Newsom (1963)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction, Principal recommendations

Part 1 Findings
Chapter 1 Education for all
Chapter 2 The pupils, the schools, the problems
Chapter 3 Education in the slums
Chapter 4 Objectives
Chapter 5 Finding approaches
Chapter 6 The school day, homework, extra-curricular activities
Chapter 7 Spiritual and moral development
Chapter 8 The school community
Chapter 9 Going out into the world
Chapter 10 Examinations and assessments
Chapter 11 Building for the future
Chapter 12 The teachers needed

Part 2 The teaching situation
Chapter 13 What should secondary imply?
Chapter 14 An education that makes sense
Chapter 15 Attainments and achievement
Chapter 16 The subjects and the curriculum
Chapter 17 The practical subjects
Chapter 18 Science and mathematics
Chapter 19 The humanities
Chapter 20 School organisation and staff deployment

Part 3 What the survey shows
Chapter 21 The 1961 survey
Chapter 22 The boys and girls
Chapter 23 The work they do
Chapter 24 The men and women who teach them
Chapter 25 The schools they go to

Acknowledgements

Appendix I List of witnesses
Appendix II Sex education
Appendix III Deployment of teachers
Appendix IV Letter to Minister on teacher training
Appendix V Statistical detail

Index

A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1963
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 5 Finding approaches
[pages 32 - 40]

The work of the school must not seem, as perhaps it still does, the antithesis of 'real life'. Report of the Hadow Committee, 1926.

93. A great deal of the evidence presented to us urges that our pupils would respond better to work which is more 'realistic' or more 'practical'. The advice is in an honourable tradition. The view of the Hadow Committee, and of others before and since then, that the schools should provide 'an education by means of a curriculum containing large opportunities for practical work and related to living interests', has in some respects long been accepted. Secondary modern schools, and before them many of the senior schools have for many years given a substantial amount of time to 'practical' subjects in their programmes. The schools in our survey were markedly better off for 'practical' rooms than they were for libraries, a sign that the need for the former was earlier recognised than the need for the latter. No one now would question the need for both, in the education of all pupils, whatever their 'ability': pupils are not divisible into those who need only tools and those who need only books. But life is not static, and we are still a long way from fulfilling the underlying intention of those earlier recommendations. To satisfy the definition of 'realistic' and 'practical' in relation to the present day let alone the years ahead, will require work of a different scale and nature from what was formerly envisaged.

94. Under the name of 'practical subjects' in the school timetable are usually included art and light crafts; needlework and cookery; woodwork, metalwork, and sometimes, technical drawing. Various other activities, such as engineering or rural studies, may be found in particular schools, according to their circumstances. (In our own discussion of practical subjects in Part Two we have employed an even wider definition of 'practical'.)

95. All these subjects are capable of offering experiences of a distinctive kind valuable in the education of all pupils. Certainly when the boys and girls come into the secondary schools, these are among the fresh experiences which evoke an enthusiastic response. Even art and needlework, which will have been known in the primary school, take on a different aspect, taught in a special room by a special teacher: the distinctive rooms and equipment are a sign of new secondary status. For the pupils who come unhappily conscious that their past inadequacies are still with them in matters of English and arithmetic, the virgin page of a new subject is doubly blessed. There are other attractions also. These subjects involve physical movement and a variety of activity, and the handling of real objects which may be interesting in themselves. They offer a chance to learn by a direct experience, rather than by a theoretical explanation alone; they may offer, in their more creative aspects, another medium of expression to those who find expression in words particularly difficult.

96. All this is helpful. But there is a danger that in their traditional presentation these subjects are made to exist on this capital too long. Are they able, in the third, fourth and fifth years, to do more than keep the pupils busy as they were in the first two? Do they always do even that? They can do much more, if they are consciously used as an instrument of wider general education. But there is no guarantee that what takes place in a workshop or housecraft room will be automatically more stimulating than what goes on in an ordinary classroom; it all depends on the quality of the teaching. Unimaginative exercises can be as dully repetitive in woodwork as they can be in English. If 'practical' work is to be used as one means of revitalising the programme - and it needs revitalising - for our pupils, something other than a larger dose of the mixture as before is needed.

