Sadly, Wilkinson's early enthusiasm did not last and she became so depressed by her failure to achieve all the reforms she believed necessary that she took an overdose of barbiturates and died on 6 February 1947. George Tomlinson became the new Minister.

Teacher training

One of the most urgent problems facing the new Ministry of Education after the war was the shortage of teachers. The problem was exacerbated by the raising of the school leaving age to 15 (as recommended by Hadow in 1926 and implemented in April 1947) and the reorganisation of secondary education. An emergency training programme was introduced in 1945, with 53 training colleges opened by 1950.

In line with the recommendations of the 1944 McNair Report, in 1947 13 Area Training Organisations (ATOs) were established in England and one in Wales to coordinate the provision of teacher training. The universities kept their separate training departments and institutes, which now served as hubs for the ATOs' clusters of colleges. By the early 1950s the newly-established LEAs had opened 76 new training colleges.

Comprehensive failure

The concept of comprehensive education (in which all children attend a common school rather than being divided by selection between secondary modern, grammar, specialist schools etc) came late to Britain.

Many in the Labour Party hoped that the new government would get rid of elitism and pursue a common education for all children, something the 1944 Act would have allowed. Regrettably, it failed to do so.

Instead of proposing comprehensivisation and the abolition of the private sector, it told local authorities (in circular No. 73, 12 December 1945) to 'think in terms of three types' of state school for the new secondary education. An accompanying booklet (The Nation's Schools, 1945) explained that the new 'modern' schools would be for working-class children 'whose future employment will not demand any measure of technical skill or knowledge'.

Labour Party members were furious and Wilkinson withdrew the document. But as a result of intense pressure from education officials, the policy remained the same and was restated in The New Secondary Education (1947).

'Once again, Britain contented itself with a move others had taken a generation before, simply making secondary education free and available to all. It put right the failure to move between the two world wars but it did little to establish a system that would be appropriate for life after the second, when the education system had to prepare for the internationalisation of every aspect of culture, work and production.' (Benn and Chitty 1996:6)

The Attlee government made matters worse by restricting entry to grammar schools, by refusing to allow secondary modern schools to run exam courses, and by rejecting proposals from several local authorities to introduce comprehensive schools.

Neither was the system ever really the 'tripartite' one which had been promised. The LEAs were reluctant to develop expensive new secondary technical schools, and even as late as 1958 these schools were providing education for less than 4 per cent of the secondary age group.

The system was therefore actually a bipartite one, with grammar schools taking, on average, the 'top' twenty per cent of children and secondary modern schools taking most of the rest. Selection for grammar schools was made largely on the basis of the 'eleven plus' examination, consisting of tests of intelligence and tests of attainment in English and arithmetic. In the eyes of the public, children either 'passed' it and went to the grammar school or 'failed' it and went to the local secondary modern. The system thus managed to damage the esteem of most children and most schools.

This appalling system was based on the notion of the IQ (intelligence quotient) promoted by the now-discredited educational psychologist Cyril Burt. Burt stated his definition of 'human intelligence' in How the mind works, a book based on his series of talks broadcast in 1933:

'By the term 'intelligence', the psychologist understands inborn, all-round intellectual ability. It is inherited, or at least innate, not due to teaching or training; it is intellectual, not emotional or moral, and remains uninfluenced by industry or zeal; it is general, not specific, ie it is not limited to any particular kind of work, but enters into all we do or say or think. Of all our mental qualities, it is the most far-reaching. Fortunately, it can be measured with accuracy and ease.' (Burt 1933:28-9, quoted in Chitty 2004:26)

1951 saw the return of a Conservative government under Winston Churchill. The Tories would remain in power - with Prime Ministers Anthony Eden, Harold MacMillan and Alec Douglas-Home - until 1964.

Around the world, selective education systems were being replaced with comprehensive ones. The Scandinavian countries and Japan had begun the process immediately after the war; Israel and most of Europe followed; New Zealand and Canada continued with the reforms they had started before the war; eastern Europe adopted the common school model of the Soviet Union.

