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Bullock (1975) (page numbers in brackets) Preliminary pages (i-xxxvi)
Part 1 Attitudes and Standards
Part 2 Language in the Early Years
Part 3 Reading
Part 4 Language in the Middle and Secondary Years
Part 5 Organisation
Part 6 Reading and Language Difficulties
Part 7 Resources
Part 8 Teacher Education and Training
Part 9 The Survey
Part 10 Sumary of Conclusions and Recommendations
Appendix A (561-576)
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The Bullock Report (1975) A language for life Report of the Committee of Enquiry appointed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science under the Chairmanship of Sir Alan Bullock FBA London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1975
Chapter 25 continued [page 365 (cont.)] 25.15 INTRODUCTION (i) The Questionnaire Forms The Primary Questionnaire was in two sections, a General and a Class section. The General section was completed by the heads and enquired into aspects of staffing, resources, aids to reading, testing policy and provision for poor readers across the whole age-range of the school. The Class section related specifically to the classes containing six or nine year olds. It was filled in by the class teacher and provided details of class organisation, the teaching of reading, the use of books, record-keeping and the children's work. (ii) Reading The Primary Questionnaire did not set out to collect again the kind of information on reading standards which was brought together by the NFER survey, the results of which were published in 'The Trend of Reading Standards'. Nevertheless, in view of the interest in this subject it was felt appropriate to place a special emphasis on the teaching of reading. A number of questions were therefore asked about class policy on reading practice, the use of reading schemes and other books, and the amount of time the children spent on reading. The teachers were also asked how they would assess the reading standard of the sample child in comparison with nationally recognised norms. Much of the subsequent information collected was cross-analysed against the teachers' answers to this question, and thus three distinct pictures emerged of the experiences of children who were rated as 'above average', 'average', and 'below average' in reading ability. 25.16 THE SCHOOLS (i) The Sample Schools Table 24 SIZE AND TYPE OF SCHOOLS IN THE SAMPLE
[page 366] All tables relating to the school, as distinct from the class, are drawn from the responses of these 936 schools. (ii) The Classes Tables relating to classes containing 6 year old and 9 year old children are drawn from a larger sample of 1,415 schools. A more detailed explanation of the sampling can be found in the introduction to this chapter. Information was collected about 6 year olds in 1,417 classes and 9 year olds in 1,253 classes. In the 'school' sample there were 214,494 full-time pupils covering the whole primary age-range. These pupils were organised into 6,936 classes, giving an average class size of 31 children. What that average figure meant in practice for the sample classes containing 6 year old and 9 year old children can be seen in the histograms below. (Diagram 13) (iii) Pupil Teacher Ratio There were 7,917 full-time and 977 part-time qualified teachers in the sample of schools. If we take part-time teachers as fractions of full-time teachers, the whole staff complement amounted to the equivalent of 8,394 full-time teachers. This gives a pupil-teacher ratio for the schools of 25.6:1, which is comparable with the ratio of 25.5:1 for all primary schools in England in January 1973. The figures included the head as a member of the teaching staff, but not the peripatetic teachers who visit schools for various types of specialist teaching. Inclusion of the peripatetic teachers would, of course, have made a marginal improvement in the staffing ratio. (iv) The Organisation of Classes Chapter 13 examines different kinds of organisation which may be encountered in primary schools. In drawing up the questionnaire we attempted to assess the effect upon the teaching of English of adopting one of these methods, namely vertical grouping. For the purposes of our survey a class was adjudged to be 'deliberately vertically grouped' if by deliberate choice it contained an age-range of at least 18 months and the school fulfilled a specific minimum size criterion. Where a class had an age-range of at least 18 months but the school itself did not reach the minimum size stipulated, we have termed it 'not deliberately vertically grouped'. Obviously, if a school is too small to have one teacher per age group an age span of at least 18 months in a class is dictated as much by circumstance as by policy. (A fuller explanation of our definition of vertical grouping for the purposes of the survey appears in the introduction to this chapter). The questionnaire results revealed the incidence of vertical grouping shown in Table 25. [page 367] Diagram 13 HISTOGRAMS SHOWING SIZES OF CLASSES OF 9 AND 6 YEAR OLDS  [page 368] Table 25 ORGANISATION OF CLASSES: VERTICAL GROUPING
Note: It is not, of course, possible to derive average class sizes from these figures, since whether or not a class is vertically grouped the number of 6 or 9 year olds it contains will not represent the whole possible membership of that class. By stratifying the questionnaire data according to whether or not the class was vertically grouped, we have been able to provide some comparisons of particular reading methods in relation to the overall organisation of work within the different classes. For example, it emerged that 61 per cent of the vertically grouped classes containing 6 year olds used a 'sentence method' approach to reading compared to only 48 per cent of those 'not vertically grouped'. Among the classes containing 9 year olds, however, this difference of practice no longer existed. The 'sentence method' was used there by about 30 per cent of classes from each kind of grouping. There were other instances where the practices of the three groups diverged noticeably, and these are taken up later in this chapter, particularly in the reading section. 25.17 TEACHERS (i) Staffing Table 26 NUMBER OF TEACHERS AND ABOVE-SCALE POSTS
