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Newsom (1963) Notes on the text
Part 1 Findings
Part 2 The teaching situation
Part 3 What the survey shows
Appendix I List of witnesses
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The Newsom Report (1963)
Half our future A report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England) London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1963
Acknowledgements
We are glad to acknowledge our debt to all those who have contributed to the making of this report. A list of individuals and organisations who presented oral or written evidence, and in many cases both, is given in Appendix I; for their time and trouble and interest we are indeed grateful. The text bears frequent witness to the extent to which we have drawn freely on the experience of teachers and others in daily contact with the business of education. We are notably indebted to the heads and staff of the schools involved in our surveys, both for their personal statements which have helped so vividly to illumine the background to their work, and for the factual detail they supplied. We realise how much time and care must have gone into their well-documented replies, and appreciate their patience in dealing with supplementary queries. To them, and to the local education authorities whose cooperation made the surveys possible we repeat our thanks. Similar ready cooperation made it possible for us to visit 46 schools, colleges of further education and day continuation schools in 20 different local education authority areas throughout England, as well as four schools in Wales and six in Scotland. We also visited works education centres, a naval training establishment, and two approved schools: to all our hosts on these occasions we are most grateful for enabling us to see so much in the time available. We greatly valued the opportunities we enjoyed also of paying informal visits for discussion with staff and students at training colleges and departments of education. Our enquiries took us abroad, and we were fortunate in being able to visit schools of many different types in France, Holland and Switzerland, and we record our thanks to the staffs of all the institutions concerned and the representatives of the various ministries and government services in those countries for much information and hospitality, and invaluable assistance in arranging the programmes of the visits. We also had the benefit in the Council of the recent experience of several of its members who paid independent visits to Australia, Germany, Holland, Sweden and USA. Among the staff of the Ministry of Education in this country, we particularly wish to express our thanks to members of the Development Group of the Architects and Building Branch, for the diagrams and commentary on school design included in Part I, Chapter 11. We have also drawn heavily on the experience of Her Majesty's Inspectors, both through discussions with individuals and through written evidence contributed by the Panels of the Inspectorate. In a period of just over two years, we have met on some 70 days, including five weekend conferences. It is difficult to avoid the trite when expressing gratitude to those who have carried the major responsibility for our report. 'Setting up a Committee' is easy enough but it is quite another matter to make if function. Our enquiry has involved a mass of paper work which, described in weight, volume or content would be incredible to the uninitiate. Evidence, survey, statistics, recording and writing have involved a formidable skill on the part of those who have served us. It is difficult adequately to express our gratitude to Mr RJW Stubbings HMI, Mr JW Withrington HMI, and Miss KA Kennedy for all they have done for us as Assessors. Particularly we want to thank Mr DGO Ayerst HMI whose experience as an Assessor with the Central Advisory Council spreads over no less than three of its assignments and whose cumulative wisdom has been of peculiar value. The sampling design of our survey of schools, as well as the interpretation of its results, has been the work of Mr GF Peaker CBE, HMI. This is the third occasion on which the Council expresses its gratitude to him for expert assistance of this nature and we would like to wish him well in the responsibilities of a similar kind which he is undertaking for UNESCO. We are also grateful to Miss ML Smith, our Clerk, for her indefatigable labours mainly behind the scene. But, above all, we owe a debt to our Secretary, Miss MJ Marshall HMI, who has guided us with unerring and charitable competence towards our proper objectives. To her and to the Assessors we are grateful for the patience shown to us sometimes, we must admit, when they might have been provoked to act otherwise. We have all learnt much in the past two and a half years both from those who have given evidence to us, from our visits and from our protracted discussions among ourselves but, probably, our most effective mentors have been our colleagues on the staff of the Ministry of Education and our gratitude to them is abounding. (Signed) John Newsom (Chairman)
The Council is indebted to the following publishers for permission to quote short extracts from their publications: William Heineman Ltd Saturn over the Water by JB Priestley. WH Alien and Company Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe. MacGibbon and Kee Ltd Absolute Beginners by Colin Maclnnes. Pergamon Press Home, School and Work by MP Carter. Councils and Education Press Ltd Education Issue of 15 June 1962. Thanks are also due to the Architect and Building News for permission to use Plate 1(a). 
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