Section One:
The historical
context
5.
The 1980s were a time of economic decline, and
so public spending also had to be cut, and with
Education
that cut, power moved back to central government
and new
and away from the LEAs. Parents’ choices of school
were to be followed, and they were given the right
technology
_ to appeal if they did not get the place they
wanted. The Warnock Report was implemented in
the 1980s
such a way as to leave parents fighting local
and 1990s
authorities for the resources that their children had
been shown to need.
The arrival of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister Whilst the Government continued to support
was to mark a watershed in educational provision. selective secondary education, the move to support
The teaching profession was no longer the final comprehensive schools, and especially the abolition
arbiter of educational value. Instead, the views of of the eleven-plus, continued, and not just in
industry, commerce and value for money were to traditionally Labour strongholds. Powers were also
become central to educational planning and given to reconstituted Governing Bodies, increasing
provision. the power of parents and reducing the number of
LEA governors.
A significant amount of time in the first two
Conservative governments in the 1980s was spent Whilst all of these changes were happening, the
in creating a market for education and debating Government was working on a much more
how students were to be allocated to schools. The widescale reform
_
The 1988 Education Reform
local authorities were to be marginalised with an Act, which was heralded as an act giving power to
overview role over their areas as a whole, but with the schools, but might be better characterised as
individual schools having responsibility for taking power away from the LEAs. Its most wide-
provision. Parents were to have choice, and were reaching reform was in the first instance the
therefore to be able to choose to send their National Curriculum, but there were many other
children where they wanted, no matter how full elements of change that were incorporated
_
Local
the school might be. The Government was to set a Management of Schools, assessment and testing
basic curriculum and also to define the minimum when pupils were 7, 11 and 14, and the sharing of
standards that parents could expect. this specific information on a national basis. The
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