Richard Riddell | University of Chichester (original) (raw)

Papers by Richard Riddell

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 5, 2023

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

Trentham Books, Sep 15, 2003

... Brian Hall, Mandy Johannson, Claire Fagan, Sarah Burns, Stephen Murtagh, Ross Phillips, Ray P... more ... Brian Hall, Mandy Johannson, Claire Fagan, Sarah Burns, Stephen Murtagh, Ross Phillips, Ray Priest, Malcolm Brown, Nicky McAllister, Peter Scholey, Keith ... Finally, 1 must thank my wife Millie who continues to provide a very practical and realistic perspective for my own ...

Journal of Education Policy, Nov 1, 2013

Taking recent policy on education and social mobility as a working example, this article examines... more Taking recent policy on education and social mobility as a working example, this article examines developments in the mechanisms for realising policy over the past ten years, as indicative of changes in the neoliberal state. This initial analysis suggests that, despite similarities in the process of policy formation before and after the General Election of 2010, the changing nature of the policy levers chosen by the Coalition Government represents a move from a rationalist, directing state towards a more hybrid but nevertheless neoliberal model. The Government still intends to ‘steer’ the education system through data, however, but in a more developed market system with little supervision, its effects will be less predictable.

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

The chapter begins with the limitations of nationally driven policy making in Education. It exami... more The chapter begins with the limitations of nationally driven policy making in Education. It examines difficulties of realising national prescription and how there are always unforeseeable consequences. The constantly changing market for private companies is explored whose presence helps secrecy, and ends new thinking. The chapter ends with a review of arms-length bodies, their role and that of Ofsted

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

Supplied by the British Library Document Supply Centre eBooks, 1983

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

This paper reports work in progress; citation by request only please. Feedback and comments welco... more This paper reports work in progress; citation by request only please. Feedback and comments welcome. Aspects of the paper are intended for publication: a further journal article and a new book (intended publication 2015).

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 5, 2023

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

Trentham Books, Sep 15, 2003

Journal of Education Policy, Nov 1, 2013

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

Supplied by the British Library Document Supply Centre eBooks, 1983

Policy Press eBooks, Feb 6, 2023

Transforming Society Blog, Bristol University Press, 2023

This blog, published on the date of the first teacher strike in England for decades, considers th... more This blog, published on the date of the first teacher strike in England for decades, considers the effects of increased centralisation of education in England. While ministers may argue that government's job is to get out teachers' way, the very opposite is happening.

This is chapter 4 of my book published earlier this years about the development of the self-impro... more This is chapter 4 of my book published earlier this years about the development of the self-improving schools system in England. This chapter sets out the policy framework developed by the Coalition Government 2010-15 which is continuing under the Conservative one 2015-, even with a change in Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education. The book is available here: http://www.ucl-ioe-press.com/books/schools-and-schooling/equity-trust-and-the-self-improving-schools-system/

N/A, 2019

This paper reports and reflects on a series of semi-structured interviews with politicians and se... more This paper reports and reflects on a series of semi-structured interviews with politicians and senior officers in two contrasting local authorities (LAs) in an English government region, informed by critical readings of local and national documentation, much of it not available in the public domain. Following initial work focused on the LAs, interviews were subsequently held with primary and secondary headteachers, Chief Executives of Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), current and former government officials, Teaching School Council staff, private sector consultants and school governors. There have been repeat interviews with some officers. The focus at the beginning of the interview series was on the remaining responsibilities of LAs with respect to schooling, and how these enabled or obstructed the fulfilment of their wider visions for their communities. The diverse responsibilities (or none) for school improvement featured prominently in these earlier interviews. But more recently, the discussions have changed their tenor within the rapidly changing local school governance arrangements following 2018 announcements by the Secretary of State (Hinds, 2018), intended to make for a 'clearer' schools system. Following earlier indications, this announcement has not been followed up at the time of writing by a promised DfE consultation document on the responsibilities of local authorities. Nevertheless, there were almost immediate reductions in the staffing capacities of Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs) and 'clarifications' of their responsibilities, particularly with respect to Ofsted. Local authorities had been 'coming back on to the scene' for some time, as one interviewee said, and this had been reflected in the Sub-Regional School Improvement Boards being set up by RSCs to supervise projects funded by the Strategic School Improvement Fund. This is/was a national fund available on a competitive bidding basis to maintained schools and academies (and MATs), which in fact closed to new bids in August 2018. These bodies have now been renamed 'Regional Education Partnership Boards' covering an area nevertheless smaller than the region and wider than an LA. The new arrangements for school improvement also assume a much greater role being taken at LA level through Local Authority Standards Boards. Both the LAs researched had been developing their own boards, with similar memberships representative of the LA, MATs, the dioceses, and heads, and both were envisioning some general oversight of school development and support. Arrangements were at a more developed stage in one LA than in the other, and this has been found subsequently to be reflected more widely in other LAs. These developments have been considered 'exciting' by some LA officers, as they give formal responsibilities to a body that might in the future also act as the major conduit for 'holding to account' MATs-so officers have been informed. However, Ofsted is also proposing to undertake 'evaluations' of MAT inputs to schools in the new inspection framework due to be implemented in 2019. These arrangements are extremely fluid and represent an 'unstable shifting assemblage' (Ball and Junemann, 2012), paradoxically set within the 'highly centralised state', as a former

