Assignment Task – Policy Report
Guidelines for assignment – Policy Report
You need to write a 2,500-word policy report on one of the three following topics:
1. Child Poverty: Trends and the Impact on Educational Attainment
2. Closing the Attainment Gap in the Early Years
3. Raising Educational Standards: A Review of Academies
The report needs to meet all three learning outcomes for the module:
- Critically analyse the impact of current policies on practice in education settings and implications for the teaching profession
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of key aspects of policy and provision for young children, families and communities
- Reflect analytically on the impact of wider societal, political and economic concerns in shaping education policies
Your report should include the following:
Contents Page
Your contents page needs to list the following chapters and the page numbers they begin on.
Chapter One: Introduction
Tell us what is the report about? Why is it important? Why have you chosen it? State what policy issue you have chosen and the key policies you will be considering as part of your review. Provide an outline of the structure of your report. This will help the reader anticipate the different sections and follow your line of argument. If the body of your report is signposted with sub-headings, follow the sequence here when you provide an overview of the structure. This section should be around 150 words.
Chapter Two: The Policy Problem
Tell us about the problem that the policy you are reviewing is trying to address. You should provide an overview of the problem and this should be between 200 – 500 words depending on the issue. Remember, you have introduced this in the introduction. Now you have to flesh it out and demonstrate to the reader that you clearly understand the policy Make use of the relevant academic sources content and materials linked to that topic as this will help you frame the discussion.
Chapter Three: The Policy Solution
Tell us about the policy or policies that have been introduced. Refer to the actual policy name. What is the policy intention or aim, in other words what is expected to happen if this policy is introduced? Has the policy framework changed over time? Why? This chapter should be up to 500 words.
Chapter Four: Critical Evaluation of the Policy
Has the policy been successful? You will need to draw on evaluations and academic literature. For example, if you are focussing on Closing the Attainment Gap in the Early Years you might want to consider Sure Start and review evaluations of its impact. What has been the impact on children? What has been the impact on families? What has been the impact on the Early Years workforce? What have we learnt from the policy? Here you need to demonstrate that final learning outcome:
- Reflect analytically on the impact of wider societal, political and economic concerns in shaping education policies
In the case of Sure Start, you could consider the social, political and economic context in terms of cuts to the service and the impact that the change of government had. This section will be the longest at around 1,200 words.
Chapter Five: Conclusion/Recommendations
In this section, you should summarise the key points of the report and make recommendations for improvements where appropriate. This chapter will be around 200 words.
List of References
Ensure that your references are listed in alphabetical order and follow the APA 7th edition format.