FORUM

Editorial. The Enduring Problem of Fixed Ability: but is a new conversation beginning?,

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Editorial. The Enduring Problem of Fixed Ability: but is a new conversation beginning?,
Author: Mary Jane Drummond; Patrick Yarker
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 3-7
ABSTRACT Not available

The Brian Simon Memorial Lecture 2012, Education as Reconstruction: another way of looking at primary education

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: The Brian Simon Memorial Lecture 2012, Education as Reconstruction: another way of looking at primary education
Author: Michael Armstrong
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 9-29
ABSTRACT Not available

'The Blue Table Means You Don't Have a Clue': the persistence of fixed-ability thinking and practices in primary mathematics in English schools

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: 'The Blue Table Means You Don't Have a Clue': the persistence of fixed-ability thinking and practices in primary mathematics in English schools
Author: RACHEL MARKS
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 31-44
ABSTRACT The use of structured ability grouping is increasing in English primary schools and is regularly seen in primary mathematics classrooms. Ability is a normalised discourse with beliefs that some individuals are 'born to do maths' permeating society and infiltrating school practices. In this article, observation and interview data illustrate the persistence of fixed-ability thinking, even in situations where explicit ability-grouping practices are not used. The data analysis suggests a mismatch between mixed-ability practices and fixed-ability thinking, and the article argues that change will be difficult.

Surprise in Schools: Martin Buber and dialogic schooling

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Surprise in Schools: Martin Buber and dialogic schooling
Author: JULIAN STERN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 45-58
ABSTRACT The philosopher Martin Buber described the central role of surprise in education. Surprise is not an alternative to planning and order in schools, and it is not even an alternative to repetitive practice. It is, instead, that which must be allowed to occur in any dialogic encounter. Schooling that is creative and filled with hope will also be surprising; schooling that is wholly predetermined, certain, and perfect (at least in its own eyes), will be unsurprising - and also uneducational. Darwinian theories of evolution by natural selection are similar to communitarian anarchist challenges to political wishes for precise, centralised, planning. And the necessity of genetic mutation alongside largely repetitive copying, in such theories, provides a model for the necessity of surprise even alongside repetitive, transmissive, and copied work in schools. Surprise overcomes the potential of schools to be soulless institutions. It is promoted here as a defining characteristic of truly educational, dialogic schooling.

Beyond 'Ability': some European alternatives

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Beyond 'Ability': some European alternatives
Author: TERRY WRIGLEY
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 59-72
ABSTRACT This article draws on European approaches to differentiation that do not entail fatalistic determinism. It describes two challenging initiatives in Denmark, where democratic learning and learning for democracy are enshrined in law. Other examples come from Germany, from the Bielefeld laboratory school and a sixth form college, where planning for diversity is the starting point for curriculum development.

The Possibilities and Difficulties of Teaching Secondary Mathematics in All-attainment Groups

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: The Possibilities and Difficulties of Teaching Secondary Mathematics in All-attainment Groups
Author: GWEN TRESIDDER; ANNE WATSON
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 73-84
ABSTRACT It is a well-established norm in England that secondary school mathematics is taught in groups categorised by prior attainment. It is therefore worthwhile to report alternative practices of all-attainment teaching - but these are rare. In this article, we report aspects of all-attainment mathematics teaching in a secondary school that has maintained this practice as its norm over a considerable time, including in recent years, when a hierarchical approach to measuring mathematics learning has become the norm for accountability purposes. The teaching described here takes account of the needs and progress of different students within a common curriculum focus, and we identify key principles behind it. The article is intended to contribute to a record of all-attainment grouping practices in mathematics in England, so that these practices are not lost.

Teaching and the Individuality of Everybody

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Teaching and the Individuality of Everybody
Author: HOLLY LINKLATER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 85-94
ABSTRACT This article presents a study in which the author researched her own practice as the teacher of a reception class in a large primary school in England. The research focussed on the challenge of articulating what was tacitly or intuitively known: how, and why, the myriad of choices and decisions of which teaching is constituted could be made and justified. The author considers the significance of the class as a community; the relationship between everybody and children as individuals. A consistent and coherent principled stance was identified, articulated in terms of attention to imagination. The article discusses the significance of this as the means by which the individuality of everybody could be perceived.

