Organizational maturity can inform decision-making, build strategy and underpin development. This paper argues that 'Governance Maturity Theory' (GMT) can act as a developmental modality for school Governing Bodies - and offers an alternative to disciplinary mechanisms such as inspections. Evidence generated by governors, Chairs, and Governance…

Trends towards the marketisation of the schooling sector have led to suggestions that state-funded schools in England will soon be allowed to operate on a for-profit basis. This article has two aims: to contribute to understanding of the regulation and characterisation of existing for-profit schools in England; and to assess the claim that…

Outstanding education is a high-level policy narrative in England rehearsed by school leaders, politicians, policy-makers and inspectors alike. The "legitimacy" of knowledge, performativity and discourse-based analysis are mobilised to examine outstanding. The paper explores how informants in the English state secondary education sector…

Since the 1980s, state schools in England have been required to ensure transparency and accountability through the use of indicators and templates derived from the private sector and, more recently, globally circulating discourses of "good governance" (an appeal to professional standards, technical expertise, and performance evaluation…

There is growing research interest in school inspection throughout Europe; however, there have been few comparative studies between Swedish and Norwegian school inspectorates. Such a study is necessary since little is known about how inspection policies are shaped through "governing modes" in the two Nordic countries. This paper explores…

Since 2009, the Swedish Government uses an "audit" agency--the Swedish Schools Inspectorate--to monitor and assess the accuracy with which teachers grade student responses on national tests. This study explores the introduction and subsequent establishment of the Inspectorate's regrading programme as an example of political management of…

This paper focuses on the dual dependencies apparent at the intersection of the media society and the audit society by empirically exploring and discussing the relationship between Swedish local newspaper coverage and school inspection activities. The research questions pertain to the Inspectorate's media strategy, how inspection is represented…

This paper is about the issue of the performance of inspection. Based on research conducted in an English secondary school in the years following its time under Special Measures, I discuss the idea that during an inspection the school becomes focussed around performing for inspection. I discuss performance theory here as well as notions of…

This paper looks at Ofsted and particularly special measures regimes as part of a disciplinary mechanism. It examines issues such as school effectiveness theories, the increasing powers of Ofsted, and life under special measures and links it to performativity, discipline and surveillance using the metaphor of the panopticon. The change in…