Ofsted has claimed on many occasions to be a force for improvement. This book, written by a former HMI and Ofsted inspector, tests this assertion by exploring how Ofsted has influenced the quality of teaching in English primary schools. Helena McVeigh draws on extensive practice as an inspector and consultant to chart the development of Ofsted and…

Quality education is of major public and private interest and, understandably, considerable effort is paid to the quality of schools and improvement of the level of education in society. Many governments recognize the limitations of centralized policy in motivating school improvement and turn to 'network governance' to coordinate school systems.…

School autonomy with accountability (SAWA) reforms have developed in diverse forms in Northern Europe. Following processes of decentralization to the municipal and school levels, quality assurance and inspection became key to the test-based accountability agendas of Denmark and England respectively. With an abductive approach, we explore the…

This article reports a study of the barriers faced by headteachers seeking to include young asylum seekers and refugees into secondary schools in England. We trace the new discourses and assemblages of authority created at city level by recent policy changes. Drawing on in-depth interviews with headteachers, we share their experiences of…

Teaching is understood to be a highly stressful profession. In England, workload, high-stakes accountability policies and pupil behaviour are often cited as stressors that contribute to teachers' decisions to leave posts in the state-funded sector. Many of these teachers leave state teaching to take jobs in private schools, but very little is…

This paper examines how the policy process around initial teacher education (ITE) during the pandemic of 2020 was experienced by the leaders of ITE programmes across England. Education policies, it is argued, are solutions to perceived problems, revealing latent values that drive action. Group interviews with leaders of ITE programmes across the…

School inspections are a key component of the accountability system in many education systems, including England. The judgments and reports produced through these inspections are widely used by parents when they are choosing a school for their children. But should they be? This paper presents new evidence on this issue. We illustrate how parents…

This position statement presents a summative argument against current structures and practices of assessment in England's primary schools, and some key principles for its replacement. The text was agreed by More Than A Score, a broad coalition of professional, curriculum, research and campaigning organisations opposed to the current assessment…

In this report on education systems in Repeatedly High Performing Jurisdictions (RHPJs) the authors present data on the assessment approaches used at the end of basic secondary education. These assessments are conducted at around the age of 16, at approximately the stage when students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland take the General…

This article focuses on how assessment practices are used by teachers to develop and maintain their own professional standing -- how assessment works for them as professionals and the work they must do with it to be successful. Reporting on an empirical study involving interviews with 12 primary Key Stage 2 (7-11 years) teachers and using an…

The ongoing marketisation of higher education in England can be understood both conceptually -- in terms of its ideological commitment to competition and accountability; and practically -- in terms of the way that it has altered higher education structurally in a variety of ways. Methods of standardisation and quantification offer validation and…

This paper draws on recent research in Europe and England to discuss the politics of accountability. It is suggested that, as policies in education are increasingly focused on delivering technical-managerial accountability, that is accountability understood as evidenced in international, national, institutional and individual comparative measures…

Trends towards the marketisation of the schooling sector have led to suggestions that state-funded schools in England will soon be allowed to operate on a for-profit basis. This article has two aims: to contribute to understanding of the regulation and characterisation of existing for-profit schools in England; and to assess the claim that…

With the rise of accountability policies since the early nineties, the daily operation of English schools has profoundly changed. Through the in-depth analysis of ability grouping practices in one English secondary school, this paper aims to explore how the accountability shift and datafication impacted the practice of student grouping and…

Academisation of schooling in England is a significant development with consequences for the disavowal of the role of community and democracy in education at the local level and wider resonance for geo-policy jurisdictions where neoliberal education reforms play out. This study analyses the operation of power and control of Multi Academy Trust…