[page 369] (a) Above-Scale Posts 39.7 per cent of the full-time teachers other than heads received salary payments above Scale 1, but of these only 6.9 per cent were for advising other teachers in the teaching of English. The current Burnham Salary Document (operative from 1.4.73) lays down that only primary schools with a points score of 201 or more (i.e. more than 133 children on roll) are entitled to assistant teacher posts above Scale 1, and from this we calculated that just over 660 (70.5 per cent) of the primary schools in our sample were entitled to one or more such posts. However, of the 660 or so schools which could have appointed a teacher to advise colleagues in the teaching of English only 192 (29 per cent) had chosen to do so. We have argued earlier in the Report that this reflects the mistaken but all too prevalent view that any teacher can cope with all the varied aspects of English without additional training or specialist advice. (b) Other Teachers A check was made upon the totals of full and part-time teachers in order to discover how many schools had a teacher complement exceeding the number of registration classes. In all, 746 (79.7 per cent) of schools had teachers 'in excess' of total registration classes; the number of such teachers in terms of full-time equivalents amounted to 1,416. When the incidence of these teachers was related to the size of the schools, it was found that 26 per cent of schools with fewer than 70 pupils and 61 per cent of those with 71-150 had 'excess teachers', compared with over 93 per cent of all schools with more than 150 pupils. 29 per cent of schools had two such teachers while 17 per cent had three or more. As might be expected, 'excess teachers' were most commonly found in the larger schools. In addition LEAs employ a number of peripatetic teachers for specific subjects and the survey found 186 of them who taught reading in the sample schools for a total of 470 half-day sessions during the survey week. (c) Length of Service in School The class teachers of the 6 and 9 year olds were asked to say how long they had served in their present schools. On average a fifth had served there for less than one year, a third between one and three years and the remainder more than three years. These figures were analysed by class organisation in order to determine whether this factor affected teacher mobility. Only two differences of pattern were found. Firstly, 41 per cent of the teachers of 'deliberately vertically grouped' classes containing 6 year olds had been in post for three years, compared with 52 per cent of the teachers of 'not vertically grouped' classes. Secondly, in the classes containing 9 year olds, 59 per cent of the teachers of the 'not deliberately vertically grouped' classes (i.e. from some of the smaller schools) had been in post for more than three years, compared with 49 per cent in 'deliberately vertically grouped' classes and 43 per cent in 'not vertically grouped' classes. (ii) Teachers' Centres We were interested to know whether one or more of the teachers in each of the sample primary schools had made use of a Teachers' Centre in connection with any aspect of the teaching of English during the five month period from [page 370] September 1972 to January 1973. 58 per cent of the schools had at least one teacher who had done so. This information was cross-tabulated against the number of teachers in each school, in the expectation that those from the smallest schools might find it most difficult to attend the centres, either through lack of substitutions or because the school was in a remote area far away from one. The results were as follows: Table 27 SCHOOLS WHICH MADE USE OF TEACHERS' CENTRE IN CONNECTION WITH THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
As might be expected, the table shows that the larger the number of teachers in a school, the higher was the probability that at least one teacher would have attended a Teachers' Centre for some activity connected with the teaching of English during the specified period. On the other hand, well over a quarter of those with 10 or more teachers had had no one attending a Teachers' Centre for any purposes connected with English. By comparison, and despite their smaller staffs, in 44 per cent of schools with fewer than six teachers one or more of the staff had attended a centre during the period. (iii) In-Service Training We asked the class teachers of the 6 and 9 year olds whether they had attended a course concerned mainly with one or more aspects of teaching English. For the shorter courses respondents were asked to limit their replies to those they had attended within the three years prior to January 1973, but no such time limit was imposed on courses involving at least six months' full-time study. The results appear in Table 28 below. [page 371] Table 28 ATTENDANCE BY TEACHERS OF 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS AT COURSES ON ASPECTS OF THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
The table shows that almost one in every three class teachers in our sample had taken advantage of the very short courses, which at their best can keep teachers in touch with developments and stimulate ideas. However, if one takes into account the fact that we stipulated a three-year time span, the results can be taken to mean that on average no more than about one in ten class teachers attended even the shortest of courses in connection with English in one year. The take-up of longer courses in our sample was very low, even after making allowance for the likely numbers of new entrants to teaching, who would not yet be eligible to enrol for them. (iv) Associations concerned with reading and the teaching of English in schools Several teachers complained in their evidence about the lack of sources of up to date information relevant to their work. One such source of which relatively little use seems to be made is the specialist organisations concerned with various aspects of English teaching. Our questionnaire asked for details of school affiliations to certain of these associations. The response rate was as follows: Table 29 ASSOCIATIONS CONCERNED WITH READING AND THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, ETC
[page 372] 25.18 READING For reasons we have given, the Primary Questionnaire placed considerable emphasis upon reading and enquired into the different methods, media and materials employed by teachers, and the amount of time the children spent on reading. (i) Methods The class teachers were asked whether they had used any of a specified list of methods with any of the children during the survey week. The results were as follows: Table 30 METHODS OF TEACHING READING TO 6 YEAR OLDS
The principles underlying these methods are discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, and it is sufficient to say here that Alphabetic Analysis, Phonic 1 and Phonic 2 aim to give the child early independence in word attack through teaching him to synthesise letter sounds, while Look and Say and Sentence Method lay emphasis on teaching the child to recognise whole words or larger units of meaning. Pre-reading exercises lend themselves less easily to concise definition, but are explained in the glossary. Table 30 shows that most teachers in the sample adopted an eclectic approach to the teaching of reading. It is particularly noteworthy that both Phonic 1 and Look and Say were used by 97 per cent of all teachers of 6 year olds, which suggests they regarded these two approaches not as alternatives but as complements. A further analysis of these figures enabled us to compare the practices of the 'deliberately vertically grouped' and the 'not vertically grouped' classes. Table 31 shows the results of this comparison for the classes containing 6 year olds. [page 373] Table 31 METHODS OF TEACHING READING TO 6 YEAR OLDS IN VERTICALLY GROUPED AND NON-VERTICALLY GROUPED CLASSES
