London Education Authority Research Articles

“Education Is a Cultural Weapon”: The Inner London Education Authority and the Politics of Literature for Young People

The Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) was founded in 1965 to manage education in London’s inner boroughs; by the early 1970s, it was held up as one of the most progressive education experiments in British history. One of the marks of this progressiveness was its attention to London’s Black child population and its attempts to connect with Black culture through multiculturalism. However, while the ILEA prided itself on its anti-racist, multicultural education methods, its publication arm often provided mixed messages about the value and place of Black students in the education system and society. Multiculturalism, which the ILEA used to guide the production of reading materials, often resulted in a lack of cultural specificity and an avoidance of issues facing Black students, such as racism. Partnering with Black educators allowed the ILEA to offer more culturally specific and anti-racist material, but doing so also brought the ILEA to the attention of critical governmental authorities, who would eventually disband the ILEA out of fear of Black radicalism.

Living the spiral curriculum: using the Swanwick/Tillman sequence of musical development to support music in primary schools in the 1980s

AbstractThis article aims to capture how the Swanwick and Tillman (1986) spiral model of musical development influenced my work as an Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) music coordinator (advisory teacher). It discusses my professional position in a period of teaching prior to the implementation of the National Curriculum for Music, to illustrate dichotomous pedagogical approaches in a developing re-positioning of aesthetic knowledge in music education. Using the example of two Key Stage 2 (KS2) music projects, a brief reflection concludes how the model of musical development and an adapted pedagogic approach facilitated my work in supporting music teachers to embrace music teaching with confidence and to consider what meaningful musical activity for musical learning is and how this might be planned.

Inner London's Education Authority: reflections on ILEA twenty-five years after closure

Inner London's Education Authority: reflections on ILEA twenty-five years after closure

Media Review: Understanding the Classical Music Profession: The Past, the Present and Strategies for the Future

Dawn Elizabeth Bennett. Understanding the Classical Music Profession: The Past, the Present and Strategies for the Future. Aldershot, United Kingdom: Ashgate, 2008. 168 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978-07546-5959-4. Dawn Bennett, Research Fellow at Curtin University of Technology in Australia, frames Understanding the Classical Music Profession admirably with a preliminary chapter outlining her research methods, aims, and technical terms. The latter, coupled with a list of abbreviations, will be particularly helpful as the text is intended for an international audience. Bennett's interpretation of the classical music industry is deepened by a research design using qualitative and quantitative methods. Chapter two explores the scope of the cultural industries. A swift perusal of footnotes reveals that Australian circumstances take precedence here; although interesting, this emphasis is slightly disappointing. In chapter three, Bennett asks What is a musician? and provides a history of the profession from the Middle Ages onwards. The writing is appealing throughout the chapter and the referencing effective. There are merely a few bold statements that would benefit from cited evidence. For example, Bennett mentions: There have been a number of lawsuits triggered when women musicians secured principal roles during blind auditions--where an [orchestral] audition is conducted behind a screen to preserve anonymity--only to be demoted once the director realized her gender. The statement may well be accurate but evidence is not forthcoming. Chapter four addresses the nature of musicians' education and training. Elsewhere in the book, there is a slight accent on the recent Australian context at times, reflected in Bennett's choice of sources. However, this chapter will, undoubtedly, be of great interest to an international readership. Issues considered include how musicians perceive the status of performers compared to music teachers. Furthermore, readers are encouraged to contemplate the heavy weighting of performance training in higher education programs compared to other learning such as business skills and teaching methods. The author posits an imbalance in degree programs when evaluated against labor-market realities. On that point, Persson's remark comes to mind: we should not assume that roles of formidable artist and successful educator are interchangeable. (1) This tale of a gap between music courses and the labor market persists in music education literature; it may reflect an inadequate rate of curricular transformation. It is an important story, nonetheless, with considerable support from research literature, yet far from novel. Mark recognized segregation between domains of performance or musicological studies and, in the opposing encampment, music pedagogy in Austrian universities. (2) After evaluating job opportunities more realistically, a solution could be found, he argued, when educational programs for music teachers overcome the historically and institutionally conditioned barriers between the disciplines.... (3) Attempts to remedy the predicament of limited student exposure to pedagogy surfaced in the United Kingdom some time ago. An initiative at Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD) united conservatory students with music teachers. (4) The project was forged in partnership with Inner London Education Authority; GSMD students collaborated with the organization's peripatetic instrumental teachers. Whilst Kite recognized that the module was beneficial and not students' staple diet, he also accepted its limitations: The main priority for a conservatoire has to be performance: that is how we select our students and that is how, finally, we evaluate them. It is also fundamental to the students' expectations of conservatoire provision ... and to the professional music world's expectations of the conservatoire product. …