Preparing Teachers to Work with Everybody: a curricular approach to the reform of teacher education

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Preparing Teachers to Work with Everybody: a curricular approach to the reform of teacher education
Author: LANI FLORIAN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 95-102
ABSTRACT This article reports on a curricular approach to teacher education using the ideas in Learning without Limits to prepare teachers to enter a profession in which they take responsibility for the learning and achievement of all learners. Key aspects of Scotland's Inclusive Practice Project (IPP) are described and the role of university-based teacher education in supporting and challenging practice-based learning in schools is discussed.

What Makes an Inclusive Teacher? Can Fish Climb Trees? Mapping the European Agency Profile of Inclusive Teachers to the English System

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: What Makes an Inclusive Teacher? Can Fish Climb Trees? Mapping the European Agency Profile of Inclusive Teachers to the English System
Author: JOHN CORNWALL
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 103-114
ABSTRACT This article examines whether or not teachers working in an inherently exclusive education system can in fact be 'inclusive teachers'. The author draws on work done over the past three years in a pan-European Teacher Education project highly committed to notions of social and educational cohesion and equity, and challenges both fixed and hierarchical notions of ability, valuing all learners equally. The development of a pan-European Profile of Inclusive Teachers serves as an indirect challenge to the legitimacy of politicians and executive bodies in England for lack of cohesion and failing to establish some kind of equity and inclusion for young people.

Differentiation, Resistance and Courage: at work in the infant school

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Differentiation, Resistance and Courage: at work in the infant school
Author: ANNABELLE DIXON
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 115-120
ABSTRACT Annabelle Dixon was co-editor of FORUM from the summer of 1998 until her untimely death in May 2005. The article we reproduce below is based on an article that first appeared in FORUM in 1984, Volume 26, Number 2, with the title 'Divided We Rule'. At that time, she was a practising infant teacher, and deeply concerned about the ways in which the widespread practice of differentiation affected young children's learning. The version printed here has been extended, edited and retitled, drawing on a longer, later version, unpublished as far as we know, which she circulated to friends and colleagues in 1986.

An Alternative Approach to School Development: the children are the evidence

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: An Alternative Approach to School Development: the children are the evidence
Author: MARY JANE DRUMMOND; SUSAN HART; MANDY SWANN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 121-132
ABSTRACT In this article, the authors describe the alternative approach to school development taken by the head teacher and staff of a primary school in Hertfordshire. Their approach is based on a resolutely optimistic and anti-determinist view of every child's capacity to learn, and their commitment to working as a school-wide community of learners. The article illustrates how the culture, policies and structures of the whole school were harnessed to the process of transformative change, and shows how staff members were given the support that enabled them to play their full part in bringing about these changes. It demonstrates how, when people are learning together, the power of the collective strengthens the learning capacity of everybody.

From Defective Loafers to Ignorant Yobs: low attainers in a global knowledge economy

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: From Defective Loafers to Ignorant Yobs: low attainers in a global knowledge economy
Author: SALLY TOMLINSON
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 133-142
ABSTRACT In a global and increasingly 'knowledge-driven' economy where even semi-skilled jobs require qualifications, what may be done with and for young people whose attainment in school is low? This article draws on recent research with head teachers, college principals and administrators in English local authorities, combined with material gathered on visits to a number of foreign countries, to outline the issues. It illuminates that successive English governments have failed to provide a coherent system of vocational education.

Ability and Mathematics: the mindset revolution that is reshaping education

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Ability and Mathematics: the mindset revolution that is reshaping education
Author: JO BOALER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 143-152
ABSTRACT Recent scientific evidence demonstrates both the incredible potential of the brain to grow and change and the powerful impact of growth mindset messages upon students' attainment. Schooling practices, however, particularly in England, are based upon notions of fixed ability thinking which limits students' attainment and increases inequality. This article reviews evidence for brain plasticity, the importance of mindset and the ways that mindset messages may be communicated through classroom and grouping practices.

'Can I have me on here?': 'ability' and the language of pupil-progress

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: 'Can I have me on here?': 'ability' and the language of pupil-progress
Author: PATRICK YARKER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 153-160
ABSTRACT The flip-side of teaching-as-delivery is assessment-as-ventriloquism. Required to describe pupils and their progress through the language of Level Descriptors and exam grade criteria, any teacher risks losing her voice. This article notes the hierarchising and normalising intention of currently authorised versions of assessment, and looks for a countervailing practice and language.

