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 9 Going out into the world
[pages 72 - 79]

'I couldn't believe it, you are at school and suddenly you are at work, and there are years before you are 65'. M Carter Home, school and work

208. Schools cannot prepare their pupils for everything that may lie ahead in all those 'years before you are 65' - or beyond - but they can make the world a slightly less confusing place for young leavers. Many conferences and courses and publications in recent years have been concerned with the transition from school to adult working life, but there is still much to be learned about effective forms of preparation, especially at the level of our pupils. All boys and girls need guidance, but the youngest and less well endowed school leavers need it especially.

209. The school can help them in several ways. It can give them, just before they leave, an extra polish intellectually, in their skills and previous learning; and personally, in attention to speech, health, dress, deportment and social behaviour. A short residential course at this stage could serve a useful purpose, although this is not, as we indicated earlier, the only type of residential course which we hope will be available to the pupils. The school can see that they have factual information for immediate needs, and some clues as to where to turn for it in the future, in connection with employment, further education, and personal interests. And it can begin to enlarge their understanding of the wider world, so that as adults they may take a more satisfying part in it.

210. As we see it, the school programme, in the last year especially, ought to be deliberately outgoing. This means taking the pupils mentally and often physically beyond the school walls. It also means bringing men and women from the world outside the walls into the school. It almost certainly demands a greater flexibility in the timetable and in methods of study. And it may require more time than is normally available inside the conventional school day.

211. Apart from any special innovations in the programme, the more any lessons can be given a realistic and adult reference, the better. It may be in examples of industrial applications in science or in handicraft; or in problems in arithmetic which deal with wage packet deductions or hire purchase or value for money on consumer research lines. Discussions in any of the humane subjects may tackle personal relations - on the job, as well as in private life; or begin to reveal, even at a very modest level of understanding, how aspects of government and economics and social justice touch us all, and that society is not simply divided into Us and Them.

212. Boys and girls growing up in a welfare state, for instance, ought to know how the social services are paid for and how they operate locally. They ought also to realise the continuing need for sensible self-help and for voluntary assistance to those unable to help themselves. If the school is one which engages in community service projects, these ideas will not be unfamiliar.

But we note, for example, that a church organisation which has held conferences for some 2,000 school leavers records 'We have yet to meet any suggestion that any of their own money should be used for charitable or humanitarian or religious purposes, on a budgeted basis'.

213. Civics, current affairs, modern history, social studies, whether under those names or not, ought to feature in the programme. They need sensitive handling if they are not to go sadly awry.

'Our current affairs lesson was horrible. We had to sit and listen to the teacher preach about what she believed.'

'History was all right at the beginning, but when I got to the beginning of the fourth year we had nothing but politics, politics, politics.'

'But when they say to you "What do you think?" well, there's nothing to say and you begin to dread discussion lesson in case he asks you for your opinion and you don't know anything about the subject.'

'What with politics and ban the bomb English lessons were right crummy.'

214. Television has made this notably easier to do than it once was, and perhaps the main strength of school television as a new resource at the disposal of the teacher lies for our pupils in its power to extend their knowledge of the contemporary world and enlarge their sympathies. A television programme in the field of geography, or current affairs or vocational guidance makes its impact in sharp and concrete terms. It has the prestige of a medium that belongs to the outside world; and although it is necessarily a one-way communication it can serve all the more effectively as a basis for discussion in so far as it is an experience shared with the teacher, and not immune from criticism.

215. Films similarly offer a teaching medium with some of the same power as television to enlarge the pupils' world, coupled with the advantage of being more readily available for use at any time. The films made for television broadcasting itself and the recorded programmes set a high standard, and some of this material ought to be available for use by the schools - the more so as many schools as yet lack the receivers to take television programmes direct. At a recent survey there were only 5,000 television sets in schools as compared with 30,000 sound radio sets.

216. At home, boys and girls, like their elders, spend rather more than two hours a day on an average watching the television screen. It is not surprising therefore that they often have a wide and miscellaneous store of items of information gleaned in viewing. True, the knowledge may be shallow and lack coherence, but this is where teachers can help. Many a pupil now sees skilful documentaries or looks in at interviews who would never come near such information in books or sober magazine articles. Similarly, films and plays and ballet are seen of a kind and quality not often available locally. Furthermore, it is not too much to say that when these pupils leave school, television will be for most of them the most important source of knowledge about the world outside the confines of their own experience; of enjoyment of the arts; of acquaintance with the full range of human personality, and of contact with ways of speaking and thinking other than those of their own social group. We believe that teachers should reckon with these facts, and that their own training should help them to take account of television as a social force, as well as offering them some preparation for the proper handling of school broadcasts in sound and television.

