Specialist schools in the United Kingdom
This programme limited the specialisms available to schools unless they had academy status, which is exclusive to England, and required them to raise money in private sector sponsorship before specialising.
[46] There are four possible areas to specialise in: communication and interaction, cognition and learning, social, emotional and mental health, and sensory and physical needs.
In 2015, none of these schools were in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and neither were there any in the North East and South West of England, so most pupils had to relocate if they wished to attend one.
[51] In the state sector of education, specialist schools have their origin in the city technology college programme of the late 1980s, which was used by the Conservative government of the time to reduce the power of local authorities.
[59][60] The programme was announced at the 1986 Conservative Party Conference by Education Secretary Kenneth Baker, with plans for the creation of a pilot network of 20 new city technology colleges (CTCs) by 1990 being revealed.
Taylor was also recruited by Baker as his special adviser on CTCs and specialist schools, a role he would maintain under ten consecutive education secretaries from both major political parties until 2007.
[64][65]: 7 [33]: 6 Their establishment marked the first phase of the specialist schools policy in England, with the government intending to introduce "relevant" subjects, primarily technology, to the general curriculum.
Taylor argued that this would allow the government to gradually pay for the subject over a long period of time, and that it would also salvage the failures of the CTC programme.
[75] To join the programme and become a specialist technology college, schools had to put forward a bid that included £100,000 in private sector sponsorship and a three-year (later four-year) curricular development plan.
[83] With the first designations, Education Secretary John Patten announced plans to introduce more specialist schools in art, sport, music, language and business over the next five years.
It took on the City Technology Colleges Trust's task of helping schools raise the required sponsorship for specialist designation in sport and, like it, was funded by the DfE to do so.
Cyril Taylor, chairman of the trust and successive adviser to multiple education secretaries, convinced leader of the opposition Tony Blair to support specialist schools.
And while this will naturally also remove the need for schools to re-designate, I hope that the SSAT, and in particular the National Head Teacher Steering Group, will continue to provide a loud and influential voice on behalf of all of its membership."
[12]: 448 However, the coalition claimed to prefer a decentralised approach where it would merely influence the policy, opting to intervene when it was only required, and it instead favoured the involvement of market forces and stakeholders such as community groups and private sector organisations.
[12]: 442 In the education white paper The Importance of Teaching, it stated that it "want[ed] every school to be able to shape its own character, frame its own ethos and develop its own specialisms, free of either central or local bureaucratic constraint".
[121] From 2020, some free schools were opened with specialist Maths or Science College status under Education Secretary Gavin Williamson's COVID-19 recovery plan.
[122] Since 2022, specialist sixth form free schools have been set to open in 55 locations in England designated by the government as Education Investment Areas through its levelling-up policy.
[137] Furthermore, studio schools combine academic studies and vocational education, specialising in a multitude of subject fields including gaming and marine industries.
Studio schools are usually sponsored by a diverse range of companies such as Disney, Sony, Hilton Hotels, Amazon and National Express.
Taylor instead preferred "mainstream specialisations", further adding that academies should "Teach kids some basic hard academic subjects, learn to be a health worker later on!
"[149] From 2020, some free schools have been opened with specialist Maths or Science College status under education secretary Gavin Williamson's COVID-19 recovery plan.
[177][178][179] The supporters within the government were Chris Patten, Tony Kerpel, Alistair Burt, George Walden, Bob Dunn and Virginia Bottomley.
Griffiths often compared them to Soviet republics, bringing this comparison to anti-communist Thatcher:[180] "Prime Minister, we have a system of local authorities in Britain.
"In July 1991, the new Prime Minister John Major praised CTCs for "meeting head-on a demand for technical education, which as a country we have neglected for a century past."
[182] John Major announced the introduction of specialist Sports Colleges two years later, citing them as a solution to the lack of weekly two hour PE provision in half of schools.
[183] By 1997, when Labour entered government, new education secretary David Blunkett and Prime Minister Tony Blair both supported school specialisation.
[33][184][86] In a July 2000 session of parliament, Maidenhead MP Theresa May enquired Blunkett on whether he accepted specialist school statistics, noting that the number of student A to C grade GCSE results improved by only two thirds of that in non-specialists.
[205] In January 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced her intention for every British city to have a maths school as part of an attempt to encourage technical education after Brexit.
Doug McAvoy, general secretary of NUT, claimed that specialist schools were creating a two-tier education system and that they did nothing to fix the problems of increasing teacher shortages and low morale.
The Scottish Lib Dems opposed the plans despite being in coalition with Labour, with party chairman Iain Smith fearing a "backdoor" introduction of academic selection.
