Education Action Zones

Background and EAZ initiatives
Summary of past news on EAZs

Background and EAZ initiatives

Education Action Zones were local partnerships between groups of schools, businesses, parents, local education authorities and others designed to boost standards in challenging areas. They were usually a mix of not more than 20 primary, secondary and special schools. In September 1998 the first 12 zones started with 13 joining in January 1999. Each zone received a Department for Education and Employment grant of £500,000 funding a year for three years, as well as additional matched funding of up to £250,000, making a total of £1 million a year.

The EAZ partnership aimed to encourage innovative approaches to tackling disadvantage and raising standards. EAZs were allowed to ignore the full national curriculum to focus on literacy and numeracy as well as sidestep national agreements on pay and conditions to attract the necessary staff. They also received preferential treatment on funding to set up nurseries and specialist schools.

Key EAZ facts

• There were 73 large zones serving 1,444 schools
• They covered approximately 6% of the school population in England
• Key stage 1 and 2 test results increased at a faster rate within the zones than within other schools - by an additional two percentage points in English at key stage 2

Examples of good practice from EAZ initiatives

• Leicester Parents as Partners initiative
• Examples of innovative projects in Round 1 EAZs (Manchester, East Brighton, Teesside, Blackburn)
• The Hereford EAZ and the Portsmouth EAZ fathers project

Useful articles from Literacy Today

• Zone community links - an article by Learning Partnerships in Leeds about their Education Action Zone
• Action Zone Arts - an article about the arts and EAZ in Southwark

Margaret Morrissey of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Organisations said: "This is a privatisation of the education system. Privatisation of buses didn't work, privatisation of trains didn't work. Why should it work in education?"However, the idea was welcomed by the shadow Education Secretary, saying that the action zones "took Conservative ideas a stage further".

In January 1999, The Times printed a speech by David Blunkett on EAZs, he said: "The first 25 zones are now up and running. Some, such as Blackburn in Darwen, are offering a fresh insight into the potential of information and communications technology. This zone is making imaginative use of whiteboards, linking schools with home, business and the wider community. In East Basildon, the potential of new technology to tackle disaffection is being explored in the school-led partnership. Newham is seeking to pioneer new ways of paying teachers based on performance.

"In Newcastle, the problem of 14 and 15 year olds who habitually truant is being radically explored through curricular changes aimed at getting otherwise disaffected youngsters back into the classroom. Grimsby is taking children out of the school system temporarily to give them life skills.Projects in other zones include extending the school day and year for clubs, Saturday classes summer schools, breakfast clubs and study centres. Croydon is investigating a four or five term year, while in Middlesborough, Tees South Employment zone is providing support staff for action zone schools from its unemployed clients."

"Businesses have raised £5 million in business sponsorship. The Halifax bank is providing strong leadership in the Calderdale zone and it is the same in Wigan with the managing director of north West Water in the chair; in Lambeth Shell is chairing the zone and is looking at fresh ways to attract and retain the best teachers. Education action zones are both an important part of our drive to raise school standards and our programme to promote diversity in education."

"Among the ideas that could be explored further might be new ways of meeting the needs of gifted children, modernising the classroom and using new technologies; developing models of school management and governance, perhaps through federating schools; developing the curriculum so that it meets the needs of every pupil; or providing effective links between schools, health and social services. We also require action zones to set targets for improvement, better results in literacy, numeracy and GCSEs; an increase in the opportunities available to pupils; the number of pupils going into further education boosted; and an increase in attendance with a marked reduction in exclusions."

However, in January 1999, the TES published a survey of staff in the 12 EAZs launched in September 1998, which found more than 70% felt excluded from key decisions and uninformed of important changes. Many felt that the zones would not lead to an improvement in standards and complained of extra paperwork, time wasting meetings and money spent on bureaucracy.

In July 1999, the NUT commented that EAZs also had a sever lack of commercial support. The NUT's analysis of the 47 bids chosen for further development in the second round showed that commercial involvement had weakened with the majority of bids having been initiated by local authorities or have the LEA, or schools as a lead partner. Partners in the EAZ bids were largely drawn from further and higher education, the health sector, careers, training enterprise councils, the police, chambers of commerce and education. With the possible exception of communications technology companies such as British telecom and Research machines, partnerships which had business playing a leading role were scarce. The only national companies with any prominent role were Tate and Lyle in the London borough of Newham and Shell in Lambeth.

2000
In March 2000, the TES reported that the Government wanted to see progress towards tough improvement targets in EAZs, which included examination results. But zone leaders warned that this emphasis on standards put at risk the principle on which they were founded: the freedom to experiment with novel approaches to improving standards. Marion Rix, the Local Government Association's lead Conservative Councillor on zones said it was unrealistic to expect some initiatives to deliver quick results. The zone in her own authority, Thetford in Norfolk, had a scheme to improve parental achievement in subjects such as literacy and numeracy, which might not deliver tangible results until 2010. 

In July 2000, the TES reported that companies who had provided financial backing to EAZs had voiced their concerns over the Government's proposed plan to start Ofsted inspections of the zones from September 2000, sparking fears that implementation of the plan may put business investment at risk.