Only Alphabetic Analysis, Sentence Method and Pre-reading Exercises in Table 31 are significantly different at or beyond the 5 per cent level* in the two types of class. More of the 'deliberately vertically grouped' containing 6 year olds used the first two than did those which v/ere 'not vertically grouped'. Pre-reading exercises were used by very many more of the 'deliberately vertically grouped' classes containing 6 year olds than by 'not vertically grouped' 6 year olds. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that only the 'vertically grouped' would contain reception-stage children. There was no significant difference in the use of any of the six methods by the classes containing 9 year olds. *Reference should be made to paragraph 25.37 for a technical note on significance testing. (ii) The Use of Reading Schemes and Other Books Teachers were asked to what extent they used reading schemes in the teaching of reading. 19 per cent of the 6 year old classes in the sample and 6 per cent of the 9 year old classes used only one commercial reading scheme for reading practice. Over half the 6 year olds (53 per cent) drew upon several schemes supplemented with other books which the teachers themselves had graded in order of difficulty, while the remaining 28 per cent used commercial schemes together with other books, not all of which were graded. 37 per cent of the 9 year olds used reading schemes and other books graded by the teacher, while the majority (54 per cent) used both graded and non-graded books. Just 2.9 per cent of 9 year olds and a mere six classes of 6 year olds (0.4 per cent) used for reading practice books and materials which did not fall into any of these categories. Most of the commercially produced reading schemes provide supplementary books which may be read between the major steps of the graded series. The survey showed that these were widely used, by 78 per cent of the 6 year olds and 61 per cent of the 9 year olds. Before the child was allowed to move [page 374] from one graded reader to the next most teachers usually tested him by hearing him read. This was the practice of 88 per cent of the teachers of 6 year olds and 77 per cent of the teachers of 9 year olds. One third of all teachers of both 6 and 9 year olds required poor readers to re-read their books if their performances were unsatisfactory, while 3 per cent sometimes made them repeat a book more than once. There was no difference between the practices of vertically grouped and other classes. (iii) Media and Schemes, etc A section of the questionnaire was designed to provide quantitative data about the use of the various media and schemes for the teaching of reading, information which has never before been collected on such a large scale in England. A list was compiled which incorporated the best-known of the systems in current use. Table 32, which is based on the school sample, indicates how commonly each was employed, and the information has been cross-tabulated by size of school. Table 33 shows their incidence by type of school. By far the most frequently used were the Key Words (79 per cent) and 'other controlled vocabulary' types of reading scheme (89 per cent). In recent years much attention has been focused upon various means of dealing with the difficulties of phoneme/grapheme correspondence, a subject discussed in Chapters 6 and 7. The questionnaire listed a number of different media to discover to what extent these had been adopted. MEDIA AND SCHEMES ETC. USED IN THE TEACHING OF READING, BY SIZE OF SCHOOL [page 375] MEDIA AND SCHEMES ETC. USED IN THE TEACHING OF READING, BY TYPE OF SCHOOL The Initial Teaching Alphabet (i.t.a). was used by 10.1 per cent of schools containing infants. Naturally enough it was most strongly represented in infant classes, but it was also in use in some junior classes, probably those where some children had yet to make the transition to traditional orthography. The other media we listed, colour coding and diacritical marking, were less commonly used, the first in 6 per cent of schools and the second in only 2 per cent. (iv) Time Spent on Reading The class teachers were asked to state the amount of time spent by the sample child on reading activities during the survey week. The detailed tables of results appear as Tables 54 and 55. In brief they show that 99 per cent of the 6 year olds spent time on 'reading practice', while over 90 per cent also spent some time on reading stories for themselves. Among the 9 year olds the figures were 75 per cent and 95 per cent respectively. The detailed figures show that the amount of time devoted to reading was often substantial. Three quarters of the 6 year olds were expected to read daily from the books used for reading practice, and almost all the rest at least three or four times a week. Among the 9 year olds 59 per cent were expected to read from these books daily, 28 per cent three or four times a week and the remainder less often. We were interested to discover whether the fact that a class was vertically grouped altered the picture at all. It was found that in the main the practice of the 'deliberately vertically grouped' was identical in both age groups with that of other classes. When answering the question 'How often does the child read to a teacher during a week?' the class teacher was asked to identify, and comment in terms of, 'the ablest', 'an average' and 'the poorest reader in the class'. The percentages reproduced in Table 34 below show, as might be expected, that the greatest emphasis was on hearing the poorest achievers read. However, over half the teachers of 6 year olds heard all their children read at least three or four times a week. There was no great difference between the 'deliberately vertically grouped' and 'not vertically grouped' classes, but a higher percentage of children of both age groups in the 'not deliberately [page 376] vertically grouped' classes, (i.e. those in the smaller schools), read to their teachers more often. One suggestion is that the size of classes in these schools is small enough to make this possible, and the comparative staffing ratios (17.5:1 in schools of up to 70 pupils, compared with 25.5:1 in all schools) would support this hypothesis. NUMBER OF OCCASIONS ON WHICH 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS READ TO THE TEACHER IN A WEEK IN VERTICALLY GROUPED AND NON-VERTICALLY GROUPED CLASSES [page 377] 25.19 RESOURCES: BOOKS AND AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS (i) Libraries and the Use of Books The survey showed that of