4.6 Curriculum

The QCA published plans for a reduced curriculum for 11 to 14 year olds in England, to be introduced from September 2008. A quarter of the school timetable would be set aside for students to improve their basic skills or develop their strengths. The new regime would include cookery (though unions feared many schools no longer had the facilities for this), citizenship (to include work on 'British values' and 'national identity'), and an optional 'economic well-being and financial capability' strand in PSHE, which was now said to refer to 'personal, social, health and economic well-being'.

In September 2007, Balls announced a catch-up programme for writing skills in primary schools, and the establishment of an independent exam standards body reporting directly to parliament. Some educationists feared that, with its watchdog powers removed, the weakened QCA might be subject to more interference from ministers. Balls also announced that a new national body would decide pay for teaching assistants and other support staff.

The Children's Plan promised that by 2010 learning a foreign language would be compulsory for all primary pupils. But there were problems at secondary level. In 2007 the number of candidates taking GCSE French was eight per cent lower than in the previous year, German more than ten per cent lower. Research for the National Centre for Languages showed that more than half of England's secondary schools were now teaching languages to less than half their GCSE pupils. To attempt to revive language teaching in schools, ministers announced that a £53m package (£5m more than in the previous year): pupils would be offered intensive language classes and university students would be sent into schools as 'ambassadors' for languages

The government was determined that young children should be taught to read using basic phonics, to write short sentences and to use punctuation. It commissioned academics at ULIE to look into the effectiveness of these policies. Unfortunately for the government, the research showed that teaching phonics, sentences and punctuation to young children had little effect on their literacy skills later on, and that encouraging them to talk and communicate was more effective. So the government suppressed the report, which was released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Liberal Democrats.

Summerhill

Summerhill, the famous Suffolk independent boarding school where children decide how to spend their time, swearing is allowed and, weather permitting, staff and students can sunbathe in the nude, had had a long battle with the government. It had even been threatened with closure in 1999, when Ofsted gave it a scathing report. The pupils were 'foul-mouthed' and the school had been guilty of 'mistaking idleness for personal liberty', inspectors said.

But Ofsted's 2007 report on the school was glowing. 'Pupils' personal development, including their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, is outstanding', the inspectors concluded. Students were 'courteous, polite and considerate', made 'good progress' and were 'well-rounded, confident and mature' when they left.

School meals

Rose Hill Primary School in Oxford abandoned its policy of using only halal meat in its school meals after complaints from parents.

A survey by the School Food Trust, set up by ministers in 2005 to encourage children to eat healthier food, found that secondary schools had, on average, 23 fast-food outlets within a mile of their buildings. The Trust suggested that, to prevent pupils from buying junk food, schools should not allow them to leave the premises at lunchtime. School leaders said the proposal was unworkable.

Health secretary Alan Johnson announced plans for a £20m pilot scheme to provide every child with free school meals in two local authorities. If the two-year trial improved health, school standards, pupils' behaviour and take-up of school meals, it could be expanded to every local authority, he said.

Catering firms belonging to the Local Authority Caterers Association warned the government that new rules on schools meals due to come into force in secondary schools in September 2009 would lead to even more pupils deserting canteens for fast-food outlets and could make the school meals service no longer viable.

Five years after the outcry over 'Turkey Twizzlers', led by TV chef Jamie Oliver, the Food for Life Partnership warned that progress towards healthier school meals would stall if budgets for ingredients were cut.

Higher education

Within a week of becoming prime minister in 2007 Gordon Brown had surprised universities by promising to increase the number of students eligible for grants. The pledge had been welcomed by students as a sign that the new prime minister was serious about Labour's target of getting half of young people into university by 2010. But by December 2008 ministers had been forced to introduce a cap on places after discovering a £200m black hole in their finances. This meant that for autumn 2009 there would be 3,000 extra full-time university places - the largest number in history, but not enough to keep up with the surge in demand.

In November 2009 Lord Mandelson launched A New Framework for Higher Education which set out a ten to fifteen year strategy for universities, designed to aid the country's economic recovery and pave the way for an overhaul of student tuition fees.

Its key points were:

• a 'consumer revolution' to give students more information about courses and future earnings potential;

• a drive to make universities work more closely with industry in designing courses and funding them; and

• a new focus on universities as engines of social mobility, encouraging the use of 'contextual data' in selection processes to identify hidden talent among pupils from low-performing schools.

Conclusion

Some of the many changes that took place in British education in the second half of the twentieth century simply reflected the wider social process of increased egalitarianism.