Yet in Britain, the Conservatives seemed determined not to notice what was going on elsewhere. Indeed, their commitment to grammar schools and their lingering doubts about the benefits of mass education were backed by various conservative commentators, including poet and literary critic TS Eliot, who wrote:

'In our headlong rush to educate everybody, we are lowering our standards, and more and more abandoning the study of those subjects by which the essentials of our culture ... are transmitted; destroying our ancient edifices to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in the mechanised caravans.' (Eliot 1949:111, quoted in Jones 2003:36)

And shortly after becoming education minister in October 1954, Sir David Eccles made it clear that the Tories did not approve of comprehensive reorganisation. In determining the pattern of secondary education, he said, 'one has to choose between justice and equality, for it is impossible to apply both principles at once. Those who support comprehensive schools prefer equality. Her Majesty's present government prefer justice. My colleagues and I will never allow local authorities to assassinate the grammar schools.' (quoted in The Schoolmaster 7 January 1955)

Educational apartheid was further exacerbated in 1960, when the Beloe Report Secondary School Examinations other than GCE recommended the introduction of the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) for pupils considered incapable of coping with the demands of the GCE.

All this led to growing dissatisfaction, especially among the middle classes. 'The middle class was expanding and grammar schools were not' (Benn and Chitty 1996:8).

The selection system was perceived as failing because:

• research cast doubt on theories of inherited intelligence;

• there were many errors in school placements owing to the fallibility of the selection mechanism;

• there was a great deal of inequality in outcome - the level of provision of grammar school places ranged from 10 per cent in some LEAs to more than 30 per cent in others;

• there was a great deal of gender inequality - many LEAs had single-sex grammar schools with far more places for boys than for girls;

• talent was being wasted as many children left school too early - a view reinforced by the Newsom Report.

When Churchill had come to power in 1951 he had immediately cut spending on education. But in the ensuing years the Tories accepted the notion that increased investment in education led to national economic growth, and public expenditure on education rose from 3 per cent of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in 1953-4 to 4.3 per cent in 1964-5. As a result, there had been huge improvements in educational provision since the end of the war. 1,800 new secondary schools had been built in England and Wales, there was more variety in the curriculum, equipment and materials had improved, and there were more out of school activities.

However, children of average or less than average ability had largely missed out on this progress. A survey conducted by the Newsom Committee showed that 40 per cent were still being taught in overcrowded and inadequate school buildings and that 79 per cent of the schools in slum areas had seriously inadequate buildings, often with playing fields some distance from the school, and with frequent changes of teaching staff. Expectations were low: they were set less homework and the curriculum they were offered was more traditional. 'Moreover, the contrasts in educational provision were growing sharper' (Rogers 1980:67).

Williams (1961:146) summed up the problem of a divided schools system thus:

'Differences in learning ability obviously exist, but there is great danger in making these into separate and absolute categories. It is right that a child should be taught in a way appropriate to his learning ability, but because this itself depends on his whole development, including not only questions of personal character growth but also questions of his real social environment and the stimulation received from it, too early a division into intellectual grades in part creates the situation which it is offering to meet.'

Yet still the Tories argued that 'Britain's grammar schools and public schools were the envy of the world' (Benn and Chitty 1996:8). When he became education minister in 1962, Sir Edward Boyle approved limited comprehensive experiments in a few small areas, but otherwise the Conservatives continued to support the divided system and the eleven plus that Labour had introduced.

The Labour Party, however, had begun to shift its position. Public concern about the unfairness of the selection process convinced the party that comprehensivisation would now be a vote winner. So Labour went into the 1964 general election promising to abolish the eleven plus and develop the secondary school system on comprehensive lines - 'without any clear idea of what this really meant' (Benn and Chitty 1996:8).

Primary education

The existence of the selection process had a profoundly damaging effect on primary education. Partly because of the need to 'get children through' the eleven plus, and partly because of the continued existence of large classes through the late 1940s and 1950s, the new primary schools established by the 1944 Education Act continued with the class teaching approach used in the elementary schools, with its emphasis on basic literacy and numeracy - 'in fact the tradition derived from 1870 was still dominant' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:36).

Progressive primary education would have to wait for the 1960s.