the 660 or so schools entitled to posts above Scale 1, 402 or 61 per cent had awarded one to the teachers in charge of the library. The evidence of our visits was that most of these teachers were involved in such administrative duties as the ordering, organising and cataloguing of books, but that their activities seldom extended beyond into such areas as shaping book-buying policy or advising other teachers on children's books. Where a school's book resources are to be used to best effect, the school needs a person to assume these additional responsibilities, an argument developed in Chapter 21. In that chapter we drew attention to the importance of having books immediately available in the classroom as well as in a central collection. In our sample 98 per cent of the 6 year olds and 95 per cent of the 9 year olds had classroom libraries, while 82 per cent of the 6 year olds and 90 per cent of the 9 year olds had access to books elsewhere in the school, in a central library collection, a corridor or another classroom. About a quarter of the teachers arranged set times when children could borrow books from elsewhere in the school, while 81 per cent of the 6 year olds and 89 per cent of the 9 year olds could do so at any time, provided they had the class teacher's permission. 80 per cent of our sample 6 year olds and 93 per cent of the 9 year olds were allowed to take books home. This suggests a welcome improvement since the PIowden Committee's finding, reported in 1967, that only 65 per cent of the primary schools in its survey allowed children to take books home. 16 per cent of the schools attended by 6 year olds and 27 per cent of those attended by 9 year olds provided some facilities to enable children or their parents to buy books, though the limited evidence of our visits was that those schools which did sell books did so only very infrequently. The survey gave evidence of the substantial support given to primary schools by school library services. Schools were asked: 'Are books on loan from the LEA/County/County Borough library?', and the results were as follows. For purposes of comparison the response of secondary schools to the same question has been included in the table: Table 35 LOAN OF BOOKS BY THE LEA/COUNTY/COUNTY BOROUGH LIBRARY TO PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS
[page 378] (ii) Audio-Visual Aids The questionnaire sought to discover which items of equipment the schools used in the teaching of English, and a fairly comprehensive list was drawn up for the purpose. Tables 36 and 37 show the extent to which the equipment was available and how schools of different size and type compared. It will be seen that the highest percentages are to be found in the schools with over 350 on roll. Certain of the more common items, such as radio and television, are represented fairly evenly across the range of school size; but others, such as the battery tape recorder, offer a telling contrast. The situation of small schools in respect of equipment and other facilities is given special attention in paragraph 25.23. Table 37 reveals a marked difference between infant/first and junior/middle schools in the availability of a television set. INCIDENCE OF AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS BY SIZE OF SCHOOL [page 379] Table 37 INCIDENCE OF AUDIO-VISUAL AIDS BY TYPE OF SCHOOL
25.20 TESTING AND RECORDING Chapter 17 argues the importance of an effective system of diagnosis and recording based on the teacher's structured observation and on the use of suitable tests. In the survey we aimed to ascertain how the children's progress was assessed and their problems identified, and the steps that were taken to record the findings. The following tables relate to the use of tests. Table 38 TESTING OF CHILDREN WITH PUBLISHED READING TESTS, BY TYPE OF SCHOOL
Of the 936 schools, a quarter tested children in their first term in school. Two-thirds tested them during their last year in school and three out of four at some other time. On average, therefore, it seems that most children stand [page 380] a good chance of being formally tested at least twice during their primary years. It will be seen that a high proportion of the junior and middle school children were tested during their last year, though it is not possible to state the extent to which results were passed on to the next school. All schools were asked to indicate which tests they used, and a table of the results from our 936 'sample' schools follows. Table 39 refers. The most marked feature of this table is the heavy reliance placed upon the Schonell Graded Word Reading Test, which was used by 72 per cent of the schools in our sample. It was first published in 1945, and has not subsequently been revised or restandardised. Goodacre commented upon its prevalence in findings from an NFER survey in 1959, and it is clear from our own survey that this test continues to be the one with which most schools are familiar. The table shows that 93 per cent of all schools used tests of one kind or another. On average those with fewer pupils tended to use two or three different tests, the larger ones three or four. 17 per cent of schools placed some reliance upon tests other than those we had specified; these probably included some of their own devising. We tried to find out whether size of school had any pronounced effect upon testing policy, but were unable to discover any discernible trends. The evidence of our visits suggests that the application of reading tests is the main method, indeed in some schools the only method, used to determine which children should receive special help. Of the 936 schools in the sample 644 (69 per cent) were allocating special help to children whose test score fell below a certain level. Chapter 17 gives details of the features we consider necessary in the recording of children's work and progress, and certain of these were included in the questions. The results reveal that almost all the teachers of 6 year olds kept records of the books read by each child, and of the occasions they heard the child read. The figures for these practices were 95 per cent and 94 per cent respectively, and the comparable figures for the teachers of 9 year olds were 78 per cent and 70 per cent. Assessments of written work were kept by 47 per cent of the teachers of 6 year olds and 60 per cent of the teachers of 9 year olds. [page 381] USE OF DIFFERENT READING TESTS, BY SIZE OF SCHOOL One of our questions was designed to determine how many teachers kept records of persistent individual errors that might indicate the need for help from (a) specialist teachers of reading within the school, and (b) specialist teachers and/or educational psychologists from outside. 