School choice can segregate schools by academic ability, income or ethnicity, but is this because of households' choices, or constraints in access to good schools? We examine whether segregation is by choice, finding that households' school choices are segregating in most areas. Through counterfactual simulation, we find that implementing a policy…

Increasing school choice has been an active objective of policy in England but not in Scotland. Whereas in England all families are expected to list a rank ordering of schools, in Scotland the vast majority of children attend their catchment school by default. This article reviews the differences in approach, family experience and outcomes between…

Current accounts of the British New Right in education during the 1980s generally begin with an observation of the tensions between its neoliberal and neoconservative wings. The subsequent task becomes to explain how they could be reconciled in bringing about the fiercest reform of education in history. This article reverses the interpretive…

School performance measures are published annually in England to hold schools to account and to support parental school choice. This article reviews and evaluates the 'Progress 8' secondary school accountability system for state-funded schools. We assess the statistical strengths and weaknesses of Progress 8 relating to: choice of pupil outcome…

Should religious schools be an option? Should they receive public funding? Are they bad for community cohesion? What should we make of the charge that they indoctrinate? How should they be regulated? People disagree on the answers to these questions. Some maintain that religious schools should not be permitted. If parents want to raise their…

This paper focuses on school choice and diversity in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) in historical context. Drawing on primary and secondary documentary sources it assesses continuity, change and divergence, before addressing existing diversity and school choice, and academic outcomes. The 1944 Education Act and associated…

Parental choice remains a central theme in education policy in England. Parents have the right to choose how their children are educated. For some families this choice is surrendered, with volition and intention, to their local authority which allocates school places after parents, statutory guardians and families have made their decisions. Where…

Education policy in recent years has dramatically repositioned the role and status of teachers, trainee teachers and teacher education in the UK and beyond. This paper focuses specifically on education policy in England; however, it has broader significance for those interested in education and teacher education in international policy contexts.…

This paper uses Anderson's notion of 'imagined community' to argue that how people think about the publicness of their school system provides insight into the functioning and flourishing of communities, societies and nations. We focus on the privatisation of public schooling in Alberta, Canada and Northern England to highlight tensions between the…

This article explores how parents choose childcare settings for their pre-school children within a context of complex policy on eligibility for free provision and a developing market. Using data from interviews with 17 mainly middle-class parents in England, we explore in detail how parents go about choosing a childcare setting and the different…

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 paper discusses the rise and possible fall of the Free Schools movement in England. The arguments here are taken from a collection of government reports, education charitable trust's papers, press reports and articles written by champions of the Free School movement. It does appear from examining the presented evidence, that the initial idea…

To mark the ten year anniversary since the introduction of the free schools programme, New Schools Network (NSN) commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to conduct an independent data-led investigation into what impact free schools have had since their introduction in 2010. The research examines the impact that free…

This study examines parental choice preferences following the introduction of the Free Schools policy in England. It reports on two phases of data collection: first, the analysis of factors that Free School and non-Free School parents reported as important in informing their choices; and, second, findings from semi-structured interviews with…

We study school choice in England using a new dataset containing the choices of all parents seeking a school place in state secondary schools. We provide new empirical evidence to inform how the school choice market functions, including the number of choices made, whether the nearest school is the first choice and the probability of an offer from…