217. The ultimate response of the pupils to television and the other mass media will depend on the whole of their education. Nevertheless, not only through television, but in a very large field of popular culture - music, films, theatre, journalism - pupils can learn, with guidance, to sharpen their perceptions. In this way they not only widen their range of interests, but are helped to take a more intelligently critical view of what is available. Exercising their own judgement on experiences well within their comprehension is an important piece of general training for our pupils.

218. One of the memorable things that broadcasting can do is to bring men and women of outstanding achievement into direct contact with the young people in the classroom. We hope also that as part of the ordinary school programme many interesting persons may be drawn into the life of the school, although we realise that it can be difficult to find people who are at ease with adolescents and able to communicate their experience. We are thinking here, however, not of formal lectures, nor of the talks which form part of the specific programme of vocational guidance and to which outside speakers commonly contribute now, but of small, informal discussion groups, dealing with matters of interest arising out of normal school studies in which the visitor would take part along with the teacher; or of using local expert skill, in a sport, say, or music, or gardening or photography, in connection with 'extra-curricular' activities. Men and women from overseas; a local councillor; a supervisor from a large store; former pupils who have been out earning their own living for a few years; a hospital almoner; a policeman; a journalist; people connected with the youth service and with further education - all these and many others might be found in any neighbourhood, and be invited to share their direct experience with the pupils.

219. One of the virtues of such contacts would lie simply in providing opportunities for ordinary adult conversation. Some of the boys and girls with whom we are concerned have very little experience outside school of taking part in, or even hearing, sustained conversation on matters of general, adult interest. In their homes, many parents seem not to talk about even their work in front of their children, except perhaps to grumble. A headmistress tells us of fourteen year old girls who had no idea what jobs their fathers and mothers did every day; and youth leaders confirm that girls, especially, respond gratefully to adults who will talk with them on equal terms.

220. As well as meeting visitors in school, the pupils themselves need to go out and explore. Sometimes, they may go as small teams carrying out a particular investigation. At others, they may be taking part in a series of visits planned to give them glimpses of different types of industry or to take them to places of cultural interest. Always they will need good preliminary briefing. Many schools do already arrange excellent programmes of this kind, but there is room for more experiment in this field, especially in relating the experiences of the visits more closely to the rest of the work in school. The pupils themselves ought to be brought in as much as possible to the initial planning and organisation and making of arrangements. In the management of themselves and their contacts with other people outside the familiar school situation, and in the subsequent presentation of their experience, they can learn much, quite apart from any specific information they may have acquired

221. One source of outside experience on which to base studies in school could be community service projects such as we have discussed earlier. Another ready to hand, but seldom put to use, is the spare-time employment which many pupils obtain for themselves. In our sample, forty-two per cent of the fourth year boys and fifteen per cent of the girls had an out of school job. Such work is not likely to have much bearing on the kind of employment they eventually take up - a great many schoolboys, for example, do paper rounds - but it can give a taste of the authentic discipline of a real job. We are not in the least recommending that all pupils should be encouraged to take part-time jobs: but if considerable numbers are doing so anyway, teachers might as well take account of the fact and help the pupils to make useful sense of the experience.

222. Another possibility which some other countries are examining is deliberately to provide limited experience of different kinds of employment, on a release from school basis, inside the educational programme. In Sweden, sample work experiences have been introduced into the educational system, as part of the process of vocational guidance. In the USA it has been possible for some years for high school students, older than the boys and girls we have in mind, to work under supervision in offices and business establishments, and to have this credited towards their graduation. In this country, short 'works courses' in holiday time have been available for some years to sixth form pupils from grammar and independent schools. We have been interested to realise that some limited experiments in this direction with younger pupils have also been introduced, on purely local initiative.

223. We have had a number of examples, all quite separately sponsored, brought to our notice, of schemes in which schools, the youth employment service and groups of firms have cooperated in various ways. Girls have made extended visits to shops or offices, intensively for a fortnight or in a series of half-day visits spread over a term. Boys have attended factories on Saturday mornings. In a scheme organised through a Rotary club, pupils of sixteen and seventeen have spent a week with firms, covering eleven different types of occupation between them. Another school is at present engaged in arranging for small groups of pupils to pay extended observation visits to particular firms, and in one case to participate in some of the activities of the training school there.

224. In all the examples brought to our notice, the experience has been designed as part of a wider programme of general preparation for school leavers, rather than as an introduction to any specific field of future employment. The intention has been to present a closer view of the world at work than is possible in the more usual brief visit, and to give the pupils some sense of being out on their own, although the schools have been in close contact with the shops or offices or firms concerned, and members of the school staffs have visited the pupils. It is hoped that the experiences which the pupils bring back with them will provide useful matter for discussion and evaluation.