37 per cent of the teachers of 6 year olds and 46 per cent of those of 9 year olds kept such records for the first of these purposes and 32 per cent and 38 per cent respectively for the second. Specialist help with reading is obviously less relevant in the case of 6 year old children, but it is perhaps surprising that the [page 382] figures for the 9 year olds are so low. Chapter 17 makes out a case for the importance of keeping systematic records and one measure recommended is that of building up a collection of a child's written work over a period of time. In the survey we found that only some 40 per cent of the teachers of both age groups kept children's work for this purpose. 25.21 PUPILS WITH READING AND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES (i) General The term 'remedial' is applied in primary schools to a not very precisely defined band of children along the continuum of ability. When the questionnaire was devised we chose not to attach any objective criteria to the term, and we have therefore to recognise that as used in the questionnaire and in this commentary it applies to children with a fairly diverse range of abilities and problems. The questionnaire results relate to those children whose schools had identified them as being in need of special help, and who were in fact receiving such help. It emerged that 22,762 (10.6 per cent) of the children of the whole primary age-range fell into this category. Schools were asked whether any of these children were being taught reading for any part of the time in classes, groups or individually outside the registration classes. The question specifically excluded 'group work' within the class unless an additional teacher was being brought in for the purpose. Table 40 CLASSES, GROUPS OR INDIVIDUAL TUITION IN READING OUTSIDE REGISTRATION CLASSES, BY TYPE OF SCHOOL
709 (76 per cent) of the 936 schools had at least one group* for poor readers. There were 3,816 of these groups, an average of four in every school which possessed them. Taking into account all the different forms of provision for poor readers, we calculated that the size of their groups was most commonly in the range of 2-10 pupils, the average being 6. Indeed, this was true of 67.8 per cent of the schools, while at least another 8.9 per cent always gave individual attention to their poor readers. Note: These figures do not include groups specially formed for children whose first language was not English.
*The word 'group' must be taken here to include individual children, or groups of two or more who are withdrawn from their ordinary classes for remedial reading. [page 383] 111 (11.9 per cent) of the 936 sample schools organised one or more special registration classes for poor readers, as follows: Table 41 SPECIAL REGISTRATION CLASSES FOR POOR READERS
*Including any registration classes in centres outside the schools. (ii) Provision of Special Help The heads were asked whether special help was given to children who achieved low scores on reading tests. Table 42 SPECIAL HELP GIVEN TO CHILDREN WITH LOW SCORES ON READING TESTS, BY TYPE OF SCHOOL
(iii) The Reading Ability of the Child In addition to information about children receiving remedial teaching, the questionnaire provided other data which we cross-analysed against the reading ability of the child. The primary school teachers were asked to rate the sample children in terms of their reading ability. Consequently all references to 'ability' in this section should be taken to refer specifically to the teacher's rating of the child's reading ability. The teachers were asked to assume that on average 25 per cent of children were good readers for their age, 50 per cent average readers, and (25 per cent poor readers. We would have expected to obtain results which corresponded roughly to these proportions. In fact the results were as follows: [page 384] Table 43 TEACHER RATING OF READING ABILITY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS
One possible interpretation of this table is that teachers are over-rating the ability of the children, in particular the 9 year olds. This could in turn mean that the teachers may be teaching a disquietingly high proportion of their pupils at an inappropriately advanced level. Another factor we cannot rule out is the possibility of an unknown but relevant bias in the selection of the sample child. One hypothesis which the questionnaire data confirmed was that the 'below average' child was likely to meet more teachers in a week than his more able peers. This might be because of a tendency in some schools to ask any teacher to take a single lesson now and again with the 'below average' children, or it might reflect the common practice of using the help of parttime and peripatetic teachers with the remedial children. (iv) The Teachers Table 44 NUMBER OF TEACHERS BY WHOM 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS ARE TAUGHT IN A WEEK, ACCORDING TO READING ABILITY
At all ability levels the 9 year old children were likely to encounter more teachers than the 6 year olds in the course of one week. However, in both age groups the children of below average reading ability were taught by [page 385] more teachers than the average and above average children. 18 per cent of the below average 6 year olds were taught by 4 or more teachers, compared with 11 per cent of the average and above average children. Among the 9 year olds 46 per cent were taught by 4 or more teachers, compared with 36 per cent of the average and 38 per cent of the above average. We cannot be certain how the time was allocated among the teachers, but if it meant that the children went to different teachers for separate lessons we find the figure of 18 per cent particularly disturbing. If the children are experiencing reading difficulties at this age, they are in particular need of security, continuity and stability. Just over 29 per cent of the sample schools entitled to posts above Scale 1 had appointed a teacher to such a post because of his special responsibility for teaching poor readers. Over 10 per cent of the teachers with special responsibilities relating to English undertook two of the duties we listed, namely organising the library, advising their colleagues in the teaching of English, and the teaching of poor readers. In all, 813 teachers were involved in teaching registration classes or withdrawal groups for poor readers. Of the total, 557 (69 per cent) were teachers working only part-time in the school. Indeed we discovered that 57 per cent of all the part-time teachers in all the 936 primary schools were engaged in some teaching of remedial groups. In addition to their full and part-time staff, about one in five of the sample schools had one or more qualified teachers who visited the school at least once a week to assist and advise in the teaching of reading. These 188 peripatetic teachers provided a total of 470 half-day sessions for the schools in the survey week. It is clear from these results that the schools in the sample made very considerable use of peripatetic and part-time teachers for the teaching of reading. Teachers employed in this way are normally employed in teaching small withdrawal groups, leaving the class teacher free to work with the rest of his class. The fact that so many teachers may be involved in working with these children can cause considerable problems unless the class teacher is able to maintain constant contact with his parttime colleagues over the progress of the children in the withdrawal groups. Much of the benefit of the extra teaching may be lost if the class teacher is unable to build upon it within the normal classroom experience. Excluding the peripatetics, we enquired how many of the teachers engaged in teaching the withdrawal groups or classes had attended relevant training courses. The results were as follows: Table 45 ATTENDANCE AT RELEVANT COURSES BY TEACHERS OF WITHDRAWAL GROUPS OR CLASSES Percentage of teachers attending courses of the following duration:
*Part-time courses are included within the appropriate full-time equivalent. [page 386] (v) Books The questionnaire data also proved useful in testing the hypothesis that the able readers were more likely to have more books in their possession in school than the less able. The table below shows that in terms of average numbers of books the hypothesis was borne out: Table 46 NUMBER OF BOOKS IN THE POSSESSION OF 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS ACCORDING TO READING ABILITY
Two other factors are noticeable: (a) There was a marked difference between the number of above average and below average 6 year olds without any books in their possession. (b) There is a wide variety of practice between schools. There was a far greater difference between the practices of different schools in providing books the children could retain than there was in the provision they made for children of different reading abilities. (vi) Nature of the Children's Written Work We thought it likely that the teacher's rating of the child's reading ability might affect the balance of the written work he was asked to perform. The results given in Table 47 enable us to examine that hypothesis in the light of different kinds of written work children normally produce in school. [page 387] VARIETY OF WRITING BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS, ACCORDING TO READING ABILITY As might be expected, fewer of the below average 6 year olds were producing writing. Moreover, the balance of their writing activities was found to be different. There was little to choose between the three groups in their experience of writing based on model making or art and craft activities, and much the same applies to writing on 'other aspects of daily life'. The rewriting of stories in their own words was a little less common for the below average 6 year old, but the striking differences occurred in the writing of original stories and in writing based upon personal investigations in science. These aspects figured much less frequently in the work of the less able 6 year olds. By the age of 9 the differences in the writing experience of children of varying abilities were less pronounced, and the below average children were now much more likely to be writing original stories and accounts of work in science. 25.22 THE PUPILS AND THEIR WORK The individual pupil sections of the questionnaire directed the class teachers' attention to twelve distinct aspects of English taught in the primary school. Each class teacher was asked to state the amount of time spent by the sample child on each of the activities, both in class and optional time. 'Class time' [page 388] is that time when the whole class is engaged in the same activity. The tables show that there are some aspects which the majority of teachers teach almost exclusively in class time. 'Optional time', as its name suggests, denotes those times in the day when individual children are given some freedom in what they do, within certain prescribed limits. The comments at the foot of each table attempt to draw out the main points of interest in the figures. They do not pretend to be an exhaustive analysis of the tables. TIME SPENT ON POETRY AND VERSE BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Almost exactly 50 per cent of the 6 year old pupils spend up to half an hour a week of class time on poetry, and no optional time. This has declined to 44 per cent by the age of 9, and the percentage who spend no time at all on poetry has risen to 14 per cent from just under 3 per cent. The proportion of children experiencing it in class time in excess of 30 minutes dropped from 28 per cent at 6 years old to 18 per cent at 9, and there was no compensating increase in optional time. Fewer than a third of the children of either age group spent optional time on poetry, and then it was normally less than half an hour. [page 389] TIME SPENT LISTENING TO STORIES READ OR TOLD BY THE TEACHER OR FROM A SCHOOL BROADCAST (RADIO OR TV) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS If one takes class and optional time together, nearly 90 per cent of the 6 year olds had over an hour a week listening to stories, while 35 per cent had over two hours, which is equivalent to just over 20 minutes a day. 17 per cent of the children heard stories as an option, and it seems likely that some of this might represent time spent listening to tape-recorded stories on headsets, either individually or in small groups. Only 30 per cent of the 9 year olds had over an hour a week of listening to stories, a figure which includes about 10 per cent with more than 1½ hours. Of the remainder 40 per cent had up to an hour a week, 27 per cent up to half an hour and the rest none at all. The drop in participation in this activity at age 9 was not compensated for by an increase in optional time. Indeed listening to stories was normally seen for both age groups as a class activity and few devoted optional time to it. By age 9, most children would be capable of reading stories independently, but the schools still apparently recognised the value for children of hearing a good story well told. [page 390] TIME SPENT ON ORAL ENGLISH (CONVERSATION, LANGUAGE GAMES, PLANNING WORK, DISCUSSION, REPORTING) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Since oral work pervades almost the whole of the work in the primary school, it must be acknowledged that a question asking how much time was spent on it in a week has an element of artificiality. It may be that the various interpretations used by different teachers have accounted for the wide spread of times spent shown in the table above. Oral English was experienced by almost all the children in class time, while 59 per cent of 6 year olds and 44 per cent of 9 year olds also spent some optional time on it, usually up to half an hour, though occasionally more. As we have defined it, oral work includes 'planning work, discussion and reporting', exploratory aspects of talk which can successfully operate with small groups