97. In Part Two of this report we discuss the handling of these subjects in the classroom situation. Here, we are concerned rather with their function in the pupils' education as a whole. We believe they can indeed offer a satisfying approach to learning for many, perhaps most, of our pupils, as experiences which are worthwhile in themselves, as activities which can recognisably be related to 'real life', and as a stimulus to effort in other learning. We also believe that some of that other learning, in subjects which are not, in conventional usage, 'practical', should start more directly from the pupils' experience. In this sense the whole curriculum could effectively be made more realistic.

98. The last years at school need a unifying theme to give them coherence and purpose at a stage when the pupils themselves are growing restive. Such a theme can be found in the idea of preparation for adult life. All pupils have to grow up, and, bright or dull, most of them are only too eager to do so. A great deal has been said and written elsewhere on the early physical maturity of young people today; it is certainly quite clear, long before they leave the secondary school, that they have ceased to think of themselves as children and are beginning to reach out to the life they will lead as adults. It is right that they should. They need some reassurance that what they are spending their time on in school is taking them a step further on the way. Particularly, if they do not learn easily, they need to be persuaded that the effort is worthwhile. Not everything that a school tries to do for its pupils can be understood by them at the time; their view ahead, and the experience on which they base their judgement, are limited. But they can be shown the relevance to life of at least a substantial part of what is done in school and they should be expected to take something on trust. The schools are wiser than the children and the children expect them to be. So do the parents. This is nowhere more important than in those difficult areas where the whole outer environment seems hostile to education.

99. One way of marking approaching adult status is to give the curriculum a new look for the last two years of school life, and to allow the pupils themselves some choice in the subjects they study and in the kind of programme they follow. This is not uncommon now for the abler boys and girls, but in many schools would be a revolutionary step as far as our pupils are concerned. In by far the majority of schools in our survey virtually no choice or change of curriculum at all was available for any of the less able pupils. It is true that many of the schools were so hard pressed for teaching accommodation of all kinds that they could not see their way to making the kind of provision they would like to make. Others would say that, even were the facilities available, it is impossible to devise a distinctive programme for pupils who intend to leave before completing even a fourth year, and that they are already doing the best they can for these pupils by putting them into 'leavers' groups. These are very pertinent difficulties. Yet it is equally likely that failure, for whatever reason, to provide for these pupils, when special provision is being made for their abler fellows, is to confirm them in the opinion that school is not for the likes of them. It is virtually an invitation to opt out of school work, from the time in the third year when preliminary discussion of the abler pupils' plans begins to take place. Nevertheless, the experience of schools with their abler boys and girls and the valuable experiments of a much smaller number of schools in trying out new patterns of work with their less able pupils, suggest some useful lines of attack.

100. In some areas, but by no means everywhere, it is becoming the practice to offer the abler pupils a choice of courses, or programmes, of which the distinctive feature is a group of subjects broadly related to some occupational interest. Often the special studies give the name to the course - 'engineering', 'catering', 'retail distribution', for example - although the pupils' programme will contain much else besides. We are convinced not only that such courses should be more widely available in all areas - and this implies adequate facilities for them, which many schools at present do not possess - but also that many of the less gifted pupils would respond to comparable opportunities. We nevertheless wish to emphasise in the following paragraphs that all such courses are vehicles of general education, that the occupational interest should not monopolise the whole of the pupils' curriculum, and that they should not be led to expect employment in the given occupation as a necessary consequence.

101. For the individual boy and girl, getting their first job and starting to earn their own living is probably the most momentous outward event confirming that they are 'grown up'. The initial thrill of this is not likely to be much different whatever the job itself may be. Well before they leave school most young people are beginning to wonder 'What is it like to be at work?' and some perhaps, 'Shall I be able to manage it?' - especially those who know themselves to be not very clever. The diffident ones, as well as those who are impatient to shake off the leading-strings, need to feel that school is offering them some preparation.

