Absent Without Leave: state responses to school non‐attendance

ABSTRACT

This paper considers the changing legal context of school attendance, in relation to the Education Reform Act 1988 and the Children Act 1989. The new Children Act seeks to alter legal and welfare approaches to school non‐attendance, and to ‘decriminalise’ truancy by replacing care orders with education supervision orders. The tensions that exist both within new and existing legislation, and between legislation and its implementation by education and welfare agencies are explored. While the Education Reform Act 1988 has no provisions relating specifically to school attendance, measures such as open enrolment and local management of schools impact indirectly on school non‐attendance. The Act has also contributed to the development of local and national initiatives to reduce truancy levels. Finally, the intended and unintended consequences the enforcement of regular school attendance has on the lives of truants is examined. The development of a deviant career is traced, from the initial act of not attending school, through the regulatory and labelling processes of various agencies, to the final state of being out of school and in care.     

Match: The Report of the School

Schools are currently suffering from considerable ‘innovation overload’ with multiple changes being demanded by the Education Reform Act and other sources. Tom Peters (1988) has argued that a similar turbulent situation exists in US business and industry and suggests that the most successful companies are those which are able to ‘Thrive on Chaos’. LEAs and schools need knowledge and skills about school improvement and this article attempts to provide research‐based information to help them cope with innovation and improve teaching and learning.

School improvement is seen as a combination of previous research on the management of change and school effectiveness. Eight factors which seem to be related to effective schools are listed and knowledge about the change process is used to consider how a school could be improved. In order to offer practical help to LEAs and schools a set of guidelines is provided and recent research findings are discussed under each heading. The article concludes with an outline of a possible LEA school improvement project, involving a set of stages.     

20世纪90年代以来英国中等教育改革探析

20世纪90年代以来英国中等教育改革主要以1988年《教育改革法》为纲要,围绕着提高质量、提高效率,兼顾公平的原则,主要在课程、教育多样化、特色学校等方面对中等教育进行改革。本文探讨了英国中等教育改革的背景、理念和具体改革措施,分析了改革中面临的问题,以及进入21世纪后对一些政策作出的调整。     

The performative shift: middle leadership ‘in the line of fire’

ABSTRACT

State school inspection in Norway is currently changing with targeted schools becoming subject to more complex methods of inquiry. Not only school principals but middle leaders are exposed to this shifting system, for the latter are in the frontline of their schools’ everyday practices. The article examines how state school inspection is used as means of controlling legal compliance, as well as evaluating the formative assessment routines and practices of schools, middle leaders, and individual teachers. Drawing on the concepts of accountability and performativity, field observations of inspectors interrogating department heads in primary education are analysed. The empirical study demonstrates how use of standardised rubrics steer the inspection process in schools, aiming more towards completing on task, rather than supporting middle leaders in their struggle to comply with legal standards. During such interrogation, the department heads comply with the system, and are at the same time open towards the inspectors’ questioning concerning the school’s lack of fully implemented routines.     

校园伤害案件若干焦点问题研究

目前,因校园伤害事故引起的学生与学校之间的人身损害赔偿纠纷日益增多,受到社会的广泛关注.文章着力分析了校园伤害案件的几个焦点问题,包括学校与未成年学生之间的法律关系、校园伤害案件的责任承担原则、学校过错的判断标准;详尽地阐述了在司法实践中对一些疑难问题的处理原则,以期对中小学应对和预防校园伤害事故提供一定的参考.     

Management teams and the promotion of staff well‐being

For several years small primary schools have been threatened with closure and their viability is frequently a subject of much discussion. One of the major issues in this debate, particularly in light of the 1988 Education Reform Act, is whether they can provide an effective education for their pupils due to their size and their mixed age range classes. This article discusses the major arguments related to this issue and draws several important conclusions to guide practice and decision making not only in small schools, but also in all other primary schools where differentiation in teaching and learning methods is now of crucial significance. Supporting evidence is taken mainly from a Teacher Fellowship project funded by West Glamorgan County Council.     