Special educational needs

According to the 1978 Warnock Report Special educational needs, 'modest attention' had been given to special educational needs in the consultation which preceded the 1944 Act, and the view that the needs of handicapped children should be provided for in mainstream schools 'exactly accorded with the spirit of post-war reconstruction' (Warnock 1978:2.40).

But secondary modern schools, with their large classes and under-trained teachers, were ill prepared to meet such needs and progress in providing alternative facilities was slow.

The 1944 Act laid down rigid categories of special need: 'defective of speech, blind, partially sighted, deaf, partially deaf, delicate, diabetic, educationally subnormal, maladjusted and physically handicapped'. As a result:

'children were to be diagnosed, principally by medical authorities, and then assigned to particular disability groups with which particular institutions and curriculum forms were associated. ... Intelligence testing and medical examination were thus crucial to the workings of special education, and - just as in the tripartite system - inclusion was a heavily qualified principle, while exclusion was justified on quasi-scientific grounds.' (Jones 2003:31)

Higher education

In the higher education sector the Percy Report (1945) made recommendations about technological education in colleges and universities and the Barlow Report (1946) recommended more university places for science students.

In 1956 selected technical and further education colleges were upgraded to College of Advanced Technology status - most of these would become the 'new universities' in the mid-1960s.

The Carr Committee (1958) reported that employers were overwhelmingly opposed to vocational instruction provided by schools and the 1959 Crowther Report 15-18 recommended raising the school leaving age to 16 and the provision of further education for 15-18 year olds. It questioned the value of day release provision for apprenticeships.

The 1962 Education Act required LEAs to provide grants for living costs and tuition fees to students resident in their area for full-time first degree courses, for teacher training, and for courses leading to the Diploma in Higher Education (Dip HE) and the Higher National Diploma (HND). Implemented in 1964, these mandatory local authority maintenance grants were sufficient to support students away from home if necessary. Over 25s could receive a higher rate of grant, as could under 25s who had been employed or had lived away from home for a substantial period.

The following year the government accepted in full the targets for a massive expansion of higher education as proposed in the Robbins Report Higher Education (1963) which recommended the extension of college and university education as a universal provision for all with the necessary ability.

Reorganisation of London's local government

One of the last acts of Sir Alec Douglas-Home's Tory government was the reorganisation of local government in London.

Since the boundaries of the London County Council (LCC) had been set in 1855, many people had moved out of central London into the suburbs. Labour control of the city had become unchallengeable, so the Conservatives decided to create a council covering the whole greater London area which they had some chance of controlling.

Sir Edwin Herbert was appointed to head a Royal Commission on the matter, and his report, published in 1960, recommended that new London Boroughs, covering an enlarged area of London, should be the primary institution of local government, while the LCC would be replaced by the Greater London Council (GLC) with fewer powers. Education would be under the control of a new Inner London Education Authority (ILEA).

The GLC and ILEA were established in April 1964.

Other developments in the period 1945-1963

The Central Advisory Councils for Education (CACE), set up under the 1944 Act, produced two early reports. The Clarke Report (1947) School and Life looked at the transition from school to working life and made many recommendations, including a plea for increased funding for schools. This was followed by a second Clarke Report (1948) Out of School which recommended government spending on out of school facilities for children and parents.

The 1948 Employment and Training Act established the Youth Employment Service.

The Gurney-Dixon Report (1954) Early Leaving was the first major review of the working of the 1944 Act.

The 1955 Underwood Report Maladjusted Children recommended that LEAs should set up Child Guidance Services.

In addition to its provisions regarding student grants (as outlined above), the 1962 Education Act also required parents to ensure that their school-age children (5 to 16) received a suitable education by regular attendance at school 'or otherwise'. Failure to comply could result in prosecution. LEAs became legally responsible for ensuring that pupils attended school.