Fixing Urban School Boards

IN DECEMBER 2006, the minister of education for Nova Scotia, Karen Casey, replaced the Halifax School Board with a single appointed manager, saying that the elected board had been racked by internal division for more than a year. This was the latest in a string of takeovers by provincial governments of large urban school boards in Canada. * In 1985 the British Columbia government replaced the Vancouver School Board with an appointed manager because of the board's refusal to balance its budget. * In 1996 the British Columbia government replaced the board of the North Vancouver School District because of mounting fiscal overruns and the belief that the board lacked leadership and accountability. * In 1999, the Alberta government fired the Calgary Public School Board, with Minister Lyle Oberg saying that the board was dysfunctional because members' personal differences were irreconcilable. * In 2000, the government of Ontario took over the management of three urban boards--Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton--because the boards refused to pass balanced budgets within the reduced funding limits provided by the province as part of the government's plan to cut public spending and reduce taxes. In each case, the government appointed a single supervisor to run the affairs of the board. A new government elected in 2003 removed the supervisors and restored the authority of the three boards but continued to have difficulties with large boards balancing their budgets despite substantial increases in funding. In 2006, a sub-urban board in the Toronto area was replaced by an appointed supervisor for about eight months, until its budget was balanced. * In 2006 and 2007, in response to statements from leaders of the Toronto public and Catholic boards that they would be unable to balance their budgets, the minister appointed an assistance to review the state of each board's finances and make recommendations as to how they could produce reasonable balanced budgets. In the case of the Toronto public board, the team recommended a review of governance for the board in light of its ongoing difficulties. These Canadian experiences mirror those in the U.S. and Europe. Urban boards in the U.S. have seen a wide range of interventions in governance, ranging from radical decentralization in Chicago in the 1980s to the replacement of elected boards by boards appointed by mayors in several major cities. In England, the Conservative government abolished the Inner London Education Authority in 1990 and returned authority for education to 11 boroughs. The management of several urban systems in England--Nottingham, Bristol, and Tower Hamlets in London--has been turned over to outside teams over the last decade. Meanwhile, others, such as Manchester, have been struggling even though, in the English system, schools are mainly self-governing and local authorities have relatively little power. And large-city school systems all across Europe are also wrestling with their duties despite widely varying governance arrangements. Why has it been so difficult to create workable governance systems in large urban districts? Given the large numbers of students who attend urban schools--especially poor, immigrant, and minority students--it is especially important that these districts be well run. But so often that seems not to be the case. Big cities combine several kinds of problems that together make the educational challenge very great. Cities are demographically diverse and getting more so. Having a large population of immigrants tends to interrupt the political status quo, as new arrivals seek to find a place in society and a voice in the political process. The same is true of non-immigrant minorities, such as Aboriginal people in Canada or African Americans in the U.S. Canadian cities have often been slow to provide a meaningful role in politics for these new urban residents. Disparities in wealth and social class are also a challenge for cities, which typically contain both the very rich and the very poor, often living quite close to one another. …

Local authorities and the education of young people with sickle cell disorders in England

The successful inclusion of minority ethnic pupils with sickle cell disorders (SCD) raises a number of challenges for educational systems. In England, local education authorities were important drivers for innovative responses to complex needs and the former Inner London Education Authority produced guidance in 1989 on SCD in schools. Local education authorities, however, have been superseded by centralised curricula on the one hand and by local management of schools on the other. We know little about the impact of these changes on managing chronic conditions such as SCD. A survey was conducted with 107 local authorities in England to assess responses to needs of pupils with SCD. The majority of authorities did not know the numbers of children with SCD under their jurisdiction, even though most agreed with government guidance that all such children should have individual healthcare plans. Only two had policies on SCD and most authorities referred to generic guidance on pupils with medical needs in schools. The paper concludes, however, that such generic guidance fails in a number of ways to meet the needs of young people with SCD, in terms of prevention, challenging disability discrimination and, crucially, in failing to recognise how ethnicity and racism mediate the experiences of young black disabled students. Developing policies suitable for the education needs of young people with SCD would also help develop the very narrow guidance currently suggested for inclusion of pupils with medical conditions.

