Equity, Trust and Self-Improving Schools System

Richard Riddell draws on his interviews with senior managers in schools, academy chains and the regions during the UK Coalition Government to analyze the changes in education policy to the present. He argues that the developing regional organization for supervising schools in England, with its regional commissioners, provides a far more consistent context for reducing longstanding disparities in pupil attainment than the declining local authority systems it replaces. However, the insecurity of headteachers – even those who are well-placed--and the pressures on them in the current arrangements cannot be allowed to continue. The book advocates a two stage process to achieving long term school partnerships based on trust so that the inequity in schooling be effectively addressed.