scientists in 67 countries - including the UK's Royal Society - warned that scientific evidence about the origins of life was being 'concealed, denied, or confused' by schools teaching creationism. It urged parents as well as teachers to provide children with the facts about the origins and evolution of life on Earth. (The Guardian 22 June 2006)
A new Ofsted inspection regime was introduced in September 2005. Inspections were now to be shorter and sharper and schools would only be given only a couple of days' notice of the inspectors' visit. David Bell described the changes as 'the most radical since Ofsted was set up in 1992'. (The Guardian 30 August 2005)