浅析英国发展基础教育的六大举措

本文以法制精神为主轴,以重要教育举措为横轴,以"每个孩子都很重要"为教育价值取向,审视了英国从1944年到2008年过去半个多世纪颁布的几部影响着英国基础教育格局和走向的法律,如1944年的教育改革法,1988年教育改革法,1993年的教育法和2006年教育检查法等,以及发展基础教育的六大举措:如统一国家课程标准,发展自我管理学校,监控教育服务和质量,打造特色学校等。文章最后对我国教育可以借鉴的方面提出了建议。     

THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN SCHOOL INSPECTIONS, SCHOOL CHARACTERISTICS AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

ABSTRACT:  The effects of school inspections on school improvement have been investigated only to a limited degree. The investigation reported on in this article is meant to expand our knowledge base regarding the impact of school inspections on school improvement. The theoretical framework for this research is partly based on the policy theory behind the Dutch Educational School Supervision Act (the latter includes assumptions about how school inspections lead to school improvement). Interviews and a survey with school inspectors gave insight into how school inspectors implement the Supervision Act and how they assess schools, and stimulate schools to improve. The results of ten case studies showed that all schools started to improve after a school visit. The innovation capacity of the school and the school environment do not seem to contribute to school improvement after school inspections. No effects were found on school-improvement processes of the number of insufficient scores that schools received from inspectors, the extent of feedback and suggestions for improvement, and the number of agreements. The provision of feedback about weaknesses, the assessment of these weak points as unsatisfactory, and the agreements between an inspector and the school regarding improvement activities do appear to make a difference in promoting school improvement.     

Understanding the School's Capacity for Development: Growth states and strategies

ABSTRACT

This article focuses upon differential strategies for school development and improvement. It argues that much school improvement work has placed an emphasis upon systemic change and has neglected to consider the extent to which schools have different capacities for change and development. We suggest in this article that different improvement strategies and types of intervention are needed for schools at different stages of growth. Our position is based upon a substantial body of school improvement research which has demonstrated the importance of differential strategies for schools at various developmental stages. We hope that this article will stimulate further discussion, debate and enquiry about the importance of differential approaches to school improvement.     

Special Education in the United Kingdom

ALL CHILDREN of school age in the United Kingdom are the responsibility of the Education Authority and must be offered educational provision. About 1.3% of pupils attend special schools; other pupils with special educational needs receive support of various kinds in ordinary schools. The Education Act 1981 is the main legislative instrument concerned with special education: it defined special educational needs, established integration as a key principle guiding service provision and laid down detailed procedures for conducting assessments. Special educational provision is likely to be affected significantly by the general Education Act introduced in 1988 but the precise implications are not yet clear.     

Perceptions of the principal’s role in democratic school governance in South Africa

This article explores governors’ perceptions of the role played by school principals in the democratic governance of secondary schools in South Africa. The South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 has mandated that all public schools in South Africa must have democratically elected school governing bodies, comprised of the principal (in his or her official capacity), educators, non‐teaching staff, parents and learners, but the latter is applicable only in secondary schools. This reform is intended to foster tolerance, rational discussion and collective decision‐making. In the light of this reform an empirical study investigated the role of the principal in the school governing body (SGB), particularly in promoting parent and learner participation in SGBs. The findings highlighted the important functions that principals fulfil with regard to the functioning of the SGB. Principals are viewed by governors as playing a positive role in SGBs. Governors referred to principals as ‘the finger on the pulse of what is happening at school’; they are resource persons for other members of the SGBs and ‘the engines’ of the schools. Governors viewed the principal as in charge of the professional management of the school, ensuring that all duties are carried out adequately, setting the tone in SGB meetings, and responsible for interpreting education policies and ensuring that they are well implemented. Furthermore, principals have the responsibility of ensuring the maximum participation of both parent and learner governors in SGBs meetings. Principals can also contribute greatly to school governance issues, since they are usually at an advantage in terms of their familiarity with official regulations, provincial directives and knowledge of educational reform measures. The findings highlighted persistent power struggles in rural schools that may arise when principals overplay their roles as this creates tension among SGB members. However, principals enabled implementation of democratic values such as tolerance, rational discussion and collective decision‐making in schools through their leadership roles.     