in optional time. Nevertheless 41 per cent of 6 year olds and 56 per cent of 9 year olds spent no optional time at all on oral work. Overall only 66 per cent of the 9 year olds spent more than half an hour a week of both class and optional time on it. The corresponding figure for 6 year olds was 86 per cent. The distribution of higher time allocations shows that the amount of explicit attention to oral English declines substantially from 6 years old to 9 years old. [page 391] TIME SPENT ON IMPROVISED DRAMA (SOCIAL-DRAMATIC PLAY ETC) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Very many more of the 6 year olds had improvised drama than the 9 year olds, both in class and optional time. As many as 42 per cent of the 9 year old classes had no improvised drama at all. The figure for the 6 year olds is much lower at 15 per cent. In optional time almost half of the 6 year olds had some improvised drama, compared with only 15 per cent of the 9 year olds. This movement, like the similar one in poetry, is a revealing illustration of a diminution in 'imaginative work' as the child grows older. [page 392] TIME SPENT ON WRITING (STORIES, PERSONAL ACCOUNTS, CREATIVE ETC) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Among the 6 year olds there is a marked contrast between extremes of experience of this work. Between 1 per cent and 2 per cent of the children of each age group did no writing of this kind at all in the week, while 21 per cent of the 6 year olds and 11 per cent of 9 year olds were shown as devoting to it over 1½ hours of class time and some optional time, usually up to half an hour or an hour. It is clear that in a substantial number of schools writing is taken as a class activity. 46 per cent of the 6 year olds did their writing entirely this way, with no optional time allocation, while 8 per cent did it wholly as an option. The corresponding figures for 9 year olds are 50 per cent and 4 per cent. Overall, the 9 year olds tended to spend less time on writing than the six year olds. [page 393] TIME SPENT ON TOPICS (READING AND WRITING MAINLY BASED ON REFERENCE BOOKS) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS As many as 66 per cent of the 6 year old classes were doing some topic work, 13 per cent of them spending over an hour of class time a week on it. 45 per cent of the 6 year olds compared with 21 per cent of the 9 year olds had no class time on this work, and the 9 year olds were twice as likely to spend optional time in this way. At age 9 the proportion of children doing no topic work had dropped dramatically to 6 per cent (from 34 per cent at age 6). 42 per cent of 9 year olds had over an hour a week of class time on it, and only 32 per cent no optional time at all. The figure of 42 per cent for over an hour of class time is almost identical with that for time given to personal writing; in the case of the 6 year olds the proportions are 63 per cent for personal writing and 13 per cent for topic work. This seems to indicate a shift towards what is being thought of as more 'serious' work as the children get older. However, the experience of our visits was that much of the writing done in the name of topic work amounts to no more than copying. [page 394] TIME SPENT ON INDIVIDUAL READING OF STORIES (EXCLUDING READING PRACTICE) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS 9 per cent of the classes with 6 year olds gave no time at all to this experience, 42 per cent no class time and 18 per cent no optional time. The biggest class time allocation was 28 per cent in the 1-30 minutes category for 6 year olds and 30 per cent for 9 year olds. For both age groups the weight of this activity was in optional time, as one would expect. 54 per cent of the 6 year old children devoted more than half an hour of both class and optional time to it, while the corresponding figure for 9 year olds was 63 per cent. Private reading seems to be a well established practice in school for children of both age groups. Among the 9 year olds the percentage spending no time at all upon it has dropped to 5 per cent, and one can only express surprise that there are any children at all in this category. Overall, more of the 9 year olds than 6 year olds were given time for this kind of reading and the amount of time tended on average to be greater for the older children. [page 395] TIME SPENT ON READING PRACTICE (GRADED AND SUPPLEMENTARY READERS, PHONIC PRACTICE) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Fewer than 1 per cent of infant classes had no reading practice, while a further 16 per cent had less than half an hour a week of class and/or optional time. The remainder did more than this, although the total of class and optional time seldom exceeded two hours a week. Most commonly the 6 year olds had between 30 and 60 minutes a week, and for half of these children the time was supplemented by optional time of up to 30 minutes or occasionally more. This amounts to no more than about 15 minutes a day on reading practice. As might be expected, the number of children who had no time on reading practice has risen to 25 per cent by the age of 9 (compared with less than 1 per cent at age 6). Most commonly the 9 year olds were given up to half an hour or an hour of class time on it, and 27 per cent supplemented this with some optional time. The figure of 25 per cent spending no time on reading practice is to be compared with the figure of 6 per cent for topic work and 4 per cent for private reading. This reflects the development of the independent reading ability of the 9 year olds. However, if one considers these results in another way, it can be said that 75 per cent of the teachers of these children still think it necessary to spend some time on reading practice. [page 396] TIME SPENT ON COMPREHENSION AND VOCABULARY EXERCISES (FROM BOOKS, CARDS, READING LABORATORIES ETC) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS What is surprising here is the amount of time spent on such work by 6 year olds - most of it during class time. 67 per cent of all the classes spent no optional time on it, 22 per cent no class time, and 15 per cent none of either. Over twice as many 6 year olds (15 per cent) as 9 year olds (7 per cent) did no comprehension and vocabulary exercises. 