Those involved with the running of EAZs believed that the plan ran counter to the original aim to encourage new ways of of raising school standards in under-achieving areas. One zone leader said: "We were led to believe zones would be fairly autonomous and innovative, but we are now being incorporated into a national programme of school improvement." However, a spokesman for Ofsted pointed out that zones received substantial amounts of public money.

Despite these objections, six first-round EAZs were inspected in autumn 2000 in their sixth term of operation. Inspectors found that though zones were making some useful contributions to raising standards in schools they were not doing so consistently. Zones were found not to have developed genuinely innovative action, but sometimes introduced ideas or initiatives that were new to the schools or area. More often zones had enhanced existing action or strategies. Zones' influence had been greater in primary schools than in secondary schools. Among the recommendations for improvement was the need to reduce the spread of activities, and give more consideration to their sustainability and impact. At secondary level, only one of the inspected zones improved the proportions of pupils gaining five or more good GCSEs

2001
In November 2001, the Government announced that EAZs were to be dropped. None of the country's 73 zones were to be renewed when they reached the end of their five-year funding. Successful EAZ initiatives would became part of the Excellence in Cities scheme.

Ministers were disappointed that zones failed to use their controversial powers to disapply the national curriculum and change teachers' pay and conditions. Except for a few high profile examples such as Newham, the private-sector cash largely failed to materialise. Almost all zones were led by councils.

2002
In September 2002, the TES reported on a Government study that concluded that EAZs had done little to help their secondary schools close the results gap with the rest of the country. Although EAZs had helped primary schools cut truancy, they had not had a significant impact on the secondary sector. This was despite the 73 zones each receiving up to £1 million a year in government support. The private sector also gave a total of £8 million in cash and £28.2 million in kind.

The report for ministers on the impact of the zones from 1998-2001 revealed that national key stage 3 test results failed to improve more rapidly than either national figures or the results of a group of similarly deprived schools not covered by an action zone.

At GCSE, the picture was more mixed. The proportion of pupils getting five Cs or better in zones set up in 1998 rose by 1% more than in comparable schools. There was also a significant reduction in the proportion of pupils leaving schools in the zones with no GCSEs. But GCSE results in zones set up in 1999 merely kept pace with national improvements and those of comparable schools. Truancy  dropped faster in zones than elsewhere, while primary test results rose faster than in comparable schools not in a zone.

Paving a Third Way? A policy trajectory analysis of education action zones is available at www.esrc.ac.uk

Examples of good practice from EAZ initiatives

Leicester's EAZ has adopted a strategy of getting into the communities and making parents major partners. Leicester's zone covers five of the most deprived estates in the city. Its approach includes a Parents as Partners initiative, with a network of parent link-workers - one for each estate plus some parents running a library for under-fives. The link workers expand an initiative originally started in some schools outside the zone. Their tasks include helping parents understand what their children are doing, organising courses from literacy to first aid, health and hygiene, and helping schools become more welcoming to parents. The under-fives' library has gained 185 members in three months. It has been set up in the corner of the adult library and has loaned books to the health centre and community centres - anywhere that children go.

(TES, 6 August 1999)

1. Manchester: Video conferences in Seymour Park Primary School in Trafford, Manchester, means that children from the Royal Manchester Children's hospital can link up with them. BT donated the equipment and is a partner in five of the EAZs.

2. East Brighton: This has just started and is receiving strong financial support from Scottish Power Learning. The company is paying more than £30,000 towards an open learning centre at a secondary school and has offered to put up money for a further adult learning centre if this is matched by donations from other firms. Brighton chamber of commerce is offering to help the zone find new sponsors from among the business community.

3. Teesside: A group called Teesside Tomorrow is already co-ordinating the work of smaller employers in East Middlesborough, including finding mentors for schoolchildren. Firms that are already on board include BT, British Aerospace, Barclays, IBM, McDonalds, Rover and Shell. Also many of the IT firms that supply schools, educational management companies such as Nord Anglia and Capita, which is behind a project to cut school bureaucracy in the London Borough of Newham.

4. Blackburn, Lancashire: A scheme developed by a school in Blackburn, Lancashire for tracking pupils' academic progress is being upgraded so it can be used by other action zone schools and possibly marketed commercially. The system monitors the progress of almost 1,000 pupils between the years 7 and 11. An IT company has developed this with the school.

(TES, 5 February 1999)

The Hereford EAZ and the Portsmouth EAZ are involved in a 'fathers and reading' project organised by the CEDC, which aims to develop greater involvement of fathers in supporting their children's reading at home. The project is focusing on setting up effective opportunities for fathers to take the first step in helping their primary aged child with reading activities at home. Teachers will be trained in issues such as developing home based learning activities, recruitment of fathers, using groupwork skills with fathers, parents and/or carers. Links with basic skills tutors, the adult education services and the library services are of key importance. Evaluation will be carried out by Sheffield University.

For more information contact Lisa Capper, CEDC, Unit C1, Grovelands Court, Grovelands Estate, Longford Road, Exhall, Coventry CV7 9NE. Tel: 024 7658 8440. Email: info@cedc.org.uk.