Regional and Local Differences in Admission Arrangements for Schools

This paper describes the results of an analysis of the secondary school admissions arrangements, current and past, published by 40 Local Education Authorities in England and Wales. Arrangements are separated here into application procedures and school allocation criteria, and explored through an examination of specific examples of each type. The potential impacts of these arrangements for school admissions and for the changing social composition of schools are discussed. Perhaps the most significant finding is the scale of variation, even between apparently similar regions, in the nature of the admissions process, given that all procedures are presented as being in accordance with national legislation. Because the local implementation of national policy gives authorities this leeway in interpretation, many areas have not changed their procedures much, either in response to the Education Reform Act 1988, or the subsequent School Standards and Framework Act 1998.     

民办学校分类管理——从“四分法”到“二分法”

民办学校分类管理是民办教育发展中一个敏感而重要的政策问题。区分营利性和非营利性,对不同类型的民办学校采取不同扶持政策和监管措施,是破除长期阻碍民办教育发展制度困局的关键,也是我国民办教育今后发展的理想选择。但基于复杂的法律与现实利益纠葛,目前只能处于试点和探索阶段,这一制度的建设和推开可能需要一个较长的过渡期。当前和今后较长一个时期,需要按照《民办教育促进法》及其实施条例在规定税收优惠政策时所作的区分,制定和落实适用于捐资举办的民办学校、出资人不要求取得合理回报的民办学校、出资人要求取得合理回报的民办学校以及经营性民办培训机构的不同扶持政策和规范措施。从"四分法"向"二分法"过渡,必须在反复论证和地方实践的基础上,设计好营利性和非营利性分类管理的政策制度体系及其过渡的相关路径,从根本上促进民办教育的健康发展。     

Developing the characteristic spirit of publicly managed schools in a more secular and pluralist Ireland

This discussion paper considers the identification and definition of the ‘characteristic spirit’ of publicly managed schools in the Republic of Ireland. Some international approaches to values in publicly funded schools are introduced along with relevant contextual aspects of Irish education including the cultural diversity and secularisation of modern Irish society. The Irish Education Act (1998) gives ultimate responsibility for school values and ‘characteristic spirit’ to the school ‘patron’, a role legally separate from that of school ownership and school management. The underlying values of privately managed faith-based schools are well established. However, the ‘characteristic spirit’ of publicly managed Education and Training Board schools remains largely undeveloped. Appropriate responses to this challenge are identified and discussed.     

History in the National Curriculum: a lesson in curriculum devolution

This article will focus on an event in the educational history of Wales in the 1980s which still impacts both on school practice and on thinking about concepts of Welsh identity. That event was the creation of the History Committee for Wales which was charged with devising a history curriculum for Welsh schools in the wake of the 1988 Education Act. The story will be told largely by using evidence gleaned in elite interviews with the ministers, senior inspectors and civil servants most closely associated with the decision to support or accept the creation of this committee.

The significance of the decision will be assessed by charting the progress of curriculum devolution in Wales from the beginnings of state education and the implications of this for ideas of Welshness. This background will be briefly sketched, as will the background to the 1988 Education Act on a wider canvas. General reaction to that act in the Welsh Office will be discussed before the detailed implications for the subject of history will be explored in detail.

It will then be argued that wider discussions as to how schools should approach and reflect the history and culture of nations not only shed important light on devolutionary processes which were gathering pace at the time but also reflect the nature of Welshness as perceived by senior figures in the world of education policy-making.     

