ABSTRACT
The current ubiquity of performance and accountability in the UK seems to stem from the late 1970s/early 1980s and in particular the great debate sparked by the 1976 Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan in his Ruskin College speech. One of the features of this debate was a consideration of the role for teachers in the new educational era and in particular how education was to be judged. Under the twin discourse of accountability and performance, education policy began to cast its gaze over the outputs of education in ways not seen for many years. Ofsted was not the only way in which New Labour effected a performance and accountability culture. It was through measures such as the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) and National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) that New Labour defined legitimate ways of working. Ofsted would focus more clearly on teaching, learning and the performance measures used to hold schools to account would be strengthened.
