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 23 The work they do
[pages 234 - 244]

A. THREE FIELDS OF THE CURRICULUM

625. Most countries can provide a straightforward timetable analysis showing year by year how much time is given to each subject. We cannot. Schools are free to make their own plans and they take great advantage of this liberty. We have had to impose an arbitrary pattern on conflicting practices in order to present an intelligible picture. Our information, moreover, is confined to the fourth year in secondary modern schools. We have a horizontal view of what the boys and girls with whom we are concerned are doing near the end of their time at school, but the vertical element is altogether lacking: we have no evidence about how long their timetables have had the same kind of look. There is another limitation. We know the names of the subjects on the timetable; but their content varies from school to school.

626. In Part Two of the report we grouped the subjects of the curriculum into three broad fields - the 'practical subjects', mathematics and science, and the humanities. Using the same classification, the simplest way to generalise about the fourth year curriculum is to say that roughly the equivalent of two days a week are given to the practical subjects, one day to mathematics and science, and two to the humanities. This is a useful approximation though it slightly exaggerates the time given to the practical subjects and to the humanities.

627. The next step to a clearer picture is to distinguish between the timetables of boys and girls. There are roughly three boys and three girls in coeducational modern schools to every two boys and two girls in single sex schools. The timetable analysis shows that in both types of school there are some differences between boys and girls in the time given to the three broad fields: the difference is rather greater between boys and girls in single sex schools than between boys and girls in coeducational schools. In part this may be the result of differences in outlook, but some at least of it is caused by the convenience in coeducational schools of making allocations of time correspond in those subjects for which boys and girls separate - for physical education, for instance, or the crafts. The simplest way of expressing the difference is to say that boys in boys' schools spend on an average the equivalent of half a morning a week more in the maths and science field than do the girls in girls' schools, who in turn spend a correspondingly greater amount of time on the practical subjects. In coeducational schools the difference still exists, but is roughly halved.

628. Far greater than the differences in time allocations between boys and girls are the differences between school and school. This is brought out in the following table, which is arranged in steps of five per cent. This is done because five per cent of a school week is a quarter of a day's work; and, thus, ten per cent is a half-day and twenty per cent the equivalent of one day a week.

Table 14 Average time spent by boys and girls in their fourth year in modern schools in the three curriculum fields

629. To some extent, as with the differences between boys and girls, these variations are caused by a differing diagnosis of the needs of pupils; but this is not the whole, and is probably not the major cause of variety. A comparison of this chapter with chapter 25 makes it clear why at any rate some of these variations occur. Where provision for a subject is inadequate somebody must go short. But, because we have only an analysis of fourth year timetables, it is impossible to relate the time given to a subject or field of education to the adequacy of the physical provision for it since some schools prefer to pinch, if pinch they must, at one stage of the course and some at another. The same conditions apply as a result of staffing difficulties of the kind discussed in chapter 24. The results could not be better expressed than by the head who wrote to us 'timetable analysis is chancy: I seldom finish the term with the timetable I started with'. It is not surprising that in their general comments many heads made it clear to us that their curriculum is not what they think right; but only the best that they can do in the circumstances.

630. The time allocations given in Table 14 are the average of the separate fourth year form allocations. These averages often conceal a wide and important variation from form to form; but on the other hand many schools make little or no distinction in the time they give to their abler and their less able pupils, at least as far as the three broad fields of the curriculum are concerned. Both aspects are brought out in Table 15 (below) where, as in the previous table, the device of five per cent steps is used. In schools with less than a five per cent variation the reason for varying totals may well be a difference in the length of morning and afternoon periods rather than a difference in policy. A major reason for the different treatment of different forms is the belief that a common time allocation makes little sense in a modern school - it is useless to treat the Browns and Robinsons of the last chapter as though they need the same kind of timetable because they go to the same school. In some schools, therefore, the time given to mathematics drops steadily as one moves from the forms where there are most Browns to those where there are most Robinsons. Other schools hold the same belief in the need for separate treatment, but draw a different conclusion - in these schools the process is reversed and the time given to mathematics rises as one moves from the Browns to the Robinsons. Examples of both principles occur among the schools with wide variations in Table 15.