225. We have not seen any of these schemes in operation - some have been single, short-term experiments only - and we cannot therefore offer any opinion on their effectiveness in providing an additional stimulus to boys and girls in their general school work. We record them, nevertheless, as examples of efforts by the schools to inject an element of realism in the content of the final year's course.

226. The schemes are a long way from the elaborate work experience programmes of the Swedish pattern, and rather different in their objective. We do not suggest, even so, that they are likely to become practicable or even desirable for the large majority of boys and girls, but, clearly, the older the pupils concerned, the easier it becomes to envisage extensions of experience outside the school. An accumulation of more information on tentative experiments in this field would be useful, together with a study by the Ministry of Labour, industry and the trade unions, and the education authorities, of the legal and safety issues which would be involved if any extension of these ideas were contemplated when all pupils are at school till at least sixteen.

227. The novel aspect, and some of the potential difficulties, of schemes of the kind described lie in their being related to commerce and to industry. But these are not the only fields in which pupils have engaged, or could, in responsible activities away from school. There are many possibilities: work on a farm, for example, as an extension of a rural studies course; helping in a local children's home or in an infant or nursery school; observing and assisting in a hospital, suitably selected; or possibly quite different enterprises, like spending two or three days behind the scenes at the local civic theatre, helping with costumes or scenery or the ticket office. Most projects of this sort could only be carried out by a few pupils at a time, but related to a larger programme they might encourage the pupils to see some relevance in their school work to the interests and work of the adult world.

228. One of the things boys and girls ought to know, and be encouraged to want to know, is how to continue their education, formally and informally. They need to know about further education, not just as a pamphlet on local courses, but in fairly concrete terms of what sort of things you do, and where, and with what objectives. They need if possible to have visited some of the local institutions, and to have met some of the staff and students. Open days in colleges of further education arranged specially for the benefit of local schools are not unknown, but could happen more commonly than they do. And reciprocal invitations could be made more often to further education staff and principals to visit the schools.

229. There could be a positive advantage, where conditions and facilities are suitable, for some pupils, in attending a college of further education for some part of their course in the last year and thereby having a ready-made link for the future. This already happens in some areas, sometimes for lack of adequate facilities in the schools, but sometimes by deliberate policy. Where such arrangements are made, they are much to be preferred on a group rather than on an individual basis. Otherwise, there can be many problems of fitting a few school-age pupils into classes intended for older, adult students, and the content of the course is less likely to be suited to the pupils' needs, or sufficiently related to the rest of their work at school.

230. Some boys and girls will be helped by knowing about further education at very much humbler levels. For example, pupils at the lower end of the ability range quickly lose their grip on reading skills, if they have no compulsion to practise them once they have left school. And they probably do not worry much about it immediately, but a few years later may suddenly realise they are miserably handicapped, in their work or in their private lives. They can be helped in many evening institute classes but the difficulty is always how to make the existence of these classes known to those who need them.

231. In addition, there are all the recreational activities offered by evening institutes, youth clubs, sports organisations and adult societies, which boys and girls should at least realise exist. They should know where to turn, when they are ready to take up a new interest or want to continue an old one started at school. And the below-average pupil may not find it easy to obtain this kind of information for himself, or summon up enterprise to take the first steps, without previous encouragement. Possibly the schools could do a useful job in preparing a simply annotated handout for school leavers, giving the names of persons, places, and organisations which boys and girls, and their parents, might at some time be glad to know about.

232. Some elements of continuity at the point of transition are likely to be helpful. Young school leavers may be exhilarated at their new wage earning status, but they will often need information, guidance, and a degree of moral support. The youth employment service attempts to provide this, but its resources are limited; large firms can help through induction courses and by means of supervisory and welfare schemes, but, although we have not been able to discover any sources of exact information on the size of firms entered by the younger and less able leavers, it is certain that many of them start work in firms too small for such provision to be possible. While recognising that many youth employment officers regard their work as primarily a social service, we think there is room for further developments in regular advisory and welfare services and particularly commend a useful experiment recently carried out by one local education authority, whereby a voluntary social worker was attached to a school to establish contact with the girls before they left. Subsequently she continued to visit them at home during their first year of work and was freely available for consultation. This supplementation to the normal review process conducted by youth employment officers seems to us a particularly useful venture.