In other cases the changes have been the result of government policy.

The main aim of Margaret Thatcher's education policies in the 1980s was to convert the nation's schools system from a public service into a market, and to transfer power from local authorities to central government. But this plan was not very successful. Many people felt that there should be more choice available to parents and disliked the uniformity of education given to teenagers. There was a widespread feeling that educational standards felt during the less literate and less numerate than his or her European counterpart.Thatcher had become increasingly unpopular and the last straw for many was her determination to introduce a form of poll tax. This led, in March 1990, to the worst riots London had seen for a century. She lost the confidence of her colleagues and in November 1990 she was replaced as Tory leader and prime minister by John Major.

During their eighteen years in office, the Tories and John Major had weakened the power of the local authorities, diminished the influence of the teacher unions and forced the Labour Party to rethink its education policies. But these successes had encouraged them to ever greater extremism, notably in their promotion of selection and their right-wing vision of 'traditional' education. In the end, the government destroyed itself. Having called for a return to 'traditional values' in his 'back to basics' campaign, Major found himself leading an administration mired in endless allegations of sleaze and widely regarded as fiscally incompetent - a sin for any Tory government. It was swept away in the general election of May 1997 when Tony Blair's 'New Labour' party scored a landslide victory.

In education, the high hopes of many on that spring morning in May 1997 had been sadly dashed. Instead of trying to repair some of the damage done by the Thatcher and Major governments, Blair and his adviser Adonis had actually made the situation worse: they had extended covert selection under the guise of specialism, expanded privatised provision of schools and services, further diminished the role of local education authorities, and hugely increased the role of churches and other faith groups in educational provision.

What are we to make of education in England under Ed Balls? It's a very mixed picture.

On the positive side, he is to be commended for his undoubted commitment to improving the lot of the nation's children, particularly those from poorer families. The Children's Plan was, as we have seen, an ambitious attempt to take a holistic view of the lives and prospects of children and to bring some much-needed coherence to policy-making by drawing together all the government departments and agencies which impinged upon them. This approach was refreshingly new.

He was very opposed to selection for secondary education and took steps to prevent schools - especially faith schools - from covertly selecting pupils from more affluent backgrounds. He was also determined to crack down on homophobic bullying in schools.

On the negative side, it is to be regretted that he was so adamantly committed to maintaining the indefensible testing and league tables regime in England's schools, in the face of widespread hostility from parents, teachers and governors, and despite clear evidence of the damage it was causing, not least to the children themselves.

It is also regrettable that he was content to ignore the wishes of parents and teachers by continuing to increase the number of academies and trust schools, and that, despite his obvious concerns about faith schools, he was apparently happy to see their numbers grow too.

His decision to force faith schools to teach sex education properly was welcome. His capitulation in the face of religious lobbying was not.

And finally, like many politicians he talked much about returning decision-making to schools and local communities. So it's odd that he still insisted on, for example, compelling schools to use a particular method of teaching reading - 'synthetic phonics' - against the advice of the world's experts in the teaching of reading.

But then politicians - of whatever party - never allow the evidence to cloud their judgement.

The undertaken research resulted in the following conclusion:

1. The new developments of British education system from 1980 to 2010 were revealed.

2. The policy of the new government and their main goals of this period were described.

3. The major education Acts from 1980 to 2010 were observed.

Thus, the main goals set in the given course paper can be considered achieved.

Literature

1. Baker M. 'When is a review not really a review?' -The Guardian 19,2OO9.

2. Benn C. Chitty C . Thirty years on: is comprehensive education alive and well or struggling to survive?- David Fulton ,1996.

3.Барановский Л.С.,Козикис Д.Д.Страноведение Великобритании.-Учеб.пособие.Мн: Выш.шк,1990.

4. Chitty C. Education policy in Britain.- Palgrave Macmillan,2004.

5.Chitty C. Dunford J. State schools: New Labour and the Conservative legacy.- Woburn Press,1999.

6. Crace J. 'Long division' .-The Guardian 11 November ,2008.

7. Hodgson A. Spours K . 'Divided we fail' .-The Guardian 1 March,2005.

8. Jenkins S. 'Blair and Adonis are taking our schools back to the 30s'.- The Guardian 25 January,2006.

9. Jones K. Education in Britain: 1944 to the present.- Polity Press,2003.

10. Mansell W. 'Are academies just "a ludicrously expensive con-trick"?'- The Guardian 1 December,2009.

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