This paper reports initial outcomes from a short series of semi-structured interviews in 2017 wit... more This paper reports initial outcomes from a short series of semi-structured interviews in 2017 with senior politicians from three parties elected to two contrasting English local authorities (LAs): an urban city authority and a largely rural shire county. These were complemented by continuing interviews with senior officers and head teachers, of both academies and maintained schools, some with positions in multi-academy trusts (MATs), and critical readings of LA strategic documents.

Interviews focused on the nature of democratic authority in what is an increasingly privatised schools system in the sense that school governance and decision making have moved steadily away from the authority inherent in democratic representation of a local community towards a more technical (or technicist) conception that depends more on ‘people with the right skills, experience, qualities and capacity’ (DfE, 2017: 10). This process has been described as ‘depoliticisation’ (Ball, 2007), or even ‘destalization’ (Jessop, 2002), whereby there is little public disagreement or debate about schools’ role in achieving national objectives (for example, social mobility). And the new technologies underpinning these changes have in turn engendered new governmentalities and discursive formations focused on little except better ‘outcomes’ (Wilkins, 2016).

The principal policy in pursuit of these aims in English schools has been the process of academisation, whereby schools have been steadily removed from the purview of LAs, however etiolated, to be funded directly by central government on the basis of a contract with the minister. More recently, schools have been more progressively organised into Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) – voluntarily or involuntarily – in processes overseen by Regional Schools Commissioners, central government officials also responsible directly to the minister (Riddell, 2016).

Politicians interviewed varied in their support for academisation - not always in ways that might be expected to reflect party affiliation – but all felt that schools had an important contribution to make to the realisation of their strategic aims, from economic development to lifelong learning. In addition, they were interested in what happened to the children of their constituents and all felt local authorities needed to engage with schools, reporting varying success in doing so. All acknowledged the difficulties inherent in a system increasingly organised de facto to exclude them, especially with MATs with wider regional or national roles with the attendant more remote offices and boards. According to some politicians (and officers), responses from MATs varied but having an elected mayor in the city authority was seen as one significant mechanism. Nearly all were optimistic for the future.

The paper sets these initial findings in the context of what one interviewee described as a ‘stalled process’ (of economic reform), with central government not willing or able to respond to their concerns about the management of the system, especially since the 2017 general election. The reported absence of any space in the national legislative programme for schools because of the preparations for BREXIT means that even the much-discussed National Funding Formula (for school budgets) will be implemented via LAs for maintained schools, retaining some discretion, not the original intention (DfE, 2016: 68). Nor is the process of academisation by any means complete; nor, it is argued, is it ever likely to be. At the time of the first interviews, Regional Schools Commissioners were in the early stages of setting up ‘Sub-Regional Schools Improvement Boards’ involving senior LA representatives, that will most likely remain ‘strategic partners’. In addition, according to several interviewees, a paper setting out the proposed statutory roles of LAs to be amended by subsequent legislation had been drafted before the 2017 election, but not published since.

Whereas it could be argued that the newer system based on school collaboration increasingly organised through MATs, overseen by Regional Schools Commissioners, might be more consistent and reliable in attaining greater equity in educational outcomes, a focus so limited leaves major moral (as opposed to technical) questions concerning the nature of ‘state’ schooling in England unanswered in policy: what democratic oversight will local and national communities have of their children’s education; how can and will parents be deeply involved.