Avoiding ‘Data Snooping’ in Multilevel and Mixed Effects Models

Summary Multilevel or mixed effects models are commonly applied to hierarchical data. The level 2 residuals, which are otherwise known as random effects, are often of both substantive and diagnostic interest. Substantively, they are frequently used for institutional comparisons or rankings. Diagnostically, they are used to assess the model assumptions at the group level. Inference on the level 2 residuals, however, typically does not account for ‘data snooping’, i.e. for the harmful effects of carrying out a multitude of hypothesis tests at the same time. We provide a very general framework that encompasses both of the following inference problems: inference on the ‘absolute’ level 2 residuals to determine which are significantly different from 0, and inference on any prespecified number of pairwise comparisons. Thus, the user has the choice of testing the comparisons of interest. As our methods are flexible with respect to the estimation method that is invoked, the user may choose the desired estimation method accordingly. We demonstrate the methods with the London education authority data, the wafer data and the National Educational Longitudinal Study data.

Book Reviews

British Journal of Special EducationVolume 19, Issue 1 p. 39-41 Book Reviews First published: March 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8578.1992.tb00402.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: Differentiation in Action: A Whole School Approach for Raising Attainment R. Stradling, L. Saunders, with P. Weston Differentiation in the Primary School: 1 Investigations of Learning and Teaching; 2 Classroom Perspectives. M. Simpson Teaching for Diversity: Preventing Difficulties in Learning Active Learning Pack (EP:538) P. Potts, T. Booth Curricula for Diversity in Education and Policies for Diversity in Education Edited by T. Booth, W. Swann, M. Masterton, P. Potts Pathways to Progress: Developing an Approach to Teaching the National Curriculum to Children Experiencing Difficulties in Learning in the Primary School. P. Evans Differentiation: Your Responsibility T. Barthorpe, J. Visser Access to the Curriculum: Modifying Materials for Use by Pupils of all Abilities S. Payne (ed.) A Curriculum for All: Getting the Act Together M. Marsh, C. Danks (eds.) Organising Learning in the Primary School (2nd edn.) Joan Dean Meeting Individual Needs M. Ainscow, J. Muncey David Fulton Primary Special Needs and the National Curriculum Ann Lewis Talking and Learning in Groups: Activity Based In-service Materials E. Dunne, N. Bennett Berkshire LEA, (1990) Starting Points for Staff Discussions and Whole-School Inservice on Meeting Special Educational Needs in Berkshire. Devon LEA (1992) A County Survey of Differentiation at Key Stage 3 in Devon. Dudley LEA, (1991) Key Stage 2 National Curriculum Training. London Borough of Enfield, (1991) Differentiation – Special Educational Needs Issues. Gloucestershire LEA, (1991) LAPS 1990–91 Opening Doors of Opportunity. Inner London Education Authority, (1989) Developing a Whole School Policy for SEN in the Secondary School, Support Teaching – a Framework for Discussion. Kent LEA, (1991) Planning for Differentiation. Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, (1991) Solihull Curriculum Circular 4, Special Educational Needs. Wiltshire LEA, (1992) Differentiating the Secondary Curriculum. Volume19, Issue1March 1992Pages 39-41 RelatedInformation

Reducing Jason's Disruptive Behaviour

Sian Ellis, teacher in charge, and Carole Blake, support teacher, Tower Hamlets School Support Team, describe their five-point procedure for reducing the disruptive behaviour of a six-year-old boy in a London primary school. The Tower Hamlets School Support Team, set up in 1979 as part of the Inner London Education Authority's response to disruptive behaviour, consists of 12 teachers, a teacher in charge, an educational psychologist, a senior education welfare officer and a clerical officer. The team uses a theoretical analysis and model of work based on those developed by David Lane and his colleagues at the Islington Educational Guidance Centre.

