Person or place education policies?

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation have analysed government policies since 1997 to evaluate whether policies focused on the person or the place are the most effective at tackling social disadvantage (with a focus on education, employment and income, in this blog entry I focus on those relating to education). Full report

Key points:
- Policies have been equally split between place (e.g. academy schools in deprived localities) and people (e.g. early years education, curriculum change, widening participation in HE) initiatives.

- There was some evidence to suggest that sure start was improving outcomes for children and families but this was reduced for the most socially disadvantaged families.

- The New Deal for Communities and Academies programme demonstrated a link to higher level 2 attainment (other initiatives such as the EMA, Excellence in Cities showed no discernable impact on level 2 attainment).

- AimHigher, Gifted & Talented and Excellence Challenge showed a positive link to the point score of the eight best GCSEs for children.

- The EMA and AimHigher: Opportunity Bursary showed a positive impact on FE & HE participation and retention.

- There are few policies which are targeted at people and place simultanesouly and many policies have multiple objectives.

- For Academies, success was seen to be associated with strong, consistent leadership within schools and the availability of additional resources for buildings, ICT and equipment necessary to create more positive learning environments. For of Excellence in Cities, partnerships and co-operation between – ideally – small groups of schools were identifi ed as key to achieving positive results.