102. The discovery of unexpected reserves of talent among the abler pupils in the modern schools, which has been a very notable feature of those schools in recent years, would lead us to believe that a much higher proportion of school leavers than at present do so could undertake skilled work were the opportunities for apprenticeship or training available. This must be especially true of girls, of whom only a very small percentage enter employment involving any form of training. For these pupils, well-designed courses in schools which, without in any way being narrow trade training, guided their interests and helped them to see the way ahead into further education and future training for a career, could be of great value both to the individuals concerned and to the country's economic resources. We think it vital that increased training provision should be available for such school leavers.

103. But there remain other boys and girls, who are clearly much more limited in their capacities. It is important not to mislead them into thinking that they are acquiring qualifications for a skilled trade which they have no prospect of obtaining. And it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that large numbers of young school leavers at present enter employment which involves no skill or special knowledge which cannot very quickly be learned on the job. For them, especially, courses which made use of an occupational interest would be chiefly valuable in providing a more stimulating approach to school work and an incentive to extend their general education.

104. We suggest that for by far the majority of our pupils, courses will need to have a substantial craft or practical element, with an emphasis on real tasks undertaken with adult equipment: this will have important consequences for teachers and for buildings. But we emphasise again that in addition to providing experience in the use of tools and different kinds of materials, and the satisfaction of handling three dimensional objects, the special course work must be made to pay an adequate yield in general educational development.

105. The total amount of specific vocational content in the course will vary with local circumstances. The course must be judged by how far it constitutes a stimulating education, whether or not the pupil eventually takes up a related occupation. Equally, the range of choices in any one school does not need to be very wide. The schools cannot possibly offer courses related to all the jobs which their pupils will eventually enter, nor do they need to do so. Choice itself is important as a symbol that pupils are taking a hand in their own education, and the morale of many boys and girls will be strengthened simply by the sense that what they are doing has some relevance to earning a living.

106. There are several other considerations to be borne in mind. First, we do not think it educationally in the pupils' interest to introduce the specialised work before the fourth year of a five year secondary course; nor do the greater number of employers appear to wish for the return of trade training schemes beginning at the age of thirteen.

107. Secondly, a substantial amount of time should be devoted to it, sufficient to indicate that it is taken seriously, and for a satisfying level of achievement to be possible. As a corollary of taking it seriously, where special facilities or equipment may be required, as, for example, in engineering, these should be of a kind and of a scale to allow a real job of work to be done. If, particularly where the number of pupils involved is small, it is not economic to provide such facilities on the school premises then joint arrangements should be made with other schools, or more often perhaps, with colleges of further education, wherever suitable facilities exist.

108. Thirdly, the further down the ability scale are the pupils concerned, the more broadly based must be the courses which they are following. This does not mean that the courses should not have a sound craft and practical content, but that in view of the type of work which these pupils will enter on leaving school, it is clearly not possible for their school course to contain a vocational element directly related to one occupation. It is, however, vitally important that the less able pupils should feel that life at school matters to them. This can be done if the school work is related to life after school as they see it, and to broad divisions of the world of work. It should be possible to develop a school work programme embracing several crafts and practical activities which could be followed on and off the school premises for up to one quarter, or even one third of the school week. It is reasonable to suggest that such programmes, by engendering a change of attitude, might enliven the whole approach to school of the individual boy and girl. By this the effectiveness of the school's complete teaching programme would also be improved. Something must be done at school to awaken enthusiasm for learning in these young people and we believe that a fundamental change in the curriculum would help in this direction. The vocational element must, however, never be allowed to crowd out activities dealing with other interests and knowledge and experiences, not covered by the special course. These must be taken seriously too.

109. What forms might courses for our pupils take, always accepting that there cannot, and should not, be any stereotyped pattern? In schools and areas which have for some years been providing vocationally biased courses, mainly for their abler pupils, a wide range of occupational interests is represented. They include engineering, building and other 'technical' courses for boys aiming subsequently at skilled apprenticeships in industry; catering, nursing, dressmaking and needlecraft, retail distribution and commerce courses, especially for girls. In areas where circumstances naturally favour them, there may be found courses based on rural and agricultural occupations, or, in a seaside town, courses in seamanship and navigation.

