Guest lecture 5

This lecture was taken by Mike Day who is a cabinet member in education. He gave a lecture on educational policy. The points he covered were:

• What
• Why 
• Where
• Who
• How

Educational policy reflects:

• Political options
• Socio-economic objectives 
• Tradition and values
• Over a long timescale
• Fundamental choices

Who:

Politicians or practitioners

Where:

UK level

Welsh government

Local authority

School and governing body level

Here are some policies made at school and governing body level:

• Uniforms

• Start and finish times

• Raft of policies on personal and social education, Child protection, Charging, Equal opportunities, SEN etc.
• School improvement plan 

Here are examples of policies made by the Welsh Government:

 

• Welsh medium
• Foundation phase

• No SAT's

• No academies
• HE Tuition fees
• Pupil deprivation grant

Mike Day also discussed the idea of policy borrowing:

  

• A policy borrowing approach searches international policies to fit into our own

• Tailored national policy

Here are some key principles of policies:

 

• Stakeholder engagement

• Coherence
• Flexibility
• Objectivity

• Cost effectiveness

• Resourced

I think that the topic of this lecture was important as educational policy is of course a key part of looking at education itself.