Cross‐national policy borrowing and educational innovation: improving achievement in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

This paper reports on a case study of the London Education Authority of Barking and Dagenham’s borrowing of Swiss educational practices, and the implementation and internalisation of those foreign practices in the teaching of mathematics in primary schools. The study employs analytical frameworks that might be used by policy makers or researchers looking at ‘borrowing’ educational practices and policies from elsewhere to use at home. The significance of context (e.g. social, economic, political and demographic) is highlighted, both in the process of educational borrowing and in the implementation of these ideas to improve education at home. In conclusion, the paper reflects upon ‘best practices’ and strategies that might serve as lessons to others.

Pupil mobility, attainment and progress in primary school

This article presents an analysis of the association between pupil mobility and educational attainment in the 2002 national end of Key Stage 2 (KS2) tests for 11‐year‐old pupils in an inner London education authority. The results show that pupil mobility is strongly associated with low attainment in the end of key stage tests. However, the negative association with pupil mobility is reduced by half when account is taken of other pupil background factors known to be related to educational attainment (such as special educational need and socio‐economic disadvantage), and is eliminated entirely when account is also taken of pupils' prior attainment as indicated by end of KS1 test scores at age 7. Thus there is no indication that changing school has a negative impact on educational progress during primary school. Pupils who join their school during KS2 from other schools in England are more likely to be ‘at risk’ of low attainment due to higher levels of socio‐economic disadvantage, a greater need for support in relation to English as an additional language, a higher incidence and greater severity of special educational needs and pre‐existing low attainment at the end of KS1. A key factor in understanding the relationship between mobility and attainment is the reason for mobility. One‐third of mobile pupils had arrived from schools outside of England, often as refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants, and these pupils accounted for the major part of the effect ascribed to ‘pupil mobility’. The low attainment of these pupils is the result not of ‘changing school’ but of a broad range of factors including substantial cultural, educational and social adjustment.

‘BANDING’ AND SECONDARY SCHOOL ADMISSIONS: 1972–2004

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on the system of banding used in England by the former Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) in order to seek to obtain an intake to secondary schools that was balanced in terms of ability. The first part of the paper provides a brief history of the system of banding, how it was informed by verbal reasoning testing and how it was subsequently based on the results of a specially constructed reading test. The second part of the paper examines the extent of banding after the abolition of the ILEA. Whilst LEA-wide banding is currently only used by three LEAs, many schools in inner London that are responsible for their own admissions (i.e. voluntary-aided and foundation schools) have introduced banding. The problems associated with banding at a school level are discussed and it is argued that banding at the level of the LEA is likely to be more equitable, more transparent and more likely to reduce social segregation; in addition, there is some evidence to suggest that the ILEA banding system resulted in a higher percentage of parents achieving their stated first preference school than more recent admissions policies.

Schools library services: their changing value to the education of London’s children

In the history of education Schools Library Services are relative newcomers. The London County Council and its successor, the Inner London Education Authority, developed Schools Library Services for their own schools from the 1950s onwards. After the Education Reform Act 1988 became law, responsibility for education passed to the inner London boroughs, but the setting up of local Schools Library Services was optional. This article reviews the significance of Schools Library Services in education as it is reflected in the decision‐making process of three boroughs – Hackney, Islington and City of Westminster. It discusses factors which influenced the establishment (or not) of Schools Library Services in all the new local education authorities, and relates elements of the case studies to wider themes in the political and educational environment of the time.

The Inner London Education Authority and the William Tyndale Junior School Affair, 1974-1976

The William Tyndale Junior School affair marked a turning point in modern educational history. The affair, in which one north London primary school was paralysed by internal arguments over teaching method, is here analysed as a product of the pressures prevalent in Inner London education, and the article assesses the attempts of the Inner London Education Authority to contain those pressures. A necessary deference to the autonomy of teachers led to the adoption in the school of adventurous didactic methods which proved unacceptable to many parents. The unfolding of the affair widened divisions within the authority, between the authority and the teachers, between radical and traditional teachers, between teachers and managers, between teachers and parents, between different groups of parents and between the ILEA and the Borough of Islington. The Tyndale controversy was thus very complex, but its outcome is relatively straightforward: the apparent failure of 'progressive' methods in one London school prompted the adoption nationally of a more interventionist approach to methods and standards by central government and, in the process, a diminution of the autonomy of LEAs.