Table 15 Variations in time allocations to the three curriculum fields within individual schools

631. We have written first about three broad fields of the curriculum both here and in Part Two rather than of the individual subjects for two reasons - because it is easier to hold three variables in mind than ten, and because we have wished to be positive about the need for all pupils to gain adequate experience in all three fields without being restrictive about the choice of the individual subjects through which this experience is given. This permissiveness, which is part of the English educational tradition, might be expected to lead to a very wide range of subjects being studied with marked differences in the curriculum from school to school and between pupils in the same school. A variety of historical reasons, however, have in fact kept schools to a considerable measure of uniformity, and the work of analysis soon showed that it was possible to identify a typical modern school programme which would be common to most pupils in most schools. Diagram 13 illustrates the position. There was little difficulty about the list of subjects to be included - Religious instruction, English, history, geography and current affairs or civics form the humanities group. Mathematics and science stand together. Technical drawing, handicraft or the domestic crafts, art, music and physical education make up the normal practical subjects. The problem was not to choose the subjects, but to decide how much time each would get in a typical school. The same wide differences between schools and between forms within the same school, which we found in the three fields of the curriculum, necessarily recur in individual subjects.

Diagram 13 Fourth year curriculum in a typical secondary modern school

632. The circular form of the diagram brings out other relations between subjects than those symbolised by our three curriculum fields. Technical drawing, for instance, is placed among the practical subjects because of its relation to craft work, but it is neighbour also to mathematics and might well have been included in that field. If this had been done, the proportion of the curriculum which boys devote to the field of mathematics and science would have been increased from 24 per cent to 30 per cent, and the gap between boys and girls in that field and in the field of the practical subjects would have been widened accordingly. Similarly, the subjects which lie on either side of the frontier between the humanities and the practical subjects suggest by their proximity another basis of classification which we might have employed. Art, music and literature clearly have much in common, and we might have labelled one segment of the curriculum aesthetic subjects and credited boys with devoting 29 per cent of their time to it and girls one third. How much, however, of the English taught in schools could justifiably be included under such a heading? In the same way, the frontier between the humanities and mathematics and science arbitrarily separates geography from science - two subjects which have much in common.

633. The three smaller circles in the diagram indicate three serious contenders for inclusion in the modern school curriculum - rural studies which are followed by some boys in half the schools in our sample (girls' schools excluded); a foreign language which is taught to between a quarter and a third of the pupils in a third of the schools in our sample; and the commercial skills of shorthand and typewriting which are included in the curriculum of two fifths of the girls' and coeducational schools. The size of the segment shows the most common time allocation for these contenders and its position in the circle indicates the field of the curriculum to which the contender belongs, and in which it was included, for instance, in preparing the material for Tables 14 and 15.

634. The existence of these contenders is another principal reason for the variation in the average time spent on the three fields from school to school, and on the range of time from form to form in the same school. The average time is affected because the price that has to be paid for the inclusion of one of these subjects is not always found from other subjects in the same field. There are three methods by which time is found for newcomers. The time given to other subjects may be reduced though no subject is given up. This first method is used in a third of the forms which learn a foreign language and a quarter of the forms which take shorthand and typewriting. The second method is simply to cut out another subject altogether - those who learn French in a particular school, for instance, have to do without music and needlework. An alternative to this straightforward surgery is the third method of providing a pool of options from which a selection is made by the pupil or teacher. By this method, for instance, a pupil in a particular school who chooses shorthand and typewriting will have to choose between doing without housecraft or without science. The relative frequency of the second and third methods is three to two in favour of the third (options) where foreign languages are concerned, and three to two in favour of the second method (straight exclusion) where the commercial skills are concerned. All subjects in the typical curriculum shown in the diagram appear in the list of subjects dropped. The only half exceptions are English language (as opposed to literature) and arithmetic (as opposed to mathematics). Over three quarters of the subjects excluded to make room among the humanities for a foreign language are taken from the other two fields; over a third of those excluded in favour of commerce come from the humanities or mathematics and science.

