Russell Haggar
Site Owner
Parts List
Part One: Some Introductory Links Followed By Early Investigations - Click Here
Part Two: Some More Recent Investigations - Click Here
Part Three: School Effectiveness Research
Part Four: Secondary School Choice - Click Here
Part Five: Summary and Conclusions - Click Here
Social Class Differences in Educational Achievement [2] : The Schools
Part 3
School Effectiveness Research
In any case, however, although interactionist sociologists from the 1960s to the 1980s focused very heavily on the possible impacts of negative and positive labelling often linked to processes of streaming, banding and setting, even if these processes are very significant, they are certainly not the only factors affecting the overall effectiveness of schools.
In the 1970s it increasingly came to be argued from the right of the political spectrum in so called Black papers that progressive and sometimes politically motivated teachers were in fact undermining the educational prospects of their pupils while in 1976, the then Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan claimed that there was indeed a need for a “Great Debate” on education primarily in order to assess the extent to which the education was preparing pupils effectively for future employment.
Important research was published in the 1970s and 1980s which indicated although pupil progress did indeed depend heavily on their social and economic circumstances , it depended also upon the effectiveness of the schools which they attended and that it was therefore very important to try to uncover the factors determining school effectiveness and to ensure that all schools were operating as effectively as possible
The genesis of schools effectiveness research in the late 1970s is illustrated in this Guardian article from 1999. The research indicated that different schools with very similar socio-economic intakes often produced very different examination results thus suggesting that any adverse effects caused by the social class, ethnic or gender mix of schools’ student populations could to some extent be offset in well organised schools. Years later, in his study “The Learning Game “[1995] Professor Michael Barber summarised some important conclusions of a 1995 study by expert school effectiveness researchers Sammons, Thomas and Mortimore as follows:
“In a recent study of 94 secondary schools in eight inner city local education authorities it was found that ‘the difference between the most and the least effective schools was over 12 GCSE points for an average pupil This is the equivalent of achieving 6 grade B GCSEs as opposed to 6 grade D GCSEs ” which represents a very significant differences in achievements with possibly major implications for pupils’ future educational careers.
Although the conclusions of Schools Effectiveness Research do seem to be very plausible the critics of Schools effectiveness research have argued that it deflects attention from the impact of socio-economic inequality on educational opportunity and that it has encouraged successive governments to believe that educational opportunities for disadvantaged groups can be improved without radical measures to tackle the socio-economic inequality which, according to many critics of government education policy, is the underlying cause of educational inequality.
In the UK acknowledged experts such as Professors Diane Reay, Stephen Ball, Stephen Machin and Lee Elliot Majors have all claimed that school differences can explain only about 20% of the variation in pupils’ attainment. However in their recent study Equity in Education Levelling the Playing Field of Learning [2023] Professor Lee Elliot Major and Emily Briant have argued that whereas recent UK governments have overstated the significance the schools and understated the significance of the constraints associated with patterns of social inequality, the misinterpretation of Basil Bernstein’s article entitled Education cannot compensate for society [ which they describe as an “infamous article”] has resulted in an underestimation of the potential for changes in schools policies to influence patterns of educational attainment in the future.
If overall education systems and the activities of individual schools can have considerable potential to influence patterns of educational achievement, it is obviously very important to consider what factors might improve the effectiveness of education systems as a whole and the effectiveness of individual schools.
Since responsibility for education is devolved within among the nations of the UK, I shall concentrate here on the English Education system. Broadly speaking overall education policies since 1979 under Conservative, Labour, Coalition and Conservative Governments have been dominated by a belief in the effectiveness of the so-called quasi marketisation of education whereby parents are allowed to choose from a diversity of schools including Private Schools, Grammar Schools, Local Authority-Managed Schools. , Academies and Free Schools and funding levels for individual schools are determined largely by pupil numbers. Consequently it is argued that individual schools will be incentivised to increase their efficiency because more effective schools will attract more pupils and increased funding whereas for inefficient schools , the reverse will be the case which will lead to the expansion of effective schools at the expense of ineffective schools which will improve the overall efficiency of the education system as a whole . Of course, critics argue that quasi-marketisation will also lead to a range of disadvantages, most notably to increasing inequality of educational opportunity as will be discussed in the following Part of these notes.
Governments introduce some compulsory education policies designed to improve school effectiveness, but schools also have some autonomy to devise their own policies which they believe will make for increased school effectiveness. However, in many cases there are disputes as to the effectiveness of both compulsory government education policies and optional policies introduced by individual schools.
