Managing curriculum policy changes: a comparative analysis of primary schools in England and Finland

The York-Finnish project compares the effects of national policy changes on the management of change in two countries where the curriculum reforms are moving in opposite directions. During the fieldwork, primary schools in England were managing policy changes related to the revision of the National Curriculum and its associated assessment. Their counterparts in Finland were developing school-based curricula in response to the dismantling of the centralized Finnish curriculum. Schools' prior experiences of both the process and content of policy changes in combination with the values of individual teachers were powerful determinants of policy interpretation. In the English context the intensification of teachers' work and increased managerialism harnessed to external agendas were found to de-motivate and disenfranchise teachers leading to change without commitment. In Finland, despite the educational context being different, teachers were also experiencing some negative effects of intensification. It is argued that the culture of small schools enables teachers to preserve their values and preferred practices more easily than their colleagues in larger schools.