Life in the Pressure Cooker – School League Tables and English and Mathematics Teachers’ Responses to Accountability in a Results-Driven Era

Abstract

This paper is based on case-study research in four English secondary schools. It explores the pressure placed on English and mathematics departments because of their results being reported in annual performance tables. It examines how English and maths departments enact policies of achievement, the additional power and extra resources the pressure to achieve brings and the possibility of resistance.

Keywords:

• accountability
• policy enactment
• performance tables
• examination results
• pressure

Notes

¹ General Certificate of Education, the public examination taken by students in their final year of compulsory education, usually at age 16.

² Reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic – a term attributed to Sir William Curtis from a speech made at a Board of Education dinner in 1825.

³ Tests in English, maths and science which pupils take in most state schools at age 7, 11 and 14.