635. Finding room for additional subjects increases the variations in time allocation between forms because none of the three principal contenders are usually taught to the whole age group. Rural studies is much more frequently taught to Robinson than to Jones and to Jones than to Brown; a foreign language in the fourth year (whatever may have been the case in junior forms) is normally reserved for the abler pupils. The commercial skills, too, are on the whole the preserve of the abler girls (though only rarely of those able girls who learn a foreign language).

636. A third main reason for the larger variations in time for various subjects from school to school and from form to form is the introduction of external examinations. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the provision for science. Table 16 compares the time allocation in the best fourth year form in a school ('A') with that in the poorest fourth year form ('C'), excluding small remedial groups. The time given to science in the fourth year generally is in most schools either identical with that in the 'C' column or considerably nearer to it than to the 'A'. Where there is a substantial difference between forms, it is the 'A' form which stands apart.

Table 16 Time given to science by boys and girls in 'A' and 'C' forms in the fourth year in modern schools

The forms in the top half of the 'A' columns are getting a normal grammar school allowance of time and the pupils in them, like grammar school pupils, are preparing for external examinations, usually for the General Certificate of Education at ordinary level. The extra time they get has to be taken from other subjects, almost certainly in the case of science from subjects in other curriculum fields. The effect of preparing for an external examination is, therefore, first, to increase the differences between forms in the amount of time given to the examined subject; and, secondly, to introduce similar differences in time allowances for the other subjects indirectly affected. In 1961 over three quarters (77 per cent) of the modern schools prepared candidates for either fourth year or fifth year external examinations. Over half the schools (55 per cent) and a fifth of the fourteen year old pupils in them (21 per cent) were preparing for fifth year examinations. In these schools there is a marked distinction between the time analysis of the examination candidates and of other pupils.

B. MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE

637. A few notes may be given about the individual subjects of the curriculum field by field. It is convenient first to finish the field of science and mathematics. The extent to which the various branches of science are taught to fourth year forms containing boys and girls is as follows:

Table 17: Description of science taught in fourth year forms

Note The percentages add up to more than 100 because some forms study more than one branch.

638. There is as wide a range in the time given to mathematics as there is to science; but here there is no clear distinction between 'A' and 'C' time allowances, partly no doubt because of the opposing views held by schools as to whether the stronger or the weaker pupils need more time. Mathematics is, however, the subject in which boys' and girls' schools most clearly diverge as Table 18 shows.

Table 18 Time given to mathematics by boys and girls in forms in single sex and coeducational schools

Naturally, it is for the most part the weaker pupils who only do arithmetic, but less than half (44 per cent) of the forms concerned are in fact the bottom forms in the fourth year in their schools, while in six schools no fourth year girl does any mathematics as opposed to arithmetic.

C. THE PRACTICAL SUBJECTS

639. The range of time given to each of the various subjects in the practical group is wide with the exception of physical education. The great majority of schools spend between 8 and 11 per cent of the week (110 to 155 minutes) on this subject. This figure covers two thirds of the boys and half the girls in 'A' forms and three quarters of the boys and two thirds of the girls in 'C' forms. The extreme range of time is from 20 per cent for boys and 17 per cent for girls to nothing for both boys and girls but these extremes occur in only one school. The position in the other subjects in this field is set out in Table 19 which brings out the fact that the distinctions between boys and girls (who spend more time in this field) are greater than between 'A' forms and 'C', except that far more 'C' forms than 'A' are without technical drawing.

Table 19 Time given to the practical subjects by boys and girls in 'A' and 'C' forms in the fourth year in modern schools

640. The position of music is far less satisfactory than that of art and the studio crafts, and in both these aesthetic subjects, more boys than girls go without - especially able ones. Half the boys and two thirds of the girls in 'A' forms have both art and music in the fourth year; in the 'C' forms these proportions rise to two thirds of the boys and virtually all the girls. But over a third of the boys' schools and seven per cent of the coeducational schools have no music at all in the fourth year, and nearly a third (31 per cent) of all fourth year forms containing boys provide no music for them, though in twenty-four of these forms in coeducational schools there is music for the girls.

