Free Schools in England: can teachers develop innovative practices within a performative culture?

Resumen

Over the last forty years, England has gone through a neoliberalisation process of its public education sector, transforming the state role and fostering the involvement of new actors for controlling schools. Particularly, the Coalition government (2010-2015) has radically changed the landscape of English education through the Academies and Free Schools policy, a type of schools publicly funded but privately managed. This policy is inscribed in a new global paradigm: network governance. This global shift entails a state step-back from providing education and becoming a system oversight through a highly centralized and rigorous accountability system. In this context, the Free Schools policy was developed for allowing new actors into education giving them bigger autonomy in terms of curriculum and institutional management, aiming to generate innovation within the system. However, the accountability system, characterized by prescriptive standardized exams and school inspections, arises as a constraint for both school and teacher autonomy. Thus, this research mains objective was to investigate to what extent Free Schools teachers have room to innovate under accountability pressures. To this end, I interviewed six teachers from three different Free Schools asking them about their experience related to their professional autonomy, innovative practices and links with accountability. Findings revealed that teaching innovations were linked with the school ethos, which varies enormously among Free Schools. Furthermore, important constraints were expressed related to high-stakes exams and schools’ inspections, reducing both their autonomy as well as their room for innovation. Finally, the work discusses the complexity of balancing school autonomy and accountability under the network governance paradigm and concludes reflecting over some options which could contribute towards meeting the policy goals.

Fecha de lectura	5 nov 2019
Idioma original	Inglés
Institución de lectura	University College London Institute of Education (UCL IOE)
Supervisor	Alice Bradbury (Director/a)