Valuing Choice as an Alternative to Fixed-ability Thinking and Teaching in Primary Mathematics

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: Valuing Choice as an Alternative to Fixed-ability Thinking and Teaching in Primary Mathematics
Author: AMY MILIK; MARK BOYLAN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 161-172
ABSTRACT This article offers a personal account of a primary mathematics teacher's current practice and how it developed through participation in a professional development programme. This alternative to fixed-ability teaching is based on creating opportunities for learners to exercise choice and on an understanding of mathematics as connected. Key influences in the development of practice have been research evidence and theory, engagement with mathematics and alternative practices as a learner, and space and encouragement to reflect and make choices as a teacher. The account is structured in the form of a dialogue between the authors.

BOOK REVIEWS

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:12:41 GMT

Title: BOOK REVIEWS
Author:
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2013 Volume: 55 Issue: 1 Pages: 173-176
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Editorial
Author: Michael Fielding
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 347-353
ABSTRACT Not available

Readiness, Partnership, a Meeting Place? Some Thoughts on the Possible Relationship between Early Childhood and Compulsory School Education

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Readiness, Partnership, a Meeting Place? Some Thoughts on the Possible Relationship between Early Childhood and Compulsory School Education
Author: PETER MOSS
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 355-368
ABSTRACT At a time when the relationship between early childhood and compulsory school education is high on the policy agenda, this article questions the dominant, often taken-for-granted, relationship - school readiness; and offers two alternatives, a strong and equal partnership and the vision of a meeting place. Both are potentially transformative, inviting and welcoming critical thinking about compulsory school education as well as early childhood education.

Neither National Nor a Curriculum?

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Neither National Nor a Curriculum?
Author: ROBIN ALEXANDER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 369-384
ABSTRACT This article examines the government's view, as revealed in its June 2012 National Curriculum proposals, of the purposes and character of the primary curriculum as a whole. The proposals are found to be deficient in a number of respects: in their naive, selective and inflated use of international evidence; in their treatment of aims as no more than cosmetic; in their impoverished take on culture, knowledge and values; in their reduction of educational standards to test performance in the 3Rs; in their perpetuation of the damaging Victorian legacy of a two-tier curriculum; and in their characterisation of spoken language, despite what has long been known about its vital role in development, learning and teaching, as little more than 'idle chatter'. In sum, the proposals are judged to betray contempt for other than politically-compliant evidence and to fall seriously short of what a national curriculum minimally entails.

Omnishambles: reactions to the second year of Coalition education policies

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Omnishambles: reactions to the second year of Coalition education policies
Author: COLIN RICHARDS
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 385-396
ABSTRACT The UK's Coalition Government completed its second year in office in May 2012. Many of its policies and pronouncements have been divisive and are contributing to the dismantling of the state education system as we have known it. Here, reflecting George Orwell's observation that 'Every joke against the established order is a tiny revolution', Colin Richards, a strong supporter of locally-maintained comprehensive education, subjects them to both criticism and ridicule through a self-edited selection of his published and unpublished letters to national newspapers - his third epistolary critique and one that covers the period May 2011 to April 2012.

Teachers' Professional Autonomy in England: are neo-liberal approaches incontestable?

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Teachers' Professional Autonomy in England: are neo-liberal approaches incontestable?
Author: JON BERRY
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 397-410
ABSTRACT This article is informed by a longitudinal research project undertaken with 22 teachers, four head teachers and two other related education professionals in England between May 2010 and April 2011. Drawing on 50 semi-structured interviews and some related email correspondence, the project investigates this cohort's view of teachers' professional autonomy. It takes as its starting point the hegemony of neo-liberal policy and the adoption and reinforcement of this by UK political parties of all persuasions. The outcomes of the project demonstrate that notwithstanding the thrust of such policy - manifested most obviously by the current conversion of increasing numbers of schools to semi-privatised academy status - teachers acknowledge, explicitly or otherwise, the prevalence of performativity and survivalism yet often retain loyalty to the concept of education as a liberal humanist project as opposed to that of a provider of human capital. In short, they manage to cling to a notion of teaching that transcends the demands of the pursuit of measurable standards. They also recognize the central paradox of the current policy ensemble embodied in the inconsistency of rhetoric from government about professional autonomy alongside strong central control and scrutiny. The article goes on to ask whether, given the expressed antipathy on the part of this government and its predecessors towards research informed policy in general, and to qualitative research in particular, it is possible that such voices will be heeded by power. There are clear implications here for teacher education at initial and post-qualification level.