1964-1970 Progressivism and expansion

Comprehensivisation - another missed opportunity

In 1964, the provision of secondary education in England and Wales was as follows:

Labour's manifesto for the 1964 general election included a pledge to abolish the eleven plus and develop comprehensive schools. Labour won the election by a small majority and in a speech in May 1965 Education Secretary Anthony Crosland said:

'The fact is that there has been a growing movement against the 11-plus examination and all that it implies. This movement has not been politically inspired or imposed from the centre. It has been a spontaneous growth at the grassroots of education, leading to a widespread conviction that separation is an offence against the child as well as a brake on social and economic progress ... The whole notion of a selection test at this age belongs to the era when secondary education was a privilege of the few.' (quoted in Chitty and Dunford 1999:21)

The prevarication continued. Dates for submission of schemes were set but not enforced. The government made a further - fatal - mistake in accepting plans for partial comprehensivisation. No one bothered to explain how you could logically run comprehensive and grammar schools side by side.

When Labour won a bigger majority in the 1966 general election with a clear mandate for comprehensivisation, many hoped the new government would require all LEAs to go fully comprehensive. In fact, four years were to pass before a bill was drafted and, when Labour lost the 1970 general election, the bill was lost too.

The whole process was a shambles. While many secondary schools became non-selective, most of the 150 or so direct grant grammar schools chose to go private rather than become comprehensives, and the Public Schools Commission's proposal (in the Newsom Report 1968) that the private schools should be integrated into the state system was never implemented. 'From the beginning, therefore, comprehensive reform in England was implemented in an uneven way. It lived in the shadow of selective education and in many cases perpetuated selective arrangements' (Jones 2003:78).

Little wonder then, that radicals lost heart. Fife head teacher RF McKenzie spoke for many when he declared: 'those of us who imagined that the Labour Party would make fundamental changes in our society, and particularly in our education system, now see their efforts overborne like an irrelevant eddy in a stream' (McKenzie 1970:67, quoted in Jones 2003:90).

Even within schools there was selection. The Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE), introduced in England and Wales in 1965, increased the pressure on schools to divide students between 'academic' and 'non-academic' streams. 'Within comprehensives, GCE students were placed in different teaching groups from CSE students, while in the secondary modern school ... students who were deemed capable of CSE entry were separated from those who were not' (Jones 2003:84-5). (The CSE did have one positive effect, however. Through its localised teacher-designed 'Mode 3' syllabuses it encouraged school-based curriculum development).

In Scotland, comprehensivisation was much more widely supported. Indeed, it had been awaited since 1945, when Scotland's Advisory Council on Education had recommended a comprehensive system for all secondary pupils aged 12 to 16 with a common core curriculum and a common leaving exam. This, the Council said, was 'the natural way for a democracy to order the post-primary schooling of a given area' (quoted in Benn and Chitty 1996:10). In the event, the Scots had to wait twenty years for reorganisation, which began in 1965 following the publication of Circular 600, the Scottish equivalent of Circular 10/65.

Immigration

The other issue which began to be the subject of much debate in the 1960s concerned the education of 'ethnic minority' children. The British Nationality Act of 1948 had given Commonwealth citizens recognition as British subjects, entitled to work and live in Britain. Immigration from these countries had been encouraged and the children of the new immigrants were now passing through the schools. The question which needed to be answered was: should they be assimilated into the 'host' society and lose their own language and culture, or should they integrate but retain their distinctiveness?

Until the mid sixties central government had no policy on the education of immigrant children. The main concerns were to teach English to non-English speakers and to disperse immigrant pupils, partly to prevent individual schools having to cope with large numbers of them and partly to facilitate their assimilation into British society. However, Birmingham's LEA and the newly-established Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), both of which had large numbers of immigrant children, rejected this dispersal policy and it was eventually ruled illegal in 1975.

Section 11 of the Local Government Act 1966 dealt with the funding of education for immigrant children. It authorised the Home Office to contribute 50 per cent (later raised to 75 per cent) of the salaries of local authority staff working on 'Section 11' programmes.

Many LEAs and schools began to develop their own policies and practices, mainly concerned with the teaching of English as a second language. ILEA in particular achieved a considerable reputation for its equal opportunities policies. Its Multi-ethnic education policy statement, published in 1977, sought to combat racism, sexism and class prejudice in schools and society. In 1980 HMI described ILEA as 'a caring and generous authority with considerable analytical powers to identify problems, the scale of which is, in some cases, unique in this country.'

