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 25 The schools they go to
[pages 250 - 259]

A. INTRODUCTION

659. The pictures between pages 108 and 109 [see the end of chapter 12] show how varied are the secondary schools attended by the boys and girls with whom we are concerned. This chapter is concerned with these differences. (1) Some schools, to use a current idiom, clearly have everything; some virtually nothing. How many of each are there? And how many in between? Where does the balance lie? In Part Two of this report we were concerned to illustrate from our own observation and from the evidence given to us the kind of teaching which is most likely to be effective with ordinary adolescents. In this chapter we try to see how often at present it is practicable to expect this kind of education. The question is looked at first subject by subject. The order of treatment follows the order of chapters 17, 18 and 19 - the 'practical subjects' are treated first, and in the same order as there; they are followed by science and mathematics, and then by the humanities. Finally, an attempt is made to classify the schools as a whole in terms of their structural suitability for the job they have to do.

660. The area required for playing fields is laid down by regulation. For the rest the yardstick we have used wherever we could are the suggestions made in the Ministry's current Building Bulletins. These are in no sense mandatory, but they do represent a realistic view of the physical standards which ought to be attained by a reasonably good secondary school built in the second half of the 1950s. They must not be taken as representing our own views of what is desirable either room by room or for a school as a whole, but they provide an intelligible standard of comparison based on enlightened but conservative practice.

661. Starting from this basis we have made a fourfold classification of the data provided by the schools. The four main grades are:

A. Satisfactory specialist accommodation.

B. Some specialist accommodation, but inadequate in quantity.

C. Makeshift accommodation.

D. No provision.

B. THE PRACTICAL SUBJECTS (see Chapter 17)

662. We start our tour of the schools with the art room. Half the schools have a room or rooms which come up to the expected standard. In the middle zone the proportion is two thirds - 68 per cent. A further third have some specialist provision, which is however inadequate either because the room is too small or because there are not enough rooms for the size of the school. One school in eight has no art room.

663. Some three fifths of the coeducational and boys' schools have adequate provision for handicraft. None has no provision, though occasionally it is at a 'centre' away from the school. The usual provision is for both woodwork and metalwork. A third of the schools could only provide woodwork, including a number whose provision is adequate in quantity. The small coeducational schools are plainly at a disadvantage in providing a variety of crafts for boys. Nearly two thirds of them (62 per cent) are only equipped for woodwork. Nine tenths (93 per cent) of the boys' schools of the same size can offer both woodwork and metalwork. Only three schools, all among the large coeducational schools, have any provision for engineering, and no other 'heavy crafts' such as building were reported in our sample. These are the only modern schools in a position to offer the range of workshop crafts for boys which our report implies for the future.

664. About one in eight of the boys' and coeducational schools report some provision for rural science or, more frequently, for gardening. Not quite half of them have set aside a classroom as well as ground for this work. These rooms vary in size from 420 to 670 square feet [39.0m² to 62.2m²]. Other schools have small huts (some only 210 square feet [19.5m²] in size), or potting sheds or greenhouses. Two which teach rural science have no special accommodation - one reported that, when it rained, it had 'gardening in the library and kitchen'. Two girls' schools out of twenty-eight have some provision. Neither has a classroom; one has a hut, the other a potting shed and greenhouse. Schools in all five of our neighbourhood groups - rural, mining, problem area, council estate and mixed areas - were among those which had special rural science classrooms.

665. Over half the girls' and coeducational schools have adequate housecraft rooms, including nearly two thirds (64 per cent) of those in the middle zone. None is without provision, though occasionally it involves going to another school or to a separate housecraft 'centre'. The provision for needlework is worse. Ten per cent of the schools have no special room, and in two fifths the provision is clearly inadequate, normally taking the form of a makeshift adaptation of a small classroom furnished and used for general class teaching as well as for needlework. It is no doubt easier to improvise some kind of a needlework room than a metalwork shop so that the girls in small coeducational schools are less at a disadvantage for variety in craftwork than the boys. Only one fifth of these schools had no needlework room; two thirds had no metalwork shop.

