The Study On The Development Of UK Specialist Schools

As the flagship of the British secondary education reform, UK specialist schools nowcover almost all the maintained secondary schools in England. UK specialist schools began in1994, with the primary aim to improve the quality of secondary education and promoteeducational equity in UK. At present, the basic education reform in China advocatesdeveloping the features of schools and building characteristic schools. This thesis intends tobring enlightenment to the development of characteristic schools and the basic educationreform in China through studying the development of UK specialist schools.Taking literature study and comparative study as the main methodology framework, thisthesis explores the concept foundation of the development of UK specialist schools andfocuses on researching and analyzing its development practices, and summarizes thedevelopment process. This thesis is composed of two main parts: introduction and text. Theintroduction explains the significance and necessity of studying characteristic schools at homeand abroad; it also shows the theoretical and practical significance of study the developmentof UK specialist schools; the literature review on the domestic and foreign study ofcharacteristic schools in the introduction paves the way for later research. The text containssix chapters. In the first chapter, the theoretical basis of the emergence and development of thespecialist schools in UK is analyzed and the development is divided in stages; The secondchapter describes the origin of the specialist schools in UK---the application system, and theapplication process; From the perspective of school building philosophy and developmentpath, the third chapter discusses and analyses the five organic compositions of UK specialistschools’ development practices, which includes school ethos, management, curriculum,teaching&learning and the building of community roles. Chapter four analyzes the externalfactors that affect the development of UK specialist schools. Chapter five summarizes thecharacteristics of the development of UK specialist schools, the experiences and existingproblems. In chapter six, on the basis of summarizing the excellent experiences of thespecialist schools development in UK, some advices are given to develop the characteristicschools in China: Strengthening the role of the government; to promote the development oflow performing schools, and promote the balanced development of China’s basic education bydeveloping characteristic schools; using characteristic schools to promote curriculum reform,and to promote the balanced development of the national curriculum and school-based curriculum; strengthening the community roles of characteristic schools, and to promote thedevelopment of learning society.