LAS ZONAS DE PROTECCION CONTIGUAS A LOS CAUCES DE LAS CORRIENTES Y A LOS VASOS O DEPOSITOS DE PROPIEDAD ESTATAL; Y

In April 1987, mathematics and science working groups were set up to begin the process of adding specific content to Baker’s framework for the NC. A central plank of the Government’s next political manifesto would be the establishment of the NC. This was a bid to revolutionise and raise the standard of education nationally, along with the establishment of a new type of school. These were GM schools that were free from Local Authority control.

Thatcher acknowledged that one option for education was more centralization, even though this ran counter to the Conservative mantra of decentralisation and market forces. She felt that core subjects such as English, mathematics and science needed more consistency and one way to achieve this was through centralisation. She declared openly that she ‘never believed…that the state should try to regiment every detail of what

happened in schools’ (Thatcher, 2011, p.591).

Thatcher’s vision of the NC was for a reasonably small core (developed by teachers) that concentrated on a small body of knowledge with room to expand on this according to the children’s interests and the school’s ethos. Tests, which she agreed with, would only be a ‘snapshot’ of either a child, class or school and were, at best, simply a check. Testing, according to Thatcher was not about measuring the merit of a child, teacher or school, but a way of knowing what children ‘understood’ (Thatcher, 2011, p.593).

Thatcher clearly supported a degree of centralisation, which falls within the political theme, but within the organisational theme she preferred that to be on a large structural scale, rather than trying to micro-manage the organisation of schools. Thinking about the educational theme, it is clear that Thatcher saw the ‘tests’ as more diagnostic for teacher use than being used for accountability.

Baker, however, had a different and bolder plan for the NC. Nearly all subjects would be covered and be compulsory. In an audacious move, he threatened to resign from his post if Thatcher did not allow him to implement his plans in full. Given the fact that the central manifesto pledge was the 1988 ERA which would revolutionise education by removing many LEA controls, giving financial independence to headteachers to raise educational standards, Thatcher had no option but to capitulate (Baker, 1993).

This insight into the workings of policy at Ministerial level is interesting. A national policy, devised by one Minister, albeit with input from various others, is enforced using the threat of disruption to his own party’s election hopes. One argument being supported in this thesis is that politically driven curriculum change is not effective when politicians, who are neither experts in the curriculum nor in education, can exert undue pressure to force through change against the wishes and opinion of experts and end users.

The Conservatives won the 1987 election and, as a result, the 1988 ERA came into effect. GM schools were established as was the Local Management of Schools (LMS) giving more independence from LEA control and direct financial management for headteachers.

Baker moved quickly to implement his plans. He wanted mathematics and science in place by 1989 and English in 1990. To facilitate this, he set up the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and the Schools Examination and Assessment Council (SEAC). Despite intense opposition from teachers, unions and academics in education, Baker also insisted on a test regime with results to be published in the form of ‘league tables’. The argument against such a move was that it would not take into account any data on the social background of the children, so making meaningful results very difficult to obtain. This argument was initially ignored, though contextual data were added and used in later league tables.

SEAC proposed Standardised Assessment Tasks (known as SATs), but Baker (1993) doubted they would work. He wanted pen and paper type tests rather than assessments carried out by teachers. Regardless, SEAC set up and developed the SATs with education academics at King’s College London. These were predicated on teacher assessment of pupil progress and understanding. In science, it was a mix of practical and pen and paper assessments, though not high-stakes externally set tests.

In July 1989 Baker was replaced by John Macgregor (b.1937-). Macgregor was tasked with ensuring the various NC working groups delivered proposals that were workable. There were many issues with the first draft version of the SNC (see Chapter 6). Various

versions of the other NC subjects seen by Thatcher dismayed her. For example, in history she saw no sense of any chronology for major events in British history (Thatcher, 2011).

Thatcher felt that the various subject orders were lacking in basics and overly complex. On the science curriculum she was not happy with the topic approach, feeling that the distinctive subjects of biology, chemistry and physics were lost. This was one of the few times she expressed a desire for separate sciences over ‘the sciences’. The NC was failing. There were many challenges and complaints about the structure and content of various curriculum documents. Thatcher (2011, p.597) placed the blame on Baker saying that he, ‘…paid too much attention to the DES, HMI and progressive educational

theorists in his appointments and early decisions’. Despite the curriculum being a political

invention, it was the education community that was blamed by the politicians for any failings.

Macgregor had difficulties dealing with various factions (teachers/science education advisers/academics/unions) fighting for control over the science curriculum. In science, a dual model had been proposed that saw most children take a double science award (the equivalent of two GCSEs) known as Model A. Model B allowed for children to take the equivalent of one GCSE. Both models included content from the three main science disciplines. A third, but not a formal model, allowed children to take the separate sciences. For this to succeed Macgregor proposed to make some subjects non- compulsory, such as art and music (going back on an announcement he made in 1989 that all subjects would be compulsory) to allow children to take more important subjects (in his view and clearly in Thatcher’s view), such as separate sciences. The changes were driven by teachers in schools, many of whom expressed concern that double science would leave children unprepared for A level separate sciences (Anonymous, 1990).

Private schools maintained their commitment to delivering separate sciences with subject specialists. In many state schools there were media reports documenting issues in attracting specialists to teach some of the science disciplines, such as physics (Crequer, 1989; Maclure, 1989; Weston, 1989). By November 1990, Macgregor had been replaced by Kenneth Clarke (b.1940).