Towards Whole System Improvement

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Towards Whole System Improvement
Author: RON GLATTER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 411-416
ABSTRACT The relationship between academies, and school autonomy more generally, and the wider system is a crucial issue in the battle to improve school-level education. International experience indicates that emphasising choice and competition to drive improvement is not effective and that changing structures does not yield better results for students. A whole system approach is required based on a strong and democratic multi-level infrastructure of support and a common administrative and legal framework underpinned by the principles of public not contract law.

The Political Economies of Radical Education

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: The Political Economies of Radical Education
Author: JOHN MORGAN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 417-428
ABSTRACT The aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 has created space for discussion for alternative arrangements of economy and society. In education terms, there has been a flowering of texts which propose radical changes in educational systems. This article briefly discusses three examples (Fielding & Moss, Radical Education and the Common School; Facer, Learning Futures; and Woods, Transforming Education Policy). Based on a reading of Dale's (1979) discussion of how 1960s and 1970s 'progressive education' were limited by wider political economic structures, the article suggests that, at the present time, the 'new spirit of capitalism' allows for and even welcomes particular forms of progressive and even 'radical' change, based on ideas around participation, innovation, and flexibility. The article concludes with a set of questions to ask of schools which seek to engage in 'really radical practice'.

Grammar Schools: brief flowering of social mobility?

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Grammar Schools: brief flowering of social mobility?
Author: BERNARD BARKER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 429-448
ABSTRACT Grammar schools are increasingly remembered, especially by right-wing ideologues, as the agents of a 'brief flowering' of post-war social mobility. This article presents statistical, documentary and interview evidence of secondary education in the eleven plus era, and finds nothing to justify the claim that selective schools produced a general improvement in educational opportunity or social mobility. Detailed life history interviews with Don (b. 1941, secondary modern, then secondary technical) and Margaret (b. 1951, grammar) recreate the almost forgotten 1950s world where opportunity was rationed and bright children were complacently failed. Access to post-16 and university education became widely available only when governments adopted a very much more generous funding regime, and comprehensive schools removed the complex barriers to success created by selection. Nostalgic accounts of grammar schools are a classic case of recovered false memory syndrome.

London's Jewish Communities and State Education

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: London's Jewish Communities and State Education
Author: JANE MARTIN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 449-464
ABSTRACT The Inner London education authority was a notable example of a radical and powerful local government body from which the fight for the comprehensive principle in English secondary education emerged. Building on previous work of women's contribution to state education in London, this articles focuses on Anglo-Jewish educator activists who helped shape the capital's response to the policy question of how to provide secondary education for all. The author's subjects are Henrietta (Nettie) Adler (1868-1950), siblings Helen Bentwich [née Franklin] (1892-1972) and Hugh Franklin (1889-1962) and Harold Rosen (1919-2008).

The Decorated School: past potency and present patronage

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: The Decorated School: past potency and present patronage
Author: CATHERINE BURKE
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 465-471
ABSTRACT The Decorated School is an interdisciplinary research network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The article situates current academic and wider community engagement concerning the purpose and significance of art as part of the school building and grounds in an historical context. It goes on to discuss emerging patterns of concealment and exposure of school murals in the past and their recovery in the present. Finally, it is suggested that contemporary interest and revaluing such art is welcome but that belief in the educational power of art as part of the built environment has nevertheless waned.

Creating Learning Without Limits (Mandy Swann, Alison Peacock, Susan Hart & Mary Jane Drummond)

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: Creating Learning Without Limits (Mandy Swann, Alison Peacock, Susan Hart & Mary Jane Drummond)
Author: Clyde Chitty; Tony Booth; Colin Richards
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 473-481
ABSTRACT Not available

BOOK REVIEWS

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:21:14 GMT

Title: BOOK REVIEWS
Author:
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 3 Pages: 483-488
ABSTRACT Not available

Editorial

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Editorial
Author: Clyde Chitty; Colin Richards
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 179-183
ABSTRACT Not available

Governing Education: remaking the long revolution

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Governing Education: remaking the long revolution
Author: STEWART RANSON
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 185-204
ABSTRACT 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 Edwardian era, opportunity is now being rationed and education returned to its tradition of social selection and class subordination. Autocratic power is being constructed at the expense of 'inefficient' democratic spaces that voice appeal and deliberate policy in relation to need. Yet democracy is not the problem but the solution to the collective action dilemmas facing civil society. The potential of comprehensive learning communities to develop democratic collective agency is proposed.