Questions which have a bearing on school effectiveness include the following.
There are disputes as to the content of teacher training courses and the most effective means of delivery of such courses.
Has Academisation and the expansion of Free Schools increased overall school effectiveness?
Should Private schools be retained?
Should Grammar Schools and Secondary Modern Schools be retained?
Do schools’ admission processes discriminate against poorer students? Do school uniform policies place an unnecessary burden on poorer students? Families?
How can schools strike a balance between the provision of good quality academic education and meeting the vocational, artistic, social and emotional needs of their pupils?
How much time should be allocated to non- examination classes such as PHSE?
There are disputes around school curricula. How much teacher time should be allocated to each subject?
What should be included in the syllabi of individual subjects?
What is the optimum mix between a knowledge, based and a skills- based curriculum?
Which teaching methods are most effective? What should be the balance between “traditional” and “progressive teaching methods?
Will the current Curriculum and Assessment Review of 2025 be effective? Click here for The Curriculum and Assessment review
How effective is OFSTED?
How should the specific interests of ethnic minority students be represented in school curricula? Should more ethnic minority teachers be employed? Does the school have effective anti- racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-transphobic policies?
What lessons can be learned from abroad?
What are the relative merits of mixed ability teaching as against streaming, banding or setting?
How can schools best help the children whose educational progress is slow due to poverty or other causes?
Should more money be made available for the Pupil Premium and how can the money be spent most effectively?
How can relationships between schools and parents be strengthened so that all parents can support their children’s learning effectively?
What are the relative merits of coursework and examinations as means of assessment?
Should school discipline be “strict but warm” or can good discipline be maintained in a more relaxed atmosphere Discipline in schools is discussed in this BBC Radio 4 programme.
In their recent book Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools have improved since 2010 and how this was achieved Nick Gibb and Robert Peal claim that the educational policies pioneered by the Coalition and Conservative Governments between 2010 and 2024 have improved the effectiveness of the education system very considerably and that continuation of similar policies is highly likely to result in further improvements. They therefore support continued growth of academies and free schools, a recognisably knowledge-based curriculum, teacher-led tuition and “warm but strict” disciplinary regimes.
For a sympathetic publication event hosted by Policy Exchange Click here
For Tim Clark’s partly critical review of the book Click here
Nick Gibb and Robert Peal have presented a spirited defence of recent Conservative education policies but as is well known, these policies have been subjected to considerable criticism by established sociologists who point out that in the aggregate, the quai- marketisation of education increases inequality of educational opportunity; that Academies examination results are no better than results in Local Authority maintained comprehensives,, that effective teachers might reasonably use a combination of teacher- led classes and group work ; and that allegedly “warm but strict” disciplinary regimes ae sometimes excessively authoritarian. Students might usefully consult these links to the work f Professor Diane Reay for further development of these criticisms,
Diane Reay’s study Miseducation was published in 2017 with a new edition in 2025. She outlined her ideas. this lecture from the University of Winchester. She also wrote a very significant article under the auspices of the Deaton Report published on the Institute of Fiscal Studies website and a summary of some of the ideas pf miseducation or the LSE Blog .
You may also read a review of the first edition of Miseducation here . You may also listen here to an interview with Diane Reay on The Sociology Show.
Professor Reay is critical also of what she considers to be the excessively authoritarian disciplinary regimes used in some schools. Discipline in schools is discussed in this BBC Radio 4 programme.
Click here for isolation rooms Click here for a recent critical assessment of a “strict” school. Of course we do not know how prevalent such schools are.
.
In their book Equity in Education: Levelling the playing field of learning [2023] Lee Ellioyt Major and Emily Briant provide detailed advice as to how school effectiveness might be increased.
Click here for a podcast from The Sociology Show in which Professor Lee Elliot Majors discusses Equity in Education and here for a podcast in which he discusses social mobility.
If there is time, you might like to compare the conclusions of the Nick Gibb / study and the Lee Elliot Majors/Emily Briant study.
Conclusion
Clearly there are disputes among education theorists and among teachers as to how school effectiveness can be increased, but it does seem possible that in principle schools’ effectiveness can be increased considerably with obvious benefits to pupil progress. However, the overarching significance of external social and economic factors must still be recognised.
Part Four: Secondary School Choice - Click Here