Introduction

Since 1979 there has been a marked shift in the education system of England and Wales, and, in particular, in the provision and organisation of compulsory schooling. The most influential changes were the Conservative Government’s 1988 Education Reform Act and the succeeding series of Acts, Charters and White Papers which created a form of ‘market’ system for the delivery of education and the organisation of provision. One of the key components of this shift was the introduction of Open Enrolment, which gave parents ‘the right to express a preference as to where they would like their children to go to school’ (Department for Education, 1992, p.28). Very quickly this was trumpeted by Government Ministers as ‘parental choice’, choice implying empowerment to the individual, when in fact the policy was simply a desire to improve education standards and simultaneously reduce the number of surplus places in the system. The arrival of a new Labour Government in 1997 has done very little to alter the course of change and has indeed fully supported the continuation of ‘parental choice’.