Training to reduce racism in the practice of educational psychology

This paper outlines the rationale for and the history of an approach to training that was designed to reduce institutional racism in the practice of educational psychology. A short course is described in which participants were introduced to the model of racism employed by the Inner London Education Authority in the 80’s. Three perspectives on racism were analysed – one emphasising mainly assimilation, one emphasising mainly cultural diversity, and one emphasising primarily equality. Participants were encouraged to examine how various aspects of educational psychology practice might be viewed from each of these perspectives. The intention was that intellectually and emotionally their experience should be sufficiently unsettling to support the reconstruction of practice in non-racist ways.

Political Manipulation Or Feedback In English Local Authorities’ Standard Spending Assessments? The Case Of The Abolition Of The Inner London Education Authority

The focus of attention in this article is on the major shift in Education Standard Spending Assessments, and with it central grants, in favour of Inner London which first took place in 1990, and has persisted since then. This coincided both with the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority and the transfer of education responsibilities to the Inner London Boroughs, and the introduction of the poll tax. The objective of this article is to test whether this shift in favour of Inner London was due to political manipulation or, instead, was another example of the long‐established technical characteristic of ‘feedback’ in spending needs assessments in the English local finance system. A test is devised which distinguishes between these two explanations and involves the use of an Inner London dummy variable. The results provide strong evidence of political manipulation. The implications of this finding are considered.

Continuity of School Effects: A Longitudinal Analysis of Primary and Secondary School Effects on GCSE Performance

ABSTRACT Multilevel analyses of students' GCSE examination results (taken at age 16) are used to investigate both primary and secondary school effects on students' total performance scores and the issue of continuity of schools' effects over time. Follow‐up data for the Inner London Education Authority's Junior School Project sample, including attainment at secondary transfer (age 11) and at GCSE and details concerning students' background characteristics are analysed. Significant school effects at both primary and secondary level and small but significant continuing effects of primary schools on later GCSE attainment are identified. The theoretical and practical significance of the results are discussed.

The Reliability and Validity of the ‘Smiley’ Scale

AbstractThe ‘Smiley’ scale was devised to measure primary school children's attitudes to school as part of the Junior School Project by the Inner London Education Authority in 1986. It appeared potentially useful, in both content and format, for our purpose. It was found that no reliability or validity study had been carried out on it. To rectify this, one was done. Internal consistency reliability was found to be satisfactory when tested on 641 Year 2 and 585 Year 6 children. Test‐retest reliability was considered by readministering the scale to 172 Year 2 and 155 Year 6 children after a 1 week interval. The Year 6 children showed more consistency in their responses than the Year 2 children. The correlation coefficients of the totals on the two occasions were 0.71 and 0.87 respectively. The validity of 172 Year 2 and 167 Year 6 children's responses was tested by comparing them to the teachers' perceptions of the children's attitudes using the ‘Smiley’ scale. Results showed very few significant correlations between the children's and teachers' responses for the Year 2 children although there were more significant correlations for the Year 6 children. This may be due to teachers' lack of awareness of children's attitudes to school.

Using Information to Promote Equal Opportunities and Improve Decision‐making

Abstract This article explores how information can be used to assist policy‐makers and practitioners: an issue central to the work of Desmond Nuttall. The narrative draws on Desmond Nuttall's work as Director of the Research and Statistics Branch of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) and on seminars and workshops which the author ran jointly with him after the abolition of the ILEA. The paper focuses particularly on equality of opportunity.

Differential School Effectiveness: results from a reanalysis of the Inner London Education Authority's Junior School Project Data

AbstractThe paper reports the results of a reanalysis of data from a major longitudinal data base (the Inner London Education Authority's (ILEA) Junior School Project). Multilevel models are used to examine the extent of differential school effectiveness for reading and mathematics at entry (year 3) and at year 5, and the impact of pupil background characteristics. Differential school effectiveness is investigated for prior attainment in the two areas and for selected background characteristics. The results reveal the existence of differential effectiveness (differential school slopes) for both measures of prior attainment. No evidence of differential effectiveness for pupils of different groups (sex, social class, ethnicity) is found. The presentation of schools' test results is also examined. Raw test averages are compared with school‐level residuals from multilevel analyses. Marked differences in schools' rank positions are found and the implications for the publication of ‘league tables’ of schools' examination and National Curriculum assessment results are discussed.