Examine Sociological Views of the Ways Educational Policies May Affect the Achievement of Pupils.

There are many Educational Acts enforced in England to help improve and stabilise the education of young people in our country. With these acts in place it encourages more people to want to do well in school and it also helps to provide an education for those who are less fortunate and without it could not go to school. Some of the acts are: “The 1870 Forster Act”, “1944 Butlers Act”, “1976 Comprehensive Act”, “The 1979 Conservative Policy”, “The 1988 Education Act” and “The 1997 New Labour Education Policy”
Before the 19th century education was limited to those that were born in to a ‘well off’ family. There were only two main types of schooling, Grammar and Public. There were Charity ran schools and church ran schools but it was a very small minority of the working class that had the opportunity to go to one. Even though they were getting some kind of education it was only an informal kind, not the formal kind that was being taught in the Public and Grammar Schools. In the 1870 there was an act enforced called “The Forster Act”, this gave everybody a basic, free educational provision. Many believe that the reason for this is that Britain was becoming industrialised and we needed better skilled workforce to operate and manage machinery, otherwise we’d fall behind our main rivals USA. Also it is believed that we lost so many people in the Crimean War because the soldiers were poorly educated and tactically not as good as the other team because they couldn’t read or write. Another reason for compulsory education is that it looked as though the working class were rebelling and there needed to be something in place to make the government look generous.
In 1944 the government was in conservative’s power and they decided to bring in an act called The Butler Act. They proposed to open three types of schools in the country, they were: Grammar Schools, Technical Schools and Secondary Modern Schools. They brought in a test called 11+ Exam, this meant that when you were 11...