666. The survey distinguished three forms of provision for physical education - gymnasium; playing fields; and swimming baths. Playing fields were graded into three categories: 'A' where the provision was fully up to the regulations; 'B' where the provision was sub-standard but amounted to at least half the prescribed acreage; and 'C', where it was below this. No school was without any provision for field games. Schools with access to detached playing fields provided or rented by the LEA have been placed in category 'B' apart from a few where the provision was clearly either 'A' or 'C'.

667. Thirty per cent of the schools have playing fields up to the prescribed standard - this proportion holds roughly good in all three zones. Among the neighbourhoods it is exceeded in schools serving rural areas (45 per cent) and council estates or new towns (40 per cent), but falls seriously short in the problem areas where only 13 per cent of the schools have good outdoor facilities, and over three quarters (77 per cent) have less than half the prescribed acreage.

668. Two fifths of the schools have a gymnasium of suitable size and a further tenth have a small one. Even so, half have none at all. This does not, of course, mean that there can be no indoor physical education. Most schools have an assembly hall, though 4 per cent have none, and 8 per cent share their hall with another school. About a fifth of the schools have a single hall which has to serve for assembly, as a dining room and for physical education in all its indoor forms including dancing as well as gymnastics, and, very often, for drama and music as well. Often the classrooms open off this central hall. Schools of this type are found in all zones and in all neighbourhoods. One is illustrated in plate 7. This leaves about a third of the schools which have to use the assembly hall for indoor physical education, but in which the position is not complicated by its use for dining. Some small schools have been built with a large hall especially designed for use as a gymnasium - perhaps ten per cent of the schools fall into this category. A higher proportion of schools in the outer zone than in the other two have no separate gymnasium (60 per cent compared with 50 per cent). More in the outer zone also have either a small gymnasium of less than 2,000 sq. ft. [186m²] or have to share a gymnasium with another school - 11 per cent in the outer zone compared with 8 per cent in the other two. Schools which serve council estates or new towns tend to be of relatively recent date and consequently nearly two thirds (63 per cent) have an adequate gymnasium. On the other hand three quarters of schools serving problem areas or mining villages have none.

669. Good indoor provision compensates for restricted playing fields and playgrounds only in relatively few instances. The more general rule is that schools which are fortunate in one respect are fortunate in both. Thus, nearly two thirds of the schools (62 per cent) which have adequate playing fields have also sufficient gymnasium provision at least as far as area is concerned, and only just over a quarter (27 per cent) have none. On the other hand, less than a fifth (18 per cent) of the schools whose outdoor facilities are thoroughly unsatisfactory have an adequate gymnasium, and three quarters have none.

Diagram 15 Accommodation for the practical subjects

670. Only one school in seven has no opportunity of teaching its pupils to swim. Four fifths (79 per cent) use public baths and 6 per cent have their own swimming pool. Most of these are small learners' pools, usually financed partly at least by the individual schools with the aid of parents and often with some of the constructional work done by self-help. One school uses the sea. It proved impossible to assess how much use the schools could make of the public baths because circumstances varied so greatly. Some use them throughout the year, some in the summer only. Some have long journeys so that the investment of time is disproportionate to the amount of swimming that is possible. Some are strictly rationed for places, others can take all who wish to go. Most schools apparently can teach first year pupils to swim.

671. Music is the least well catered for of all the practical subjects. Less than a quarter of the schools have a proper music room, half have none at all. The balance have set aside an ordinary classroom which may very likely have to be used for ordinary class teaching as well. Boys' schools have the poorest rate of provision - only one in six has a proper music room; girls' schools have the best - one in three possesses a real music room.

C. SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS (see Chapter 18)

672. The schools in Category C for science accommodation are those which have only adapted classrooms for science teaching. These rooms vary in size from 430 sq. ft. to 700 sq. ft. [39.9m² to 65.0m²]; most are between 480 and 600 sq. ft. [44.6m² to 55.7m²] and are used also for ordinary class teaching. The limitations of science teaching imposed by this sort of accommodation may easily be imagined. Often enough, the only facilities for experiments involving the use of gas, electricity or water are at the teacher's bench.