233. We have said little so far about the more formal processes of vocational guidance, operated jointly by the schools and the youth employment service, because there has been a number of recent publications on the transition from school to work. Generally speaking, there has been more development here than in the other aspects of preparation for leaving school. A whole team of adults may be available - head, youth employment officer, careers master, other teachers, housemasters, personal tutors - who between them can help boys and girls get a clearer picture of what the world of work is like. In large schools it may not be fanciful to look forward to a stage when there is a full-time counsellor available to advise the pupils throughout their school course and to prepare them for going out into the world. One significant aspect of vocational guidance work is that, apart from its importance in its own right, it provides a natural and acceptable means of keeping personal contact with older adolescents and unobtrusively supervising their general welfare. 234. We are glad to see that the youth employment service has been increased in recent years so that the officers can now give more time to individual pupils whom they are advising about careers and opportunities for further education. A good deal remains to be done, however. For instance, the law restricts the information about their leavers which headmasters may give to the youth employment officers. This particularly hampers them in interviewing our pupils many of whom will not have external examination results and other objective assessments to help them. There are also too many secondary modern schools which have no careers teachers.

235. It is surely important that there should be at least some one member of the staff whose special business it is to be knowledgeable about employment and further education, to organise reference and display material, and to make the essential liaison between school, parents, youth employment service and employment. It is important, too, that such a member of staff has a teaching programme which allows time to do these things. It may be even better if he or she is the leader of a team of teachers - as is essential in a very large school. The more members of staff involved, the more useful knowledge is likely to percolate through the school; and it could obviously be an advantage to associate with the vocational guidance work some teacher who is well used to dealing with the less able pupils, and who will appreciate more readily what extra help they may need in sorting out the information available. Some heads are responsible for careers guidance themselves, and do it very well. But apart from the heavy demands this makes in all but very small schools, there is advantage in the knowledge accumulating in the staffroom rather than being confined to the head's study.

236. In many areas schools arrange careers conventions in conjunction with the local youth employment service whose officers can suggest local organisations which might be approached to provide speakers, exhibition stands, or representatives who can give parents information on the day to day work in their own occupations. Rotary clubs have been particularly helpful in many areas, but it is important that there should not be undue emphasis on those occupations which require more formal education than our pupils are likely to achieve. A commendable feature has been the provision of examples of various local crafts and trades with young workers actually operating the machines or carrying out the processes in the school hall.

237. A major problem is how to ensure that the teachers themselves, apart from having the right contacts and the necessary sources of information, really understand the work situation as their pupils will meet it. Late entrants to the teaching profession who have themselves done other jobs will have a useful contribution to make here, but these will always be a minority of teachers. Our pupils, especially, present a difficulty. Where the older and abler pupils are going on to careers involving higher education and training, at least the initial stages on the road will not be unlike what the teachers have known themselves. It is more difficult for the teacher to become familiar with the commercial and industrial situation as it will be encountered by the young school leaver, although the vacation work done by students in training and the general encouragement now being given by the training colleges to gain wider working experience will be most valuable in this respect.

238. There would seem to be a strong need for many more courses and conferences for teachers which would bring them into contact with representatives of industry and further education institutions in their area. The youth employment service might develop important liaison functions in this connection, and would have need itself of additional resources of staff.

239. A most promising recent development has been the decision of the British Employers' Confederation to promote pilot 'Introduction to Industry' schemes for serving teachers, with the possibility that some similar provision may be attempted for student teachers in training. Under such schemes it is suggested that selected teachers may spend a block period of two or three weeks, or a series of days spread over a period, with a particular company. Any experiments which are established should obviously be welcomed and watched with interest.

Recommendations

(a) The school programme in the final year ought to be deliberately outgoing - an initiation into the adult world of work and of leisure. (para. 210)

(b) The special function television and film can have as sources of information and stimulus needs to be more fully recognised, both in the equipment of schools and in the training of teachers. In particular:

i. The broadcasting organisations should pay special attention in their plans for the extension of school television to the great value of the medium in the education of 'our' children, and to their special needs.

ii. Local education authorities should base their development plans on the concept of television receivers as necessary equipment for the education of our children.

iii. Training colleges and university departments of education should include in their courses some consideration of the significance of films and television as social and educational forces, as well as some preparation for the proper handling of school broadcasts in sound and television. (paras. 214 - 216)

(d) All links with, and knowledge about, the youth employment service, further education, the youth service and adult organisations need strengthening. (paras. 228, 231, 233, 234)

(e) Schemes for augmenting the personal advisory and welfare service to young school leavers should be encouraged. (para. 232)

(f) All secondary schools need teachers with special responsibilities in careers work and adequate time and facilities to do it effectively. (para 235)

(g) Courses, conferences and schemes for enabling teachers to gain some familiarity with industry are much needed. (paras. 238 and 239)