ABSTRACT
Since I first wrote this book back in 1997, there have been a number of attempts to change the teaching and learning experiences in secondary schools – especially challenging ones. There have been new Ofsted inspection guide lines; changes to the types of exams on offer with increased emphasis on vocational qualification; major government strategies to challenge the way that schools manage behaviour through the policy of Inclusion as well as major initiatives to raise standards in literacy and numeracy in the first three years of secondary schooling. We have moved into an era where schools are not only compared by their actual exam results but also by value added data. As I write, teachers are about to enter a work force agreement which should give them more time to prepare lessons and mark work. There is an ever increasing amount of staff in schools to work on clerical and administrative tasks and substitute for some aspects of teachers’ work, as learning support assistants. The teaching profession itself has undergone a number of pay and condition changes with higher salaries for experienced teachers. More teachers than ever have become part of the senior school leadership structure. The Government has set up city academies in challenging urban areas and is allowing sponsors from
given them the authority to deviate from the national curriculum.
