This study investigated task contextualization as a means of assessing students' ability to apply their subject knowledge to new situations. Through analyzing 527 Functional Mathematics examination questions that claim to assess students' application skills, it developed a set of principles for embedding questions in context: deep…

The distinction between external assessment and internal assessment underpins a major reform to vocational qualifications underway in England. To be approved by the Department for Education, vocational qualifications must now include a minimum proportion of external assessment, regardless of subject. This paper discusses the nature and…

This paper explores the impact of external accountability on four mechanisms of network-internal quality control and the properties of (mandated) inter-organizational networks. An explorative case study approach examines the external accountability of a newly established educational network (MAT) and how schools and the Trust are held accountable…

This paper documents the evolution of attempts to codify and standardise teachers' work in England with particular attention to how this phenomenon has impacted the Initial Teacher Education (ITE) sector. In recent decades the teaching profession in England has undergone various iterations of competency criteria, culminating with the current…

Childcare quality is often thought to be important for influencing children's subsequent attainment at school. The English Government regulates the quality of early education by setting minimum levels of qualifications for workers and grading settings based on a national Inspectorate (OfSTED). This paper uses administrative data on over two…

This research reports upon the impact of two concurrent processes of Special Measures and academisation applied to a primary school in the north of England as a result of an unsatisfactory inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). The aim of the study is to describe how the process of being placed in special measures, coupled…

The development of accreditation agencies within the Higher Education sector in order to assess and guarantee the quality of services or product is still a growing phenomenon in Europe. Accreditations are conceived by institutional authors and by authors who directly deal with quality assurance processes as a means of legitimization or a means of…

Recent changes in education and training policy in England continue to focus on creating a 'demand-led' system in an environment where public funds are dwindling and where more responsibility is being devolved away from central government. This raises questions about governance of the system, among others, and the roles that key system actors are…

This article seeks to explore the dilemmas that schools and their members encounter whilst striving to establish a co-operative culture within an educational landscape contoured by decades of neo-liberal policy "reform". In order to (re)consider the construction of democratic subjectivity within contemporary educational discourse, the…

"New" school inspections are essential parts of "evidence-based governance" concepts and have been implemented by many European countries as a major strategy to assure and improve the effectiveness and quality of their education systems. However, national inspection systems vary in their composition and in their contextual…

Purpose: This paper aims to focus on the changing nature of quality assurance systems within the sixth form college sector. Design/methodology/approach: Ten sixth form colleges were surveyed across England and staff from varying levels within college hierarchies questioned about how quality assurance systems were implemented. Research involved…

The assessment system in England is going through a period of unprecedented change, with changes currently underway or being discussed at every stage of education. There does not, however, appear to be a consistency across these changes. This seminar was set up by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and the Chartered Institute…

This article adopts a theoretical approach to analyse the evolution of the quality agenda in English higher education. Using the concept of reification, it shows how the quasi-state has attempted to build a "natural" understanding of the idea of quality. However, the policy implementation process has demonstrated the fragility of the…

Quality audit has become the dominant means of assessing the quality of university teaching and learning. This paper addresses this international trend through the analysis of academics' perception of quality audit. It presents a new way to understand quality audit through the interpretation of how frontline academics in England perceived and…

This article provides an analysis of assessment practices on one university-led teacher-training course in England, delivered across a network of further education colleges. After establishing that assessment practices are bound up in texts of different kinds, this article draws on two theoretical frameworks--institutional ethnography and…