110. Some of these courses could readily be extended to boys and girls from the 'average' group at the top of the ability range of our pupils; or could be modified without destroying their distinctive vocational flavour. Engineering courses, for example, at their more demanding level, are designed for able boys likely to become skilled technicians. But they can be found at more modest levels, for boys hoping to become craftsmen: and the content of such a course involving much workshop practice, technical drawing, related work in mathematics, science and English, is capable of considerable variation to suit different capacities.

111. Many of our boys are going to work with their hands, whether in skilled or unskilled jobs. Many of them already own a bicycle and soon after they leave school may hope to own a motor bike; car engines, transistor radios, tape recorders, are all within their range of everyday interests. In not so many years' time, as young married men, they will very likely be busy with domestic power tools and do-it-yourself kits, with home decorating and the building of garden sheds and garages. It would seem wholly sensible to plan courses for some of these boys centring round the use, perhaps the making, of tools; the handling and working of various types of materials; the operating and maintenance of machines. Such work could be realistic in relating its materials and examples to the dominant industries of the area; although a school would need to watch that it did not overproduce hopeful candidates for non-existent vacancies. In a single industry area, the school might think it wise deliberately to introduce the boys to a wider range of interests that they might be better prepared to seek training and employment outside the area when they are a little older. Close consultation with the youth employment service is obviously indicated in all this.

112. Not all boys will have their sights set on the same type of job. There may well be future shop assistants and clerks, as well as garage mechanics and house painters. But within broad groups of interests, sufficient common ground can be found to provide the basis of several useful types of course. And even though relevance to the jobs which the pupils will ultimately take up may be quite uncertain, it will often be possible to provide immediate and satisfyingly realistic applications, in projects undertaken for the school - building a greenhouse, or decorating a room or printing the school magazine.

113. On the girls' side - and the two sides are not wholly distinct - similar considerations apply. The main groups of occupations most widely taken up by girls - jobs in offices, in shops, in catering, work in the clothing industry and other manufacturing trades - can all provide the material for courses at more than one level of ability. For all girls, too, there is a group of interests relating to what many, perhaps most of them, would regard as their most important vocational concern, marriage. It is true that at the age of fourteen and fifteen, this may appear chiefly as preoccupation with personal appearance and boy friends, but many girls are ready to respond to work relating to the wider aspects of homemaking and family life and the care and upbringing of children.

114. Commercial courses present both a valuable field of interest for girls, and a problem. 'Office' jobs, for understandable reasons, are highly attractive to girls; but they, and often their parents, tend to equate office work with shorthand and typing. The schools would do well to make it clear that the majority of young and moderately able school leavers who enter offices will find themselves on general clerical duties; and that changing commercial practice is reducing the market for shorthand anyway. Moreover, it is extremely difficult to extract from shorthand, unlike many of the other craft skills which may be practised in vocational courses, any general educational content or applications beyond itself. It might, on the other hand, be quite possible to justify the introduction of typewriting alone for many pupils, not as a vocational preparation but as a useful personal skill which could be practised in relation to a good deal of other work, once a modest competence was attained.

115. Some of the hardest questions arise in attempts to provide a distinctive content of work for our weakest pupils; for these boys and girls, very much below average in attainments, the object of any course must be their general personal development above all else. At the end of this chapter we include two examples of attempts to do this; we offer them not as models for imitation, but as possible pointers to some ways of attack.

116. We have concentrated so far on courses evolved around occupational interest. In suggesting that this interest should be used as an approach to secondary education we have assumed that the broad occupational pattern within our society will remain substantially unchanged, at least for the immediate future. We recognise, however, that rapid technological and social development could bring about changes in that pattern which might require further reassessment of the approaches to secondary education. But there is more to life than earning a living, and more to becoming an adult than taking a job. For some pupils, rewarding courses may be built around interests which are not necessarily tied to any occupational theme - hobby interests in photography or gardening or dressmaking or model building or sailing, for example, or in all the wider aspects of home making and marriage. We should regard it as important in any case, whatever the nature of the central studies round which much of the work of the last two years at school might revolve, that there should continue to be room for other activities: high among these we should place imaginative experience through literature, art, music, drama or dancing, which must surely claim a place in their own right. Although, possibly, every part of the school curriculum could be made to relate to some central theme, there is no reason why it should do so and some good reasons why it should not.

