The
specialist schools programme is a UK government initiative which encourages
secondary schools in England
to
specialise in certain areas of the curriculum to boost
achievement. The
Specialist Schools and
Academies Trust is responsible for the delivery of the
programme.
Currently there are nearly 3,000 specialist
schools, or 88% of the state-funded secondary schools in England.The
government plans that eventually all schools in England will
specialise.
Scotland
, Wales
, and
Northern
Ireland
control their own education systems; there are no
specialist schools in Scotland or Wales. In Northern Ireland
specialist school status has been granted to 34 schools by the
Department of Education
as of June 2008, part of a three year
pilot.
History
Numbers of specialist schools in
England by year and first specialism
The
Education Reform Act
1988 introduced a new compulsory subject of Technology, but
there were insufficient funds to equip all schools to teach the
subject.A first attempt at developing centres of excellence, the
City Technology College
programme between 1988 and 1993, had produced only 15 schools.In
1994, the
Conservative
government, at the urging of Sir Cyril Taylor, designated 35
grant-maintained and
voluntary aided schools as
Technology Colleges.The schools
were required to arrange private sponsorship of £100,000, and would
then receive a matching government capital grant and increased
recurrent funding.The following year the programme was opened to
all maintained schools, and specialism in
Language was added.Specialisms in
Arts and
Sport
were added in 1996.
As specialism implied diversity of schools, it was opposed by many
supporters of
comprehensive
schools, including many in the
Labour Party.Nevertheless, in 1997 the new
Labour government, also encouraged by Sir Cyril Taylor, adopted the
embryonic programme, and the number of specialist schools continued
to grow.The
School Standards and
Framework Act 1998 made it possible for specialist schools to
select up to 10% of their intake on aptitude in the existing
specialisms in sport, the arts, modern languages and technology,
though new selection for aptitude in technology was prohibited in
2008.However few have taken up this option.
The 2001
white paper Schools
Achieving Success envisaged expansion of the programme to 50%
of secondary schools by 2005, and introduced new specialisms in
Business and
Enterprise,
Engineering,
Mathematics and
Computing and
Science.The
emphasis was shifting from centres of excellence to a means of
driving up standards in most schools.The required amount of private
sponsorship was halved, and could be made up of goods and services
in lieu of cash.Software donations had been ineligible due to the
difficulty in evaluating the true value of something that has no
manufacturing cost and can simply be given away as a form of
collateral, but this changed when
Oracle and then
Microsoft were allowed to sponsor the programme
with "in kind" donations.In 2002 the government introduced the
Partnership Fund, funded at £3million per annum, to make up the
shortfall for schools that were unable to raise the required
£50,000 of private sponsorship.Specialisms in
Humanities and
Music were added in 2004.By 2008 approximately
90% of maintained secondary schools had become specialist
schools.
Extension of the specialist programme to primary schools is being
trialled at 34 schools, starting in 2007.The specialisms involved
in the pilot are Arts, Music, Languages, Science and Physical
Education/Sport.
Gaining specialist school status
To apply for specialist school status, a school must demonstrate
reasonable standards of achievement, and produce a four-year
development plan with quantified targets related to learning
outcomes. The school must also raise £50,000 in private sector
sponsorship.
Private sector sponsorship includes charitable trusts,
internal fund raising and donations from private companies. In some
cases donations can be made in cash from entities in the private
sector such as
Arcadia and
HSBC, but may also be donations "in kind" of goods or
services. The total sponsorship to date is of the order of
£100m.
A school may specialise in any of the following fields, or combine
specialisms in two of them (at the same level of funding):
Specialist schools must still meet the full requirements of the
English
national
curriculum, so the specialism is seen as adding value to the
existing statutory provision rather than being a radical departure
from it. The important aspect in the eyes of the government is the
focus that the specialism provides for providing leadership in the
quest for whole school improvement.
The reward for achieving specialist status is a government grant of
£100,000 to go with the £50,000 in sponsorship for a capital
project related to the specialism and an extra £129 per pupil per
year for four years to support the development plan. This is
normally targeted on additional staffing and professional
development, though up to 30% may be spent on equipment.
Schools that make a good attempt at achieving their targets over
the 4 year development plan period normally have their grants
renewed at 3-year intervals with no further need to raise
sponsorship. However since 2008, the government has sought to
encourage long-term relationships with business partners by
offering a matching grant to redesignating specialist schools that
are able to raise a further £25,000 in private sponsorship. Schools
that do particularly well may apply to be designated as
High Performing Specialist Schools, with an
additional specialism and further funds to forge partnerships with
other secondary schools.By 2008 some 600 schools (20% of specialist
schools) had achieved this status.
Evaluation
Results
David
Jesson of the University of
York
has published a series of annual studies of the
results of the specialist schools program, on behalf of the
SSAT.These studies report that non-selective specialist
schools scored achieve significantly higher results at
GCSE results than non-specialist
comprehensive schools, that they
achieve higher added value when prior achievement is taken into
account, and that the gains increase with the length of time the
school has been specialist.Jesson's statistical methodology has
been criticised, and others have pointed out that early specialist
schools were chosen for the programme because they were already
successful.Other studies have found that specialist schools perform
slightly better at GCSE, particularly benefitting more able pupils
and narrowing the gap between boys and girls.The most recent
studies attribute this increase to the additional funding, and
report that the effect is diminishing as a greater proportion of
schools become specialist.
Systemic effects
Specialist schools and
academies have been promoted,
notably by
Estelle Morris (Education
Secretary 2001–2002), as part of a drive to improve standards by
increasing diversity in secondary schools.Left wing commentators
have criticised this move away from the comprehensive ideal.The two
biggest UK teaching unions have opposed the programme because they
say that it creates a two-tier education system, made up of
specialist schools with extra funding and non-specialist schools
which cannot benefit from any extra money.
There is also evidence that specialist schools take fewer children
from poorer families than non-specialist schools..One possible
cause is that it may be easier for middle-class parents to raise
the necessary sponsorship.
See also
References
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