673. Nearly two fifths of the schools (38 per cent) fall into category A; rather under a third (29 per cent) into category B. Just over a quarter (26 per cent) have makeshift accommodation, while 7 per cent have none. There is a rather higher proportion of schools in the inner zone fully provided with laboratories (42 per cent) than in the middle and outer zones (37 per cent) and a correspondingly lower proportion of schools without science rooms (2 per cent compared with 9 per cent). The schools in rural areas and those serving council estates and new towns, two types of neighbourhood with a fairly high proportion of recent building, both have half or more of their schools fully provided and a further third where there are proper laboratories but insufficient for the present numbers in the schools. In the problem areas over a third (37 per cent) of the schools have only makeshift science rooms and one school in eight (13 per cent) has none.

674. The belief that a specially large room earmarked for mathematics is an important asset to a school is relatively recent, and no specific provision for the subject was made in older schools. The provision of a special room is, however, more a matter of allocation and equipment (if there are rooms of sufficient number and size available) than of structural design. Technical drawing is closely linked with both mathematics and craftwork. It really requires a special place of its own properly furnished for the purpose, but it does not usually get one. Over four fifths of the boys' and coeducational schools teach technical drawing; only a sixth have a special room for. it. No schools were considered to be in category B for specialist provision for mathematics or technical drawing. The line between categories A and C was drawn so that schools with rooms of over 500 square feet [46.5m²] were placed in category A and schools with special rooms of less than 500 square feet (i.e. no larger than an ordinary classroom) were graded C. Reference to plate 5 and to paragraphs 452 and 453 in Chapter 18 will show why an ordinary classroom is not big enough for a mathematics room.

675. One school in eight has a special room for mathematics - 9 per cent are in category A and 4 per cent in category C as columns 2 and 3 in Diagram 16 show. Most of these schools are either coeducational or boys' schools, but one in seven of the girls' schools has a special mathematics room. Eighty-seven per cent of the schools are in Category D. For technical drawing the proportions in the various categories are: Category A - 11 per cent; C - 2 per cent; D - 87 per cent. These are the proportions given in Columns 2 and 4 of the diagram, but it might be fairer to reckon the percentages on boys' and coeducational schools only on the ground that none of the girls' schools provided separate accommodation and that technical drawing is at present almost, if not entirely, a boys' subject. On this assumption 14 per cent of the schools concerned are in category A, 3 per cent in category C and 83 per cent in category D. Five per cent of the boys' and coeducational schools have special rooms for both mathematics and technical drawing.

676. There is less provision of special rooms for mathematics and technical drawing in the outer zone than in the other two - 18 per cent compared with 24 per cent. Schools which serve mixed neighbourhoods account for 55 per cent of all special rooms for mathematics and technical drawing, but only 38 per cent of the total number of schools.

Diagram 16 Accommodation for science and mathematics, and the humanities

D. THE HUMANITIES (see Chapter 19)

677. It is now a commonplace that the school library is as essential for work in the humanities (though not only in them) as the laboratory is in science. Like the laboratory, however, it was not included in the schedules of the old elementary schools. One must therefore expect to find a good deal of improvisation and a good deal of going without; and so one does.

678. The information provided by the survey was analysed into six categories:

A - schools with a proper library reserved for library use;
B - schools with a proper library which has also to be used for ordinary class teaching;
C1 - schools with a classroom reserved for exclusive library use;
C2 - schools with a classroom allocated for a library but used also for ordinary class teaching;
C3 - schools with a small stock room, prefects' room or the equivalent in area converted into a library;
D - schools without any library room.

A - 26 per cent
B - 13 per cent
C1 - 15 per cent
C2 - 19 per cent
C3 - 6 per cent
D - 21 per cent

680. The schools with libraries built for the purpose are, of course, found in all parts of the country and in all kinds of neighbourhoods, but they are most common relatively among schools serving rural districts, where reorganisation is often of recent date, and in schools serving council estates or new towns. Two thirds of the rural schools (65 per cent) and over half (55 per cent) of the schools serving council estates or new towns have proper library rooms. This compares with only a quarter of the schools serving the three other kinds of neighbourhoods studied - problem areas, mining districts and areas of mixed housing.