78 per cent of the 6 year olds had some of this work in class time, usually up to 30 or 60 minutes, although over a quarter of them did rather more. The allocation of class time for 9 year olds was somewhat greater; 88 per cent of them spent time on this work, 23 per cent up to 30 minutes, 34 per cent 30 minutes to an hour, and 31 per cent more than an hour. Only about one third of each age group devoted optional time to it. Usually it was up to 30 minutes or, less commonly, 60 minutes or occasionally more. 68 per cent of the 9 year olds did none of this work in optional time. It is principally a class activity, and 65 per cent of the sample gave more than 30 minutes a week to it. [page 397] TIME SPENT ON LANGUAGE USAGE (GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION ETC) BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS As might be expected, as many as 47 per cent of 6 year olds spent no time at all on this work. Of those who did the majority encountered it only in class time, and then seldom for more than half an hour a week. Only 8 per cent of the children spent any optional time on it, and scarcely ever more than 30 minutes a week. At the age of 9 many more children practised this kind of work, largely as a class activity, only 15 per cent spending no time at all on it. 50 per cent of the children were occupied on it in this way for up to half an hour, 23 per cent up to an hour, and 9 per cent over an hour. For a few this class work was supplemented by optional time, though this was seldom ever more than half an hour a week. [page 398] TIME SPENT ON SPELLING BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS Of the 6 year olds 35 per cent spent no time at all on spelling, a figure which had dropped to 10 per cent by the age of 9. Most 6 year olds spending time on spelling tended to do so as a class activity of up to half an hour a week, while only 15 per cent did any spelling in optional time. Among the 9 year olds only 13 per cent had no class time on it. Again the biggest representation was in the 1-30 minute band, which accounts for 67 per cent of the children. By the age of 9 the proportion of children spending optional time on spelling had risen from 15 per cent to 24 per cent. As many as 15 per cent of 9 year olds had up to half an hour of both optional and class time on it, and 20 per cent more time than this. Thus the picture is of a marked increase in spelling work from 6 to 9, with spelling still seen as largely a class activity. [page 399] TIME SPENT ON HANDWRITING BY 6 AND 9 YEAR OLDS 12 per cent of 6 year olds had no time allocated to handwriting, and the figure had risen to 21 per cent in the case of 9 year olds. For both age groups the most common pattern was to practise it as a class activity, and for 60 per cent of the children this amounted to no more than half an hour a week. 25 per cent of 6 year olds and 15 per cent of 9 year olds spent more time than this. Only 20 per cent of children practised handwriting in optional time, and then it seldom exceeded half an hour a week. Overall, for both age groups the picture is one of some attention to handwriting, seldom any more than half an hour a week, and certainly less than the 15 minutes every day which was once the pattern in many schools. [page 400] 25.23 THE SMALL SCHOOL Among the 936 sample schools were 129 (13.8 per cent) with fewer than 71 children on roll. In England in January 1973 there were 207 one-teacher schools, 1,809 two-teacher schools and 1,683 three-teacher schools*. Some of these would be new ones built to serve new housing areas, schools which had not yet reached their intended total roll, but the maj Jrity would be likely to be established rural schools, very probably with wide agricultural catchment areas. Some of our questionnaire results have been stratified by size of school to compare provision in small schools with that in larger ones. In what follows the word 'small' signifies a school with fewer than 71 children on roll. (i) Teachers We have already remarked that the smaller schools do not qualify for posts above Scale 1 for assistant teachers. Consequently these schools are almost invariably staffed by a full-time teaching head with perhaps one or two teachers paid on Scale 1, and possibly some part-time assistance. Between them they cater for all the various needs of the children in their care and it is unusual to find a small school whose head does not know all the children and their work in some detail. Our questionnaire data gave no information on average class size by size of school but an indication of the staffing provision is given in the fact that the ratio of pupils to teachers in schools of up to 70 pupils in the sample was 17.5:1, compared with 25.5:1 in all schools. In the smaller schools a wider spread of non-teaching duties is shared between fewer teachers, but communication between members of staff is a much simpler matter. 24 per cent of the small schools in our sample had the fulltime equivalent of one teacher over and above the number of registration classes, while just 2 per cent had 2 'excess' teachers each. The comparative figures for schools of different sizes appear in Table 60 below. *These figures refer exclusively to the number of full-time teachers employed in the schools. PERCENTAGE OF SCHOOLS WITH TEACHERS IN EXCESS OF NUMBER OR REGISTRATION CLASSES, BY SIZE OF SCHOOL [page 401] In addition 24 of the 129 small schools had the services of one peripatetic teacher to help with reading. At 19 per cent this was consistent with the average for 'all schools', while only 10 of the 936 schools had the services of more than one such peripatetic teacher. The table below shows that the small number of peripatetic teachers of reading was spread fairly evenly across the different sizes of schools, and that the smallest schools fared well in this respect. However, when the figures are taken in conjunction with those in the previous table, it is clear that their small size precludes any real flexibility in deployment of staff. DISTRIBUTION OF PERIPATETIC TEACHERS BY SIZE OF SCHOOL Professional contact with other teachers is often a problem for the small school, but one which the teachers themselves seemed to be making efforts to overcome. The survey results showed that 44 per cent of the schools with up to five teachers had had at least one teacher attending a Teachers' Centre for some activity connected with the teaching of English in the five months to January 1973, compared with an average for all schools of 58 per cent. (ii) Resources (a) Books The questionnaire data were not analysed to give figures of book provision by size of school, because previous studies have shown that the wide variety of provision is attributable to numerous factors which are independent of the size of the school, e.g. local circumstances, parental involvement, and the school's own attitude. Our own views on book provision for small schools appear in paragraph 21.23. (b) Audio-Visual Aids We argue in Chapter 22 that the fact that a school is small does not mean that it thereby needs a narrower range of equipment than a larger school. Table 36 showed the provision of audio-visual equipment by size of school. A digest of that information appears in the table below, and reveals that the smallest schools were in every case worse off than the average of all other schools. [page 402] Table 62 PERCENTAGE OF SCHOOLS USING PARTICULAR ITEMS OF AUDIO-VISUAL EQUIPMENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH
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