Enabling education
experiences in special and ordinary schools

Priscilla Alderson and Christopher Goody

What is special about special schools? Enabling Education concludes that special schools are not at all special in terms of resources, staffing and outcomes. More seriously the authors suggest that special schools waste children's lives, forcing them into a cycle of dependency. Young people leave special schools without qualifications, motivation or opportunities regardless of their abilities.

In their own words children and teenagers with disabilities or other major difficulties, and their parents, give moving accounts of their experiences. Enabling Education compares and contrasts these experiences in both special schools and mainstream schools.

The schools are located in two local authorities with divergent policies on special education: one inclusive and the other segregating. The authors consider the impact of these policies and schools on the daily life at home and at school of the young people they affect. The book is written for all those affected or concerned with special education.

Read the first chapter (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)

ISBN 1 872767 761 paperback 170pp £11.99

Look before you leap?
Research Evidence for the Curriculum at Key Stage Two

Edited by Andrew Pollard

'Commonsense' suggests that one should 'look before you leap'. When people do not, they cannot be quite sure where they will land.

The educational reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s would have benefited from such precautions. As it was, education policy moved forward with a bold, but almost blind, decisiveness throughout the education system. Any problems which arose were also likely to affect the 25,000 schools of England and Wales and the experiences of all of their seven million school-age children.

The papers in this book arise from the work of a task group of fourteen researchers which met in 1992/3 to review the practicalities and consequences of attempting to implement the National Curriculum in primary schools. The authors are all experts in their fields and this collection is the most comprehensive and up-to-date review of research evidence currently available on primary education.

The task group set out to go 'back to basics' interpreted as clarifying the findings and issues suggested by educational research which might contribute to future deliberations of the Government and other groups engaged in policy formation for the primary school curriculum.

Read the first chapter (you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)

ISBN 1 872767 12 5 £9.95