117. Pupils will have personal problems of conduct and belief and need congenial circumstances in which to discuss them. As young adults, they will have to begin to learn how to manage more complex human relations, with their fellows, of the same and of the opposite sex, with older people, in their private lives and in their future jobs. They will need guidance on social manners, in every sense. They will need to acquire some awareness of a wider world beyond the limits of themselves and their jobs. They will need to be helped to understand, at whatever level of comprehension is possible to them, some of the issues of our time. Their full vocation is to grow up as people who can take their place in the world with some degree of proper pride in what they are and in what they hope to attain.

118. To attempt to provide an education which is anything like adequate to all these needs, the schools will need to call into play every possible resource. Throughout this chapter we have suggested that the idea which might give an impetus to learning and lead to more effective methods of teaching is that of preparation for adult life. We believe this to have significance for all the older pupils at the secondary stage of education, but to be especially important for those boys and girls who are at present falling short of their full potential. Very many of 'our' pupils we believe to be in that category.

119. Two examples of courses for pupils of very limited abilities. The accounts are by the heads of the schools. (We would draw attention to the fact that both of these examples involve a complete rethinking of the timetable and curriculum; that they make their own demands on buildings; and they require particularly resourceful teachers.)

School A (a large mixed school, in a new town in SE England)

'In September 1960 we had enough of these volunteers to make a separate (fifth year) form of thirteen pupils. The motives for staying on were varied. Some were immature physically and emotionally and parents were anxious that they should not be thrust into an adult society for which they were not yet ripe. Others cherished the hope of late development that would surprise us all. A few, including one under the care of the Authority, were very backward and needed the time to become literate ...

The timetable was as elastic as possible with all the basic subjects under the control of the form master (the senior master). There was no division into traditional boys' and girls' subjects. They followed a common course in metalwork and woodwork with a syllabus covering household repairs and "do-it-yourself" projects. Unfortunately shortage of suitable accommodation did not allow a combined cookery programme, although there was some work done together in the housecraft flat. Boys and girls followed courses in home nursing, typewriting and commercial practice. Religious education and social studies were conducted on a discussion group basis with written work on individual projects. Physical education was also a mixed activity. This took the form of practice and training for such games as badminton and table tennis, as well as a course in ballroom dancing. The small form became a very happy unit, producing its quota of prefects and doing more than its share in the social organisation of the school. Oddly enough, although not considered examination material, there were some who took single elementary subjects in their stride.'

School B (a girls' school in a midlands industrial area with many social problems)

'Aims:

(i) To give the girls opportunities to be socially acceptable, and to behave socially in a way which, in any community, usually falls to the most able;

(ii) To link their work with their future hope - marriage. The home, the family, the baby, the growing children, are subjects of study. Mothercraft is an essential subject if it is linked practically with real babies, nursery visits (one morning a week throughout the year) and other visits. Personal and household budgeting takes the place of arithmetic. This is linked practically with as much actual spending, buying and budgeting within the school as can be done. Needlework, for example, becomes much more realistic when this is done on a project basis.

(iii) To link their school work with life outside, and to bring out of school experience into their school work.

They have a course consisting of 36 periods a week, allocated thus:

Examples are:

A project lasts for three weeks (not necessarily successive) and the groups change round.

Formal work of the old pattern has disappeared. There are no tests, marks or examinations. Each girl works at her own ability level. There is close correlation between the subjects taught. There need be no lack of depth; and the scheme could be worked out at any level of ability.'

Recommendations

(a) The curriculum in the fourth and fifth years at school should be such that pupils are able to see a relevance to adult life over at least a substantial part of their work. (para. 98)

(b) All pupils should be able in the fourth and fifth years to exercise some choice in their programmes of work. (para. 99)

(c) A greater variety of courses should be provided in the fourth and fifth years, many of them broadly related to occupational interests. (paras. 100-102)

(d) This will frequently require more advanced technical equipment and a general reappraisal of facilities for all practical subjects. (para. 103)

(e) Attention to imaginative experience through the arts and to the prpmotion of personal and social development are no less essential. (paras. 116, 117)