Introduction

This encapsulates the monumental changes that have occurred in education in England and Wales since the promulgation of the 1988 Education Reform Act. At present, all primary schools are subject to ‘market forces’ and the commodification of the people who work in them. Hence the head’s invective against the monetary valorisation of education. In essence, the commodifying logic expunges child-centred philosophy and practice. However, the quasi-marketisation of the education system in England and Wales, undertaken by the Conservative Government during the 1980s, has not only been consolidated but also extended by New Labour. As Jenny Ozga puts it:

In England and Wales, as elsewhere in Europe…we have seen the displacement of the old model of welfare state provision. In England and Wales, perhaps to a greater extent than elsewhere, that welfare state has been replaced by the operation of the market under the Conservative Governments of 1979-1997. The process of reformation continues in the modernizing agenda of New Labour.