School accountability: a comparative study of policy and practice across three types of secondary school

Since the 1980s education services in the UK have increasingly come to be defined through the lens of 'New Public Management' and consumerist discourses (Ball 2008; Clarke and Newman 1997) with their attendant concepts of deregulation and marketisation. A consequence of this has been the expansion of the role of 'public accountability' to encompass political, business, and other interest groups. School-based accountability measures now include for example: market, legal, hierarchical, contractual, network, participative, and professional. This project undertakes an original and timely investigation of how these measures work, combine and what their effects are within Academies (e.g. publicly funded independent schools), the emerging free schools programme (e.g. all-ability parent-run schools) and conventional local authority-controlled schools (e.g. community). Framed within a policy sociology approach, this project examines who these accountability measures are aimed at and what kinds of assumptions they entail about those to be held accountable (e.g. parents, governing bodies, and community stakeholders).

Through a comparative study of policy and practice within and across three types of secondary school situated in different areas of London and Bradford, this project explores how school-based definitions of participative accountability (and concomitant meanings of cooperation and governance) are managed within newly configured relations between schools and parents, schools and governing bodies, and schools and community stakeholders. Participative accountability comprises different dimensions, but relates mainly to the ways in which schools are accountable to parents for their child's educational experience; to community stakeholders; and to other stakeholders via governing bodies, making it relevant and timely to national and local debates on the Coalition government's vision of a 'Big Society' (Stratton 2010). The data therefore will offer an original and accessible account of the complex arrangements that combine to produce particular relations between schools and parents, governing bodies, and would-be community stakeholders within different socio-economic, policy and institutional settings.

Echoing New Right critiques of public services in the 1980s, the New Labour government launched the Academies policy in 2000 to enable 'failing' schools to 'opt out' of the financial and managerial remit set by local authorities and to enter into partnerships with outside sponsors. Following their success at the general election on 6 May 2010, the Coalition government continued the pace of these reforms through: 1) rolling out new legislation making it possible for all schools to become Academies, ensuring schools judged 'outstanding' by Ofsted (the schools inspectorate) are fast-tracked through this process; and 2) implementing the free schools programme to enable interested groups and parents to set up their own schools in response to local demand and free of local authority control.

Since 2000 there has been a plethora of media stories, academic research and public debate on Academies and the capacity of Academies - defined as publicly funded independent schools - to circumvent local democratic processes, making them a potential 'loss to the community' (Unison 2010). More recently, the free schools programme has been criticised for pandering to the educational aspirations of middle-class parents and teachers. Geographical data on the first wave of free schools announced by the Coalition government in August 2011 suggest a high concentration of free schools being built in areas dominated by middle-class households, for example (Vasagar and Shepherd 2011). This raises important and hitherto unexplored questions around the impact of power, place, resources and cultural politics on the structure of school-based forms of participative accountability and, above all else, children's educational experiences.

This research will be accessible and relevant to a wide range of audiences including parents, teachers, headteachers, community stakeholders, academics, politicians, policy-makers, practitioners, and trade unionists. The evidence generated will also appeal to a large number of government and non-government organisations, including for example: Ofsted, the Department for Education (DfE), the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and other teachers' unions, the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT), the New Schools Network (NSN), Local Authorities (LAs), independent policy bodies, schools, and community stakeholders (or sponsors) who participate in school initiatives.

To enable the outputs to be used more widely and have greater impact, the results will be disseminated to Ofsted (the school's inspectorate). The data will also have strong implications for the SSAT, NSN and LAs who run schools in state-maintained education. In addition, community stakeholders and independent policy bodies will be interested in the practical implications this research carries for understanding parents' experiences and perceptions of local education provision. These key groups can also to help to guide the final stage of the writing process and be instrumental to further disseminating the results to other interested policy agencies, institutions and research bodies.

The Department of Education and the CEREPP at Roehampton University would play a key role in maximising the impact of my research and developing knowledge exchange strategies through: 1) a research seminar to be organised as part of the CEREPP seminar series; 2) a special 'Education and Social Justice' conference which would bring together academics, policy-makers, and practitioners to discuss the practical/policy implications of the project; and 3) a dissemination seminar to engage parents, teachers, headteachers, and other stakeholders from participating schools. Sharing research findings in this way will increase awareness of the research as well as help to tease out issues, helping to shape the final stages of the writing process. As part of the dissemination seminar, I would also distribute briefing papers and a handbook for teachers and parents based on the research to promote forms of accountability that support and facilitate relations between parents and schools. In addition, with the help of Professor Gill Crozier, Roehampton University and Department of Education colleagues, I would feedback the research into the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes within the university, with the aim to develop teacher awareness and understanding of these issues.

The scope of the research is interdisciplinary and will therefore appeal to a wide range of researchers and teachers working within and across specialist areas including education, public policy and the third sector, sociology and geography. Specifically, the research intends to fill an existing gap in the policy and academic literature on Academies and the emerging free schools programme where little in-depth, ethnographic data have been collected to show the relationships between these schools and the parents and communities they 'serve'. In terms of direct benefits, the research will generate models of 'good practice' for shaping and steering the development of participative accountability and user engagement within and across different types of schools in the state-maintained sector, thus working towards improving accountability between schools and parents, schools and school governors, and schools and community stakeholders. Government and non-government bodies will also benefit from briefing papers, working papers and dissemination seminars to be facilitated by the PI. These forms of research output and public engagement will work to devise strategies for improving policy and practice in education and generate spaces for debate, dialogue and deliberation on the outcomes of the research.