Towards the end of the sixties, 'assimilation' was replaced by 'integration' in policy statements which began to refer to diversity, tolerance and equal opportunity and attempted 'to give at least some recognition in schools to the backgrounds of ethnic minority children' (Swann 1985: Ch 4, para 2.1).

Middle schools

During the 1960s a number of LEAs chose to change their school systems from two-tier (primary and secondary) to three-tier (first or lower schools, middle schools, upper schools). Why and how did this come about?

Up to 1964 transfer at age 11 was determined by both convention and law: the 1907 Secondary Regulations had required LEAs to provide 25 per cent of their grammar school places free by examination at 11; the 1926 Hadow Report had identified 11 as the start of adolescence; the 1944 Education Act had given this legal backing by defining children who had not reached the age of 12 as primary pupils. The effect was to make transfer at ages other than 11 illegal.

During the 1940s and 50s many relatively small schools were built to house the grammar, technical and secondary schools recommended by the Spens Report (Spens 1938) and the Norwood Report (Norwood 1943).

This was to prove a problem when comprehensivisation began to take hold in the late 50s and early 60s. Many of the schools were too small to become comprehensives but the Ministry of Education insisted that those buildings which were in good condition must continue to be used.

Some LEAs solved the problem by creating split-site schools. Others decided that the only solution was to divide their secondary schools on the basis of age. Leicestershire, for example, created 11-14 and 14-18 schools. Two main concerns were expressed about some of these schools - the 'junior high schools' were thought to be too small and would have difficulty attracting well-qualified staff; the upper schools would have insufficient time to prepare students for examinations.

To avoid these problems, Sir Alec Clegg, Chief Education Officer of the West Riding of Yorkshire, proposed in 1963 that schools should be organised in three tiers with age ranges 5-9, 9-13 and 13-18. This required a change in the law and he set about trying to persuade the Minister of the desirability - even the necessity - of the change. The educational arguments put forward were that middle schools would 'extend the best practices of primary education' and would provide better support for pupils 'during a critical transitional stage of their personal development and educational career' (Hargreaves and Tickle 1980:3). The three-tier system would also alleviate the pressures on upper schools caused by their sheer size.

Conservative Minister of Education Sir Edward Boyle agreed, and shortly before the 1964 general election he gave the Ministry what he called his 'parting gift' - the 1964 Education Act, which permitted transfer at ages other than 11 and granted limited experimental status to the middle school.

The following year Circular 10/65 'requested' LEAs to submit their proposals for comprehensivisation and listed a number of options including three-tier systems, and the 1967 Plowden Report (of which more later) advocated 12 as the age of transfer.

The first middle schools opened in 1968 in Bradford and the West Riding. By 1974 there were 1200 middle schools in 44 LEAs; four years later there were 1690. Yet no one had done any academic research into their effectiveness. They were, it's fair to say, created out of financial necessity - any educational justification for them was very much an afterthought. 'The middle school was an innovation that cried out for legitimation' (Hargreaves and Tickle 1980:5).

Useful links

Middle School Research
The website of Kathy Seymour, PhD Researcher at Nottingham University's School of Education, who is conducting research into middle schools in England.

The National Middle Schools Forum
Represents the interests and aspirations of middle school head teachers, staff, pupils and governors.

Primary education

'Educational developments in the 1960s were rapid, all-embracing, and, in retrospect, perhaps surprising' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:39). Galton, Simon and Croll argue that some of the problems which were to face primary education in the 1980s (of which more later) 'clearly [had] their roots in this period and the apparent subsequent reaction from ideas and practices then regarded as positive' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:39).

These 'ideas and practices' can loosely be defined as the move towards more informal, child-centred education with an emphasis on individualisation and learning by discovery: in short, a 'progressive' style of education, facilitated by the introduction of comprehensive secondary education which freed the primary schools from the constraints of the eleven plus exam.

A number of factors provided the context for these educational developments in the 1960s:

• the 'permissive society';

• a heightened consciousness among young people of their role in society - full employment, relative affluence and so increased independence and autonomy;

• the encouragement by LEAs of innovation in schools;

• the increased professionalisation of teachers and the high degree of autonomy which they enjoyed;

• a decline in the inspectorial role of HMI and LEA inspectors;

• the development of new 'open plan' schools - which reflected the decline in whole-class teaching methods and the increasing importance (encouraged by the Plowden Report) given to the individualisation of the teaching/learning process.