D. THE HUMANITIES

641. The central position in the field of the humanities is naturally taken by English, which has the lion's share of the time though the proportion that this bears to the whole varies widely among the schools in the sample. Since there is little difference between the practice of boys', girls' and coeducational schools, these are not distinguished in the following tables.

It will be seen that, except where examination sets are involved, the time given to each individual subject except English itself in the field of the humanities is small although their combined allowance is often considerable. This has a bearing on the extent to which they can be used as a vehicle of English teaching.

Table 20(a) Time given to the humanities and the proportion of this time given to English as a separate subject

Table 20(b) Time given to other subjects in the humanities

642. There is, then, a great variety of provision within the individual schools, though this variety is concerned more with the distribution of time between subjects than with the number of subjects taught.

E. THE POWER TO CHOOSE

643. How far does the individual pupil have any say in his own particular assignment? The schools in the sample were organised in different ways and this has a bearing on the answer. The three main varieties are an organisation based on ability and attainments (over which the individual pupil has only a long term indirect influence through his industry or lack of it); an organisation based on the term at which pupils are expected to leave school (this is fixed largely by their date of birth); and an organisation based on a special bias in the type of course, usually in preparation for a particular examination or in association with a particular career. It is this type of organisation which probably comes closest to meeting the pupils' wishes. The extent to which the three types were found in the sample is shown in Table 21.

Table 21 Basis of form organisation in the fourth year

There are two important contrasts to be seen in this table. Girls' schools are much more inclined to use the 'type of course' organisation than boys' schools, and large schools than small ones. The former contrast is partly caused by an easy division of girls into those who want a commercial course, those who want an academic course and those who would like one in which the domestic subjects and the arts play a large part. Boys' vocational needs are more nearly satisfied by the ordinary subjects of the curriculum in their customary combination. The latter contrast is to be explained by the difficulties which small schools would find in staffing and equipping an organisation based on several differently biased courses each serving a few pupils.

644. There are other ways by which a pupil can exercise some element of choice over the work he does than by electing to follow one course rather than another. Without changing one's form, it is possible, if the school so arranges its work, to choose one subject rather than another. A scrutiny of the timetable analysis makes it possible to give a rough estimate of the extent to which in fact individual pupils have some power to select at least a portion of the work they do. This estimate is set out in Table 22.

Table 22 Options between subjects in the fourth year in modern schools

The element of choice is often larger than indicated in the table because this could take no account, for instance, of the range of choice open in the art room. The element of choice is often smaller than would appear from the table because the opportunity is often confined to the abler candidates, who are invited to select their strongest subjects with a view to an external examination; and because in other instances the range is often restricted to a choice between woodwork and metalwork.

645. Two ways of describing the time given to subjects and fields of the curriculum have been used in this chapter. Sometimes the actual number of minutes per week has been given; sometimes the percentage of the working week. Readers may wonder why the more familiar unit of 'periods' was not employed. There are two reasons. First, periods vary in length from thirty to forty-five minutes so that comparisons on this basis would have been unreliable. Secondly, a number of schools arrange their timetable on cycles lasting more than the five days of a school week. The teaching periods given to subjects in these schools will be different in successive weeks and neither figure will correspond to the allocation in a school on a normal five day cycle. We have used minutes instead of periods to make it easier to express all the allocations in terms of a notional five day cycle. But there is a difficulty in comparisons between schools expressed in minutes. By far the commonest length of actual teaching week (i.e. excluding assembly, registration and 'breaks') is 1,400 or 1,425 minutes but the range is very considerable. A comparison of minutes may also be misleading because some schools allow a short interval between periods to allow for movement of staff or pupils while others regard one period as starting the moment the previous one stops. It was impossible to overcome these difficulties of interpretation, and the comparisons between schools expressed in percentages of the working week are calculated from the basis of each school's own stated total working time.