Power, Democracy - and Democracy in Education

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Power, Democracy - and Democracy in Education
Author: KEN JONES
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 205-214
ABSTRACT This article addresses questions of workplace democracy, particularly in relation to school education. Following Luciano Canfora in treating democracy as 'the rule of the many', it traces the post-1945 rise of workplace democracy, and its post-1979 decline. Analysing the constitution of contemporary schooling in England, the article concludes that it has been de-democratised. It suggests, however, that in the increasingly difficult situation in which the neo-liberal project of education finds itself, the efficacy and legitimacy of this system of governance will be increasingly questioned.

Half Way to Hell: what Gove is doing to England's schools

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Half Way to Hell: what Gove is doing to England's schools
Author: DEREK GILLARD
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 215-230
ABSTRACT In this article the author summarises the events of the past five months and assesses the damage being done by the Tory/LibDem coalition government to our schools, to the teachers who work in them, and to the education they provide.

The Myth of School Autonomy: centralisation as the determinant of English educational politics

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: The Myth of School Autonomy: centralisation as the determinant of English educational politics
Author: TREVOR FISHER
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 231-246
ABSTRACT Following his previous article in this journal on the centralisation of power in English education post the 1988 Education Reform Act ('The Era of Centralisation', FORUM, 50[2], pp. 255-261), the author considers the apparent turn to school autonomy central to the Conservative Educational Revolution. He argues that the power shift to the centre is accelerated by the Revolution, which is destroying democratically elected local authority provision and enhancing the power of the Secretary of State to arbitrary levels. The rhetoric of the all powerful head teacher in control of the school is contradicted by centrally determined priorities, notably EBac, and the power of the media to represent the school to its community by performance tables. This continues the attempt to manipulate schools which New Labour attempted by its Diploma programme, but in the context of a narrow 1950s grammar school curriculum. The autonomy given to schools is essentially operational, notably over admissions and curriculum, but is constrained by league tables and government control of finance and service delivery contracts.

Ofsted Inspection Inspected: an examination of the 2012 framework for school inspection and its accompanying evaluation schedule

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Ofsted Inspection Inspected: an examination of the 2012 framework for school inspection and its accompanying evaluation schedule
Author: COLIN RICHARDS
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 247-272
ABSTRACT Ofsted has always courted controversy. With the appointment of a strident new chief inspector its operations are likely to remain, or become increasingly, controversial. This article provides a detailed critique of key documents which describe the new inspection regime that for good or ill will have major consequences in schools. Although in certain limited aspects they represent an improvement on the previous inspection regime, the new requirements have many highly problematic elements which undermine the integrity and validity of inspection judgements. The article argues that schools in disadvantaged areas are likely to suffer most from some of the deficiencies highlighted.

Does Gove Really Want to Set Us Free?

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Does Gove Really Want to Set Us Free?
Author: JON BERRY
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 273-284
ABSTRACT This article argues that one of the central paradoxes of neo-liberalism is currently being played out in the UK Coalition Government's education policy. Rhetoric that talks of freedoms to be enjoyed by schools and teachers is at variance with a centrally imposed, reductive view of the curriculum, continuing high-stakes scrutiny and the forcing of schools towards academy status. The coalition's hastily constructed legislation reveals a view of education that bears the hallmark of pragmatic marketisation with such limited freedoms as may be enjoyed existing in the context of reward for the compliant and acquiescent. The article concludes with a brief - and necessary - consideration of possibilities for resistance.

The Stone Age Didn't End Because They Ran out of Stone: why our children can't wait much longer for a functional school system

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: The Stone Age Didn't End Because They Ran out of Stone: why our children can't wait much longer for a functional school system
Author: GERALDINE NORMAN; MARK MOORHOUSE
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 285-298
ABSTRACT This article explores the reasons why transformation of the school system is urgently needed. It is suggested that the system will implode as a result of a growing dislocation between what schools need to achieve and the inadequate, if not damaging, practices forcefully promoted by increasing numbers of school leaders and politicians. Alternatively, a culture of schooling in which there is much less directed management of students' learning behaviours and far more challenge, and therefore growth, is advocated. Let us start with the child, not with the school.

Re-energising Subject Knowledge

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Re-energising Subject Knowledge
Author: JOHN HOPKIN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 299-304
ABSTRACT The value of knowledge and the role of subjects in the school curriculum have been widely questioned in recent years, often portrayed as old-fashioned and irrelevant, especially in the face of a fast-changing global economy. This article argues that this is both limited in its view of the potential of knowledge and subjects, and limiting for those pupils denied access to disciplined knowledge, especially in particular schools and subjects. It proposes that the acquisition of knowledge through subjects remains central to pupils' entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum, and to their ability to participate actively in our society, economy and democracy. It suggests the need for a more informed (and disciplined) policy debate founded in a balanced view of the purposes of education.