The report on primary education produced by the committee chaired by Bridget Plowden (pictured) was published at a time of great excitement and creativity in education. The eleven plus was being abolished, freeing primary schools from the constraints imposed by the need to 'get good results'. Streaming was being abandoned. Sybil Marshall was writing about the creativity of primary pupils in An Experiment in Education. Comprehensive schools and middle schools were being established. Teacher-led curriculum innovation was being actively encouraged. Plowden, the first thorough review of primary education since Sir Henry Hadow's Report of 1931, was very much a product of its time, full of enthusiasm and optimism.

Plowden 'clearly and definitely espoused child-centred approaches in general, the concept of "informal" education, flexibility of internal organisation and non-streaming in a general humanist approach - stressing particularly the uniqueness of each individual and the paramount need for individualisation of the teaching and learning process' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:40).

The essence of Plowden is summed up at the start of Chapter 2: 'At the heart of the educational process lies the child' (Plowden 1967:9). And not just the child, but the individual child. 'Individual differences between children of the same age are so great that any class, however homogeneous it seems, must always be treated as a body of children needing individual and different attention' (Plowden 1967:75a).

In relation to the curriculum, the committee was clear. 'One of the main educational tasks of the primary school is to build on and strengthen children's intrinsic interest in learning and lead them to learn for themselves rather than from fear of disapproval or desire for praise' (Plowden 1967:532).

The report's recurring themes were individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the use of the environment, learning by discovery, and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable' (Plowden 1967:551).

Teacher training

There were major changes to teacher training in the 1960s. The course was extended from two to three years in 1960, and a four year Bachelor of Education (BEd) course was introduced following the Robbins Report of 1963.

The rising birth rate forced the government to increase provision for student teachers: there were 80,000 places for them by the end of the decade.

Other developments in the period 1964-1970

In 1962 the Ministry of Education set up a 'Curriculum Study Group' to consider curriculum issues and pedagogy, but the initiative failed because of opposition from teachers' organisations and local authorities. Instead, following the Lockwood Report, the government established the Schools' Council in 1964 to disseminate ideas about curricular reform in England and Wales. The Council was dominated by teachers' representatives. 'It was teachers - through their organisations and as individuals - who had a leading influence on curriculum change' (Jones 2003:52-3).

The 1968 Summerfield Report reviewed the role of Psychologists in the Education Service.

The 1968 School Meals Agreement ended the obligation on teachers to supervise children at lunchtimes.

Optimism

Perhaps the word which best sums up this period is optimism.

'It is fashionable to deride the 1960s as culturally aberrant and wildly idealist. Healthy idealism may be preferable to entrenched ideology parading as pragmatism, which has been the chief characteristic of subsequent decades. Many of us who were active in education in the 1960s look back on a time of optimism, a spirit of shared concerns, and the beginnings of an articulation (in every sense) of an education system which would offer the greatest possible opportunities to everyone as an entitlement, not a privilege.' (Plaskow 1990:90, quoted in Chitty and Dunford 1999:22)

1971-1979 Retrenchment

Recession and disenchantment

The oil crisis and subsequent economic recession of 1971-3 'fundamentally altered the map of British politics' by exposing 'all the underlying weaknesses of Keynesian social democracy ... the governments of Edward Heath (1970-4), Harold Wilson (1974-6) and James Callaghan (1976-9) were all unable to breathe new life into the old system'. The post-war 'welfare capitalist consensus' had relied on increasing prosperity to foster social unity. 'When that prosperity disintegrated, so, too, did the consensus' (Chitty 2004:31).

'The post-war consensus finally collapsed under the Wilson-Callaghan government of 1974-79, amid mounting inflation, swelling balance of payments deficits, unprecedented currency depreciation, rising unemployment, bitter industrial conflicts and what seemed to many to be ebbing governability. The Conservative leadership turned towards a new version of the classical market liberalism of the nineteenth century. Though the Labour leadership stuck to the tacit "revisionism" of the 1950s and 1960s, large sections of the rank and file turned towards a more inchoate mixture of neo-Marxism and the "fundamentalist" Socialism of the 1920s and 1930s.' (Marquand, 1988:3, quoted in Chitty 2004:32)

Comprehensivisation - a lost cause?

