This paper takes as its starting point the results of a number of projects that investigated the criteria parents use when choosing schools. In those studies it was found that the happiness of the child was a crucial consideration and that academic criteria were significantly minimized. One of the projects, that conducted at Sheffield, set out to try to clarify what parents might mean by the vague criterion of 'happiness'. The results of this investigation show a complex set of reasons cited by parents for their decisions. A possible explanation for the relative importance of the criteria is proposed. The conclusion is drawn that schools and those concerned with the presentation of their practice to parents should not be exclusively preoccupied with the single criterion of academic standards. It is hoped that these conclusions offer some evidence to justify existing good practice in schools.
Bronwen (2018). Emerging schooling landscapes in England: how primary system leaders are responding to new school groupings. Educational Management Administration & Leadership.
Research to date about the English government's policy to make schools independent of local authorities (LAs) has looked at the 'macro' level of national policy and at the 'micro' level of the institution. The study of which this paper is a part, explores changes at the 'meso' levelthe locality. The paper analyses interviews in three LAs with 15 school headteachers whose schools were well positioned locally. We sought to understand how and why they responded to the changing policy environment. We applied Bourdieu's concepts of forms of capital to model the relationships between schools and to ground explanations of their responses as positioning themselves in the local field. The paper develops this general approach by identifying the varieties of capital available and actually possessed. The most important was categorisation as a result of the inspection process. Many of the headteachers felt impelled to lead their schools into various associations with other schools. Some individuals were becoming notably more powerful in their competition arenas. The power of these elite schools to further accumulate advantage and the withdrawal of the LA role as an arbiter of conflict between schools in the interests of the whole community are discussed.
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