Anne West

The effect of changes in published secondary school admissions on pupil composition

Data from three school admissions surveys and the National Pupil Database are combined to investigate whether changes to the School Admissions Code appear to have altered the published admissions policies and the social composition of particular schools. We show that the 2003 and 2007 School Admissions Codes appear to have been at least in part responsible for changes in the social composition of pupils at schools with criteria and arrangements that were subsequently deemed inadmissible. Although the average impact is relatively small, the direction of the impact is consistent with the observation that school segregation across England has declined a little at the same time that regulations were tightening. Our regression analysis of changes in individual school compositions is able to show this relationship holds even when changes in neighbourhood composition are accounted for. These measured associations that we identify suggest that, if the differentiation of school intakes is a concern, then regulating admission arrangements does appear to have an impact.

Students' Facebook ‘friends’: public and private spheres

Friendship is highly significant during the university years. Facebook, widely used by students, is designed to facilitate communication with different groups of ‘friends’. This exploratory study involved interviewing a sample of student users of Facebook: it focuses on the extent to which older adults, especially parents, are accepted as Facebook friends, and the attitudes towards such friendships and potential friendships and what these reveal about notions of privacy. Parents were rarely reported to be Facebook friends, and there was a view that in general they would not be welcomed. The reasons were related to embarrassment, social norms, and worries about mothers. Underlying these were various notions of the private and the public. Students did not appear to conceive of there being two distinct realms: indeed, the ‘public’ appeared to be the individuals private social world. A level of sophistication is apparent, with nuanced understandings of concepts, suggesting that social networking sites such as Facebook are associated with new ways of construing some of the notions surrounding the traditional public/private dichotomy. Notions of what is private and what is public are fuzzy, with no clear-cut public/private dichotomy. Computer-mediated communication appears to make this fuzziness more apparent than has hitherto been the case.

‘Friending’: London-based undergraduates’ experience of Facebook

Facebook offers the possibility of increased social contact via a process known as ‘friending’, whereby users create personal profiles and accumulate ‘friends’ on a reciprocal basis. The making and maintaining of friendships has been shown to be particularly important to young adults, but there is a strong debate in the literature on computer-mediated communication about the value of the often weak ties that are created. Relatively little is known about the kind of contact that is made on Facebook in the UK context. This study interviewed 16 second-and third-year undergraduates who all joined Facebook soon after it was launched in UK universities in October 2005. This article explores the extent to which the nature of the Facebook site fosters particular kinds of social interaction, and how students seek to manage their Facebook ‘friendships’. It finds that Facebook promotes mainly weak, low-commitment ties.

School admissions and ‘selection’ in comprehensive schools: policy and practice

This article examines secondary school admissions criteria in England. The analysis revealed that in a significant minority of schools, notably those responsible for their own admissions—voluntary‐aided and foundation schools—a variety of criteria were used which appear to be designed to select certain groups of pupils and so exclude others. Specialist schools were more likely than non‐specialist schools to report selecting a proportion of pupils on the basis of aptitude/ability in a particular subject area but voluntary‐aided/foundation schools were far more likely to select on this basis than community/voluntary‐controlled schools. Criteria giving priority to children with medical/social needs were given for nearly three‐quarters of schools; however, community/voluntary‐controlled schools were more likely to include this as a criterion than were voluntary‐aided/foundation schools. Nearly two‐fifths of schools mentioned as an oversubscription criterion, pupils with special educational needs; these were predominantly community/voluntary‐controlled schools as opposed to voluntary‐aided/foundation schools. The evidence reported here reveals that despite attempts by the Labour Government to reform school admissions, considerable ‘selection’ takes place. Implications for policy are addressed.

School Admissions: Increasing Equity, Accountability and Transparency

This paper examines the impact of education reforms on school admissions policies and practices. It discusses the changes that are needed to improve the current system, especially in areas where the market is highly developed. It is concluded that the new legislation to be enacted by the current Labour Government should be beneficial, but that more far-reaching changes are needed for the admissions process to be equitable, transparent and accountable.