The Conservatives, led by Ted Heath (pictured), won the general election of 1970 and Margaret Thatcher became education secretary. In Circular 10/70 the government announced that it would accept no further LEA plans for wholesale comprehensivisation - it would only accept proposals for individual schools.

In fact, LEAs continued to submit plans - presented as individual school plans - which Thatcher accepted. Indeed, she sanctioned more comprehensivisations than any other education minister before or since. The halfway point was reached during this period - there were now more children in comprehensive schools than in selective ones.

When a Labour government was returned to power in 1974 (there were two general elections in 1974, both won by Labour), it might have been assumed, therefore, that it would finish the job and go for total comprehensivisation.

But once again Labour failed to live up to its promises and instead of a major education bill, the government, under Harold Wilson (pictured) published a two paragraph bill giving the secretary of state the power to ask LEAs to plan non-selective systems.

'There was no legal requirement to end selection, and the [1976 Education] Act produced no visible effect' (Benn and Chitty 1996:11). It was repealed by the Conservatives in 1979.

Conservative politicians were beginning to demand 'consumer-oriented education, an end to the Schools Council, more national testing, a return of the school leaving age back to 15, and the holding of national "enquiries" into everything progressive' (Benn and Chitty 1996:11).

Not to be outdone, the Labour government took its own dramatic turn to the right and 'announced a sudden halt to the forward march of comprehensive change' (Benn and Chitty 1996:11-12). Its 1976 'Yellow Book' - commissioned by prime minister Jim Callaghan and produced by the DES - was supposed to be secret but was widely leaked to the press. It promoted 'the imposition of a new "agreed" core curriculum and claimed that the reorganisation of secondary education was now complete' (Benn and Chitty 1996:12). This was nonsense - eleven plus selection still existed wholly or partially in more than half of LEAs.

The Yellow Book was about much more than pedagogic method. 'The DES aimed not just at reshaping practice through judicious advice, but at bringing to a halt what seemed to be the spontaneous and deep-seated tendencies of the school system, towards localised, piecemeal, unsupervised, professionally led and progressive-influenced reform in primary schools and throughout the state system' (Jones 2003:95).

With Callaghan's Ruskin College speech in 1976 and the 'Great Debate' which followed (of which more later) comprehensivisation slipped off the political agenda. It disappeared from view altogether in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government came to power and set out to transform the country's schools into an education market place.

Where LEAs did go comprehensive, the abolition of the eleven plus freed the curriculum of the junior schools. Oxfordshire was one of the first counties to scrap the exam, along with Leicestershire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bristol and London.

'It was in these areas, also, that the system of streaming, which reinforced the methodology of class teaching, was most rapidly discarded. The swing from streaming in the junior schools in these and other areas, which started very slowly in the mid 1950s, meeting strong opposition, suddenly took off with extraordinary rapidity in the mid to late 1960s, gaining influential support from the Plowden Report of 1967.' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:39)

Teacher training

The James Report (James 1972), a major report on teacher education and training, recommended a broader role for the higher education colleges, and the White Paper Education: A Framework for Expansion promoted diversification and rationalisation. With the dip in the birth rate resulting in fewer children in the schools, the government announced (in Circular 7/73) a halving of the number of student teachers. It also became clear that the government intended to increase the proportion of student teachers trained through the one year Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE).

The 'Great Debate'

By 1976, the Labour government was in deep financial trouble and Callaghan (pictured) was pressured by the US and by the right wing of his own party to accept a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The cuts in public expenditure which were forced on him worsened provision of education and other public services and increased unemployment. Callaghan told the Labour Party conference 'that his government was making a definitive break with the post-war past - a break that embraced not only financial policy but the social and political order that economic growth and full employment had enabled' (Jones 2003:73).