Towards a New ABC of Curriculum-making: a reply to John Hopkin

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Towards a New ABC of Curriculum-making: a reply to John Hopkin
Author: JOHN WHITE
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 305-312
ABSTRACT This is a reply to John Hopkin's article in this number of FORUM on 'Re-energising subject knowledge' (Volume 54, Number 2, 2012). It argues that Hopkin does not provide sufficiently cogent reasons for continuing the tradition of a subject-based curriculum. It favours starting from defensible general aims of school education and seeing what these require in the shape of more specific aims. How far the result coincides with or diverges from a subject-based curriculum cannot be prejudged. This article also questions Hopkin's almost exclusive emphasis on knowledge aims and provides a historical perspective on this way of thinking about education and on its shortfalls.

The Birth of New Labour and the Death of Comprehensive Education

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: The Birth of New Labour and the Death of Comprehensive Education
Author: CLYDE CHITTY
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 313-318
ABSTRACT It is argued that the creation of something called 'New Labour' in the mid-1990s marked the death of the comprehensive school in England - or, rather, the end of any attempt to create a nationwide system of comprehensive schools. The election of Tony Blair as Labour Party Leader in July 1994 can be viewed as THE defining year in post-war Labour history, in that it marked the point when Labour effectively turned its back on its social democratic agenda, which had included a commitment to the comprehensive reform. It can be argued that there had been a good deal of confusion throughout the twentieth century as to the exact meaning of the concept of 'secondary education for all' and that the Labour Party Establishment had never been unanimous in its endorsement of comprehensive education - so that, in repudiating the comprehensive ideal, Tony Blair was actually pushing at an open door. Nevertheless, when criticising the Coalition Government for its reactionary education policies, we must always remember that the Governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were involved in the creation of a bewildering array of new types of secondary school, which left the system more divided and fragmented than it had ever been.

Mr Gove's Road to Privatisation: forcing primary schools to become Academies

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Mr Gove's Road to Privatisation: forcing primary schools to become Academies
Author: MELIAN MANSFIELD
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 319-322
ABSTRACT Not content with the response to his offer to outstanding schools to become academies, Michael Gove's next move has been to force schools to become academies. Resistance from parents and the local community has made no difference. This article explains what happened in Haringey and how undemocratic the whole process has been.

Co-operative Schools: a democratic alternative

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Co-operative Schools: a democratic alternative
Author: JAMIE AUDSLEY; PHILIP COOK
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 323-326
ABSTRACT Many fear that the pressures of running an Academy will be too great for individual schools, and that they will be forced to join chains run by private companies. These may offer hard-pressed school administrators valuable management expertise and back-office support, but seem to offer wider society little accountability and transparency. Are private Academy chains the best option, where Academy schools have been cut adrift from the support and democratic legitimacy of local authority governance? The authors argue that a democratic alternative must be found.

Co-operative Schools: building communities in the 21st century

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Co-operative Schools: building communities in the 21st century
Author: TOM WOODIN
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 327-340
ABSTRACT The recent progress of 'co-operative schools' both confirms and disrupts many assumptions surrounding contemporary compulsory schooling. The term itself refers to an eclectic array of schools, both primary and secondary, of which there were, by June 2012, almost 300 in England that have adopted co-operative values, in terms of governance, pedagogy and curriculum, and come together as a movement. They have emerged from within a fissiparous ecology of education which has given rise to new schools and networks, including academy schools, converter academies, free schools, trust schools and specialised schools. In this article the author argues that these changes have all offered opportunities for co-operative alternatives to be established.

Can We Believe the International League Tables?

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:36:19 GMT

Title: Can We Believe the International League Tables?
Author: PETER WILBY
Journal: FORUM
Year: 2012 Volume: 54 Issue: 2 Pages: 341-344
ABSTRACT This article, updated and expanded from one written for The Times Educational Supplement, 10 December 2010, asks whether politicians are right to quote the country's performance in international tests in support of such policies as re-introducing O levels. It finds reasons to doubt that the tests give an adequate picture of children's learning, in comparison with either older cohorts or overseas peers. Nor do they provide a fair measure of schools' success or the validity of examination qualifications.