(joint work with Andrew Eyles and Stephen Machin)
The change of government in 2010 provoked the largest structural change in the English education landscape for many years. Unexpectedly, the new government offered primary schools the chance to have ‘the freedom and the power to take control of their own destiny’, with better performing schools given the green light to convert on a fast track. In England, schools that become academies have more freedom over the curriculum, staff pay, the length of the school day and the shape of the academic year. However, the change has been controversial, with recent efforts to force all schools to become academies being fiercely resisted by many schools. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of the programme in the first primary schools to become academies from 2010-12. While the international literature provides growing evidence on the effects of school autonomy in a variety of contexts, there is less known about the effects of autonomy on primary schools (which are typically much smaller than secondary schools) and in contexts where the school is not deemed to be failing or disadvantaged. This paper throws light on these issues in the context of a truly exogenous policy change.
Presented by:
Sandra McNally (University of Surrey/LSE)
Date & time:
May 23, 2016 2:00 pm - May 23, 2016 3:30 pm
Venue:
2N2.4.16
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