681. It seemed probable that there might be a positive relation between the possession of a library room and achievement on the reading test which, as explained elsewhere, calls for a fairly extensive vocabulary as well as the ability to decipher print. The library categories were, therefore, analysed by the mean score on the test of the schools in each category which gave the following results.

Table 27 Reading test scores and library provision

There is a wide range of scores within each category. All three regions and all five neighbourhoods are represented among the schools in each of the columns above, and each is represented by schools with an extensive variation of scores. There is room for various interpretations of a result which is itself surprising.

682. Two fifths of the schools have rooms set apart specially for geography. Most of them are bigger than an ordinary classroom - a third of all schools have geography rooms of more than 500 square feet [46.5m²]. No other arts subject has anything like comparable provision, though three of the geography rooms are used also for history. The outer zone and the schools serving problem areas and mining villages are again educationally below par in this respect - only 14 per cent of them have large geography rooms; rather more (17 per cent) have been able to allocate an ordinary classroom for the subject; but this leaves over two thirds without any special provision.

E. THE SCHOOLS AS A WHOLE

683. Thus far we have been concerned with accommodation for individual subjects of the curriculum. It was possible, though not probable, that the deficiencies might be so divided that, while no school was perfect, few schools were very bad. A scoring system was therefore adopted for each of the items shown in the diagrams - suitable accommodation was given 3 points; accommodation otherwise suitable but inadequate in quantity or used also for other purposes was given 2 points; makeshift accommodation of all kinds, 1 point, and to schools where no special provision was made no points were awarded. On this basis the schools were divided into three groups. Schools scoring:

Four schools scored full marks; five scored less than one sixth of the possible points. The average score for all schools was 54 per cent of the possible maximum.

684. A further analysis was made to see whether the situation was more serious in some parts of the country or in some types of neighbourhood than others. It was probable, for instance, that deficiencies would be fewer where there either had been an influx of new inhabitants sufficient in number to call for a new school, or where the replacement of all-age schools by separate primary and secondary schools had recently taken place. This expectation is borne out by the following analysis:

Table 28 Adequacy of school premises analysed by neighbourhoods

685. These scores measure the presence or absence of specialist accommodation; they do not take into account the general suitability of the buildings.

Diagram 17 The school buildings as a whole

Once again, reference to the pictures between pages 108 and 109 [at the end of chapter 12] will immediately make clear the qualitative differences between old schools and new. How many schools fall into each category? An NUT survey, (2) made within a few weeks of our own but using different methods, asked for the date of the earliest part of the buildings of each school. In the following table our results, which refer to the main structure of the school, are compared with the results of the NUT survey. The correspondence is remarkably close.

Table 29 Age of modern school buildings

686. There is clearly great leeway to be made up. The main buildings of at least half of the schools were intended for much younger children than those by whom they are now used and for a much more restricted curriculum. But this does not give the whole extent of the problem. It is by no means safe to assume that the third of the pupils who are in post-war schools are suitably accommodated. Nearly half of these schools (46 per cent) are so grossly overcrowded that we have had to place them in category B or even in three instances into category C in the final diagram of this chapter. Categories A, B and C in this diagram apply to the school buildings as a whole the same standards of judgement which in earlier tables were applied to the individual specialist parts. The main difference is that, whereas for the earlier diagrams schools were only placed in category C if their specialist accommodation was improvised, for this diagram a number of schools whose buildings were good or at least satisfactory in themselves were downgraded to category C because of such consequences of overcrowding as the use of the hall by two classes for ordinary class teaching, the use of stockrooms as 'form bases' and similar misappropriations of space. The overall picture is that one fifth of the modern schools are generally up to standard, but two fifths are seriously deficient in many respects.

Footnotes

(1) But not with the particular schools illustrated. None of them was included in the sample for our survey.

(2) The State of Our Schools page 11, Table 1.