The worrying economic climate provided the context for the views presented in a series of 'Black Papers' written by right-wing educationalists and politicians, of which the first, published in 1969, specifically focused on the progressive style of education being developed in the primary schools as 'a main cause not only of student unrest in the universities but of other unwelcome tendencies or phenomena' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:41). Bennett's 1976 Black Paper Teaching Styles and Pupil Progress was represented in the media as 'a condemnation of so-called "progressive" methods in the primary school' (Galton, Simon and Croll 1980:41).

The Black Paper writers were given ammunition by the 'William Tyndale Affair'. William Tyndale was a primary school in north London where, in 1974, some of the staff introduced radical changes associated with an extreme form of romantic liberalism. The result was a violent dispute among the staff and between some of the staff and the school managers. Chaos ensued as the staff lost control of the school and its pupils. Local government politicians and the local inspectorate became involved and, ultimately, there was a public inquiry in 1975-6 into the teaching, organisation and management of the school.

The affair raised a number of crucial questions which centred on issues such as:

• the control of the school curriculum;
• the responsibilities of local education authorities;
• the accountability of teachers;
• the assessment of effectiveness in education.

This, then, was the political, economic and educational context in which Callaghan began the 'Great Debate' about education with his speech at Ruskin College Oxford on 18 October 1976. The speech was followed by various DES and HMI initiatives regarding the curriculum, the establishment of the Assessment of Performance Unit and the beginning of mass testing by LEAs. The debate was characterised by the increasingly detailed interventions of central government into schooling. 'The interventions began in the form of spending cuts and developed into a strategy for relating education to a large-scale programme of social and economic restructuring: the education revolution of the 1980s and '90s had its origins in the conflicts, crises and realignments of the 1970s' (Jones 2003:74).

Callaghan called for a public debate on education which would allow employers, trades unions and parents, as well as teachers and administrators, to make their views known. The curriculum paid too little attention to the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, he said. Teachers lacked adequate professional skills and did not know how to discipline children or to instil in them concern for hard work or good manners. Underlying all this was the feeling that the educational system was out of touch with the fundamental need for Britain to survive economically in a highly competitive world through the efficiency of its industry and commerce.

Expanding on Callaghan's theme, the green paper Education in schools: a consultative document acknowledged that there had been positive developments. 'Primary schools have been transformed in recent years by two things: a much wider curriculum than used to be considered sufficient for elementary education, and the rapid growth of the so-called "child-centred" approach.' It commended many aspects of these developments. 'In the right hands, this approach has produced confident, happy and relaxed children, without any sacrifice of the 3Rs or other accomplishments - indeed, with steady improvement in standards. Visitors have come from all over the world to see, and to admire, the English and Welsh "primary school revolution"' (DES 1977:2.1).

However, it went on to suggest that few teachers had sufficient experience and ability to make the new approach work. 'It has proved to be a trap for some less able or less experienced teachers who applied the freer methods uncritically or failed to recognise that they require careful planning of the opportunities offered to children and systematic monitoring of the progress of individuals' (DES 1977:2.2).

It concluded that 'the challenge now is to restore the rigour without damaging the real benefits of the child-centred developments' (DES 1977:2.3).

Callaghan's Ruskin speech was viewed with suspicion by the teaching profession which still held the view enunciated in 1954 by National Union of Teachers general secretary Ronald Gould that democracy itself was safeguarded by 'the existence of a quarter of a million teachers who are free to decide what should be taught and how it should be taught' (quoted in Timmins 1996:323).

Other developments in the period 1971-1979

The 1971 Education (Milk) Act reduced the provision of free milk in schools.

The school leaving age was raised to 16 in 1973.

In 1974 the Assessment of Performance Unit (APU) was established by the DES to 'promote the development of methods of assessing and monitoring the achievement of children at school, and to seek to identify the incidence of under-achievement'.

The 1975 Bullock Report A language for life (Bullock 1975) was a major report on the teaching of English.

The 1977 Taylor Report A New Partnership for Our Schools (Taylor 1977) recommended major changes in the management of schools - including a greater role for parents on governing bodies - which were implemented in the 1980 Education Act.

The 1978 Waddell Report School Examinations (Waddell 1978) recommended a single exam at age 16 to replace the GCE and CSE. (In the event, the GCSE was not introduced until 1986).

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