Early years: 1986–1997 City technology colleges and technology schools 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. 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. These new schools would be secondary schools with a curricular emphasis on science and technology. They would be funded jointly by the central government and industrial sponsors, who would have significant influence in the management of the schools, and controlled by
educational trusts instead of the
local education authorities (LEAs) which had funded and controlled all state schools up to this point. In 1987 the
City Technology Colleges Trust, made to oversee the establishment of CTCs, was established. It was chaired by
Cyril Taylor, a businessman and philanthropist whose proposal for the creation of 100 technical and technological schools to reduce rising levels of youth unemployment in January 1986 led to the creation of the CTC programme. Baker and Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher tasked Taylor with overseeing the establishment of the CTCs and he had founded the trust at their request. It was responsible for finding the sites for the new schools and raising industrial money for their buildings, and all CTCs would become members of it. 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. The first CTCs opened the following year through the
Education Reform Act 1988. These were the first specialist schools in the state sector. 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. From 1990, the new prime minister
John Major was under increasing pressure to come up with a "more
Treasury-friendly" concept for specialist schools. The cost of each CTC in
public money was unexpectedly high; their buildings had to be built from the ground up as LEAs refused to provide disused school buildings, which had significantly increased the cost of the programme. The idea of turning existing secondary schools into specialist schools for technology came from Cyril Taylor, who had proposed it in response to the government's inability to pay for the implementation of technology as a compulsory subject in all schools, which had been enforced by the Education Reform Act 1988. 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. Overall, fifteen CTCs were established in England while none were established in Wales. Three of these remain open in the present day, with the rest becoming
academy schools in the 2000s.
Technology colleges and the Education Act 1993 As the TSI came to an end in 1993 and 1994, the government moved toward establishing new
technology colleges. Also proposed by Taylor, these schools would be created from existing secondary schools and would specialise in technology, maths and science. They differed from the technology schools in that they had to raise £100,000 in private sector sponsorship to match their capital grant, which was also worth £100,000, before specialising. The
technology colleges programme was developed by Education Secretary
John Patten in 1992. The Education Act 1993, which only applied to
England and Wales, let grant-maintained and voluntary aided schools install sponsor governors and become technology colleges, subject to the consent of the
Secretary of State for Education and Science. It also gave all state secondary schools, including those maintained by their LEA, the right to specialise in one or more subject areas, with specialisms in art, drama, music, sport, foreign languages and technology also giving them the right to select 10% of their pupils on aptitude or ability in one of these five areas. Specialist schools still had to teach the National Curriculum and its "core" subjects, which were maths, science, English, and until September 1993 also technology. Despite being covered by the act, no more specialist schools were established in Wales, and the schools participating in the TSI would lose their specialist school status when it ended in 1994. At first, the technology colleges programme retained the CTC programme's element of autonomy from the local authorities; only voluntary aided and grant-maintained schools could participate in it. This element of the programme was short-lived and LEA-maintained schools could participate from 1994. This provided the basic framework for specialist schools in England under which 90% of its secondary schools would later specialise. 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. The technology colleges were a trial of these plans and Patten expected to see 160 more designated over the next few years. New
language colleges were also announced as part of the programme, and it became the
specialist schools programme (SSP). In 1996,
arts colleges and
sports colleges were also announced as part of the programme, and the first designations in these statuses were granted in 1997.
Under New Labour: 1997–2010 Following the
1997 general election, the
Conservative government stepped down and was replaced by a
Labour one. The new education secretary was
David Blunkett. Blunkett was a supporter of the specialist schools programme and brought it to the mainstream. In 2000, Blunkett announced the launch of the
city academies programme (later the academies programme). Academies were required to specialise and re-designate through free government funding, choosing whatever subject specialism they desired. By 2001, 700 schools had specialist status and a further 1300 were part of the Technology Colleges Trust's affiliation scheme. In 2002 the Technology Colleges Trust was renamed yet again, this time to the Specialist Schools Trust (SST). This was done to reflect the rising popularity of specialist status and to represent the increased specialisms available (there were now eight). By January 2004, 54% of English secondaries were specialists, rising to 75% by the 2005/2006
academic year. The programme was
introduced to Scotland and Northern Ireland in both of these years and, by 2011, there were 44 specialist schools in Northern Ireland. In 2007, the programme was introduced to primary schools, with 34 schools receiving specialist status. The new education secretary,
Michael Gove, announced that specialist school funding from the specialist schools programme would be mainstreamed from April 2011. This meant that schools would now have to receive funds for specialisms through the Dedicated Schools Grant and no longer had to designate or re-designate for specialist status. Specialist status is now instead granted based on meeting benchmarks set by the DfE. This effectively rendered the specialist schools programme defunct. The requirement for academies to have specialisms, of which all 203 open academies had at the time, were abolished. Despite this, academies are still able to freely select and fund specialisms. The Specialist Schools Trust (now called the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust) was also stripped of government support and no longer had control over specialist designations, therefore rendering it obsolete. At around the same time, the Scottish and Northern Irish variants of the programme were discontinued. In February 2011 the Minister for Schools,
Nick Gibb, said this was why the funding was mainstreamed, alongside a government venture for more school autonomy.
Continued specialisation in England under the coalition From 2011, the specialist schools policy in England continued with a new goal of turning every school into an academy or
free school so that schools could be improved across the board. This white paper led to the creation of the
Education Act 2011, which removed the legal requirement for academies to specialise from November 2011. In line with new proposals from Kenneth Baker, new
university technical colleges (UTCs) were established from 2011. These are technical and vocational specialist schools for 14–18 year olds.
Studio schools, which are also specialist schools for 14–18 year olds, were established from 2010. Specialist
maths schools were announced by the coalition in 2011, and the first of these were established from 2014. They are selective schools for 16–19 year olds with mathematical aptitude and they offer a specialist curriculum in mathematics. UTCs, studio schools and maths schools fall under the free school category. Introduced by the coalition, free schools are a type of academy which are established by trusts, charities, religious groups, voluntary groups, parents and teachers. The term also covers new academies which are set up through a local authority competition called the free school presumption. Free schools can be established on the basis of providing a location with a new subject specialism.
Specialist schools in England after the coalition In 2019, 3,000 English secondary schools, or 90% of all the secondary schools in England, were specialising in one or more subjects. It was also found that community schools maintained by their local authority were just as likely as academies and other schools run by trusts to specialise. The number of specialist schools was attributed to the prevalence of state school specialisation during the second and third ministries of the Labour government that governed the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2010. From 2020, some free schools were opened with specialist
Maths or
Science College status under Education Secretary
Gavin Williamson's
COVID-19 recovery plan. 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. They will mainly serve disadvantaged children identified as being "talented" so that they have the highest standard of education available in England. ==Types of specialist schools==