Parental Involvement in Education in and out of School

Abstract This paper explores the ways in which parents—mothers and fathers—are involved in their childrens education both in and out of school. It compares involvement of families with children in the final year of primary education (or its equivalent) in state and private schools, and amongst the state school parents compares families in terms of social class and mothers’ educational level. The findings indicate that mothers generally assume overriding responsibility for their childrens education. Furthermore, mothers with higher levels of education are more likely to use workbooks and employ private tutors to support their childrens education; attendance at parents’ evenings and informal discussions with teachers were also more likely to be shared with the childs father. It is suggested that mothers’ educational level is a better predictor of involvement than is social class and that, in the face of a diversification of family forms, mothers’ education may be more instructive in understanding educat...

School Choice, Equity and Social Justice: The Case for More Control.

ABSTRACT:  This paper focuses on school choice and the extent to which admissions to publicly-funded secondary schools in England address issues of equity and social justice. It argues that schools with responsibility for their own admissions are more likely than others to act in their own self interest by ‘selecting in’ or ‘creaming’ particular pupils and ‘selecting out’ others. Given this, it is argued that individual schools should not be responsible for admissions. Instead, admissions should be the responsibility of a local authority (or non-partisan body); this body should make decisions about who should be allocated to which school on the basis of the expressed wishes of the parents, and the admissions criteria of the school in question. Admissions criteria should be objective, clear and fair and the admissions system itself should address issues of equity and social justice. It is argued that systems where there are some ‘controls’ on the choice process should be facilitated to address equity and social justice considerations which can benefit individuals and communities.

Choosing a secondary school: parents of junior school children

Summary A small‐scale study was carried out to ascertain factors that parents of fourth‐year primary school pupils felt were important when choosing a secondary school for their children. A total of 72 parents were interviewed, before a final choice of secondary school had been made. Overall, 85 per cent of the parents interviewed had decided to which school they would like their child to go the following September. Of these, just under half named a mixed school, a third a single‐sex girls’ school and one in ten a single‐sex boys’ school. Fifty‐seven per cent of the parents of girls chose a single‐sex school, compared with only 23 per cent of the parents of boys. Three‐quarters of the parents said there were particular schools to which they did not want their child to go–the predominant reason given was its ‘bad reputation’. In many cases, links existed with the school that the parents were considering for their child, with just under three‐quarters of parents reporting that their childs friends went to ...

The Development of the Academies Programme: ‘Privatising’ School-Based Education in England 1986–2013

ABSTRACT The secondary school system in England has undergone a radical transformation since 2010 with the rapid expansion of independent academies run by private companies (‘academy trusts’) and funded directly by central government. This paper examines the development of academies and their predecessors, city technology colleges, and explores the extent and nature of continuity and change. It is argued that processes of layering and policy revision, together with austerity measures arising from economic recession, have resulted in a system-wide change with private, non-profit-making companies, funded by central government, rapidly replacing local authorities as the main providers of secondary school education.

Religious schools in London: school admissions, religious composition and selectivity

This paper is concerned with segregation and school selectivity in secondary schools with a religious character in London, England. Analyses of the characteristics of pupils at religious and non‐religious schools reveal that the former tend to cater predominantly for pupils from particular religions and/or denominations and ethnic groups, so fostering segregation. In addition, they educate, in the main, pupils who are from more affluent backgrounds and with higher levels of prior attainment than pupils in non‐religious schools. Moreover, the evidence suggests that some ‘élite’ secondary schools are ‘selecting in’ and ‘selecting out’ particular pupils. A range of different admissions criteria and practices are identified which appear to foster school selectivity. It is argued that there may have been a distortion of mission for at least some religious schools given that they were originally set up to educate the poor. Implications for policy are discussed.