民办学校财产归属是影响其发展的关键

民办学校财产归属是影响民办学校发展的关键,许多专家学者对民办学校财产归属有论述。《民办教育促进法》维护民办学校财产归属的困难是难以维护民办学校的法律权利、难以界定民办学校的合理回报、难以明晰民办学校的产权关系、难以促进独立学院的发展。为了促进民办学校的发展我们应该有选择性地做下列工作:对于义务教育阶段的学校,全部采用"学票制"(Voucher mechanism),学生可以自主选择经政府认可的任何学校,包括民办学校和公办学校;对于非义务教育阶段的教育,要严格区分民办与公办;逐步对民办学校的财产实行股份制改造,以利于清查办学财产,保证国有资产的保值和增值;推行民办学校的所有权与经营权相分离的治理机制,克服资本的寻利性和教育的公益性之间的矛盾。     

The expectations of parent members of school governing bodies regarding teacher workload in South African schools

Abstract

The South African Schools Act, No. 84 of 1996 (SASA), provides parents with opportunities to serve on the governing bodies of public schools. In this context, members of school governing bodies may hold unique sets of expectations, which may influence the type of education to which a school community aspires. This article reports on an investigation into middle-class, public primary school governing body expectations of teacher workloads from a South African labour law perspective (Minnaar, 2008). The expectations of parent members of school governing bodies were examined to determine whether they were aligned with or diverged from the law. The findings provided evidence that although governing body expectations of teachers were aligned with prevailing education labour law, the open-ended nature of such law, together with omissions and silences, allows legal space for individual and contextual interpretation and implementation and may consequently intensify the workloads of teachers.     

What counts as evidence in the school choice debate?

This article has two chief purposes. It presents a substantive reappraisal of a decade of school choice research in the UK. This reappraisal is used as a case study illustrating the elasticity of the notion of social science ‘evidence’, when wielded by academics in an area where strong ideological preconceptions struggle with the lack of a sound quantitative tradition of research. The focus here is on the changing socio‐economic compositions of schools in an era of choice. A prediction from theory and from small‐scale studies had been that schools in England and Wales would become more segregated in terms of indicators of socio‐economic disadvantage after the Education Reform Act 1988. The first large‐scale study of the actual compositions of schools suggested that this did not happen. This study was then subjected by a majority of UK academics in the field to a level of criticism that was not applied by them to subsequent, but seemingly inferior, studies that reached an opposite conclusion. The criticism involved widespread misquotation and misunderstanding that was not picked up by ‘peer’ review. What, therefore, counts as evidence in the school choice debate?     

Schools as dangerous places

When students set off for school each day how many of them or their caregivers consider for a moment that they will spend the day at a potentially dangerous place? On the contrary, students and caregivers probably view schools as safe havens, and official research suggests that this is the case for the majority of teachers and pupils. However, underlying this official view, schools are more and more seen as much less benign and safe. The popular press, for one thing, is certainly keen to report instances of schools as dangerous places. This article examines schools as dangerous places because of dangers from pupils to pupils, teachers to pupils, teachers to teachers, pupils to teachers and dangers from the physical and natural environment. The discussion is framed in terms of the culture of the school and the increasingly legal nature of the schooling and educational environment.     

The Implications of Every Child Matters and the Children Act for Schools

This article explores the implications of the publication of the Green Paper on Every Child Matters , which proposes the most radical changes in services for children and their families since the Children's Act, 1988. The Green Paper focuses upon improving every level of professional support for children perceived to be vulnerable and in need. The legislation and subsequent changes will bring about a whole new agenda and philosophy that will directly or indirectly involve every school, teacher, paraprofessional and educational support service. It will also involve changes in supporting parents and carers, and lead to earlier intervention, more accountability and integration between services as well as enhancing workforce reform. In conjunction with the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, 2003, it will provide a new impetus for tackling truancy and disruptive conduct. It is also likely to lead to a rethink about the wider role of schools and aspects of pastoral care practice. Its implementation will require a reassessment of the continuing professional training needs of all teachers and senior professionals working in schools and in related activities such as education social work. The legislation will mean that schools are likely to become all-the-year-round community centres with amended opening hours in order to meet the needs of disadvantaged youngsters and their families.