Norwood (1943)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction

Part I Secondary education
Chapter 1 Nature of secondary education
Chapter 2 Secondary education as it is
Chapter 3 Secondary education as it might be

Part II Examinations
Chapter 4 Existing examinations
Chapter 5 The reorganisation of examinations (i)
Chapter 6 The reorganisation of examinations (ii)
Chapter 7 The Inspectorate

Part III Curriculum
Chapter 8 The curriculum in general
Chapter 9 Physical education
Chapter 10 Religious education
Chapter 11 English
Chapter 12 History
Chapter 13 Geography
Chapter 14 Mathematics
Chapter 15 Natural science
Chapter 16 Modern languages
Chapter 17 Classics
Chapter 18 Art, music, handicrafts
Chapter 19 Domestic subjects
Chapter 20 Education for commerce
Chapter 21 Wales and the teaching of Welsh

Conclusions and recommendations
Appendix A Note on the Central Welsh Board
Appendix B List of witnesses
Index

Report of the Committee of the Secondary School Examinations Council appointed by the President of the Board of Education in 1941

London: HM Stationery Office 1943

Chapter 4 Existing examinations
[pages 26 - 35. In the printed version this is Part II Chapter I]

In this part we propose to review existing examinations in Secondary Schools and to make proposals for reform. We shall first describe present arrangements; we shall then take account of criticisms, and in the light of the criticisms set forth the reasons which make reform desirable; and finally we shall describe in some detail a plan of examinations intended to meet the conditions after the war. It will be understood that we are dealing only with the secondary grammar school.

The School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examinations

There is no need for our purpose to recapitulate the history of the School Certificate and Higher Certificate examinations. Accounts may be found in the Report of the Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools [1911], and in the Reports on the School Certificate Examination published in 1932 and on the Higher Certificate Examination published in 1937. It is enough to summarise the main features of the examinations since 1918; for by that year the issue of a series of circulars from the Board of Education had established the main framework which the examinations have retained ever since.

The chief purposes of the circulars may be summarised thus. It was intended:

(a) to confine the number of examinations which might be taken by pupils in Secondary Schools. It was forbidden in 1918 that a grant-earning school should present pupils for any school examination other than the 'First', i.e. the School Certificate Examination, or the 'Second', i.e. the Higher Certificate Examination, to be taken about the ages of 16 and 18 respectively, that is to say, at the end of the main school course and at the end of the sixth form course,

(b) to coordinate the examinations, which were to be conducted by seven university examining bodies (increased in 1922 to eight), and to arrange for consultation with teachers concerning the conduct of the examinations,

(c) to clarify the scope and function of such examinations.

Whether there was any chance of these two purposes being achieved simultaneously without one obscuring the other is open to doubt; it is easy to be wise after the event; but the history of the examination has shown that the second purpose rapidly overshadowed the first. For instance, the Report of the Investigators of the School Certificate Examination in 1932 felt it necessary to reassert the first of these principles, remarking that while 'it was inevitable at the time that the examination should be so arranged as to serve for the purposes of matriculation, it is nonetheless unfortunate that the primary purpose of the examination should have been thereby obscured in the minds of the examiners, teachers and the general public.' They recommended that the School Certificate examination should be set free from the conditions attaching to matriculation so that it might secure its primary purpose as essentially a school examination providing an appropriate test of the Secondary School curriculum at the fifth form stage.

Meantime, with the expansion of the Secondary Schools and the increasing variety of courses which they have devised, there has been an increasing tendency to bring about modification of rules which insist upon the selection of subjects from within 'groups' of subjects and to make room for subjects which were late in claiming a place in the school curriculum. From one point of view these changes may be interpreted as a reassertion of the principle that the examination should follow the curriculum. Nonetheless they also bear witness to the degree of importance which the School Certificate has assumed in the view of the schools and the public, for it is implied that whatever curriculum is found suitable for individual pupils shall culminate in a certificate awarded by a University Examining Body, because that certificate has come to be thought of as indispensable to the pupil and the public and to the teacher and his subject.

As regards the Higher Certificate examination, it is important to note that it was devised originally as a test of two years' work beyond the stage of the School Certificate examination. Behind it were certain preconceptions about the nature of sixth form work which were derived from the traditions of the older grammar schools, the public schools and universities; these preconceptions in turn implied, first, that the number of candidates would be small, secondly, that the link with the university, and so with university examinations, would be close. Hence it was not unnatural that the Higher Certificate examination should come to be used not only for exemption from matriculation and intermediate examinations, but also more recently for the awards of scholarships by local education authorities and for the selection of state scholars, the university examining bodies making recommendations for these purposes.

In the meantime the number of pupils staying at school beyond the stage of the First examination increased rapidly, and to meet their needs new courses were devised which fitted less easily into the old conception of sixth form work. Simultaneously the examination was required to develop into an instrument capable of selecting state scholars-from an enlarged and highly competitive field. And so, when in 1937 Investigators inquired into the working of the examination, they found that various university Examining Bodies had proposed or were on the point of proposing ways to meet the problem of making the examination perform the double function of a qualifying and a selective test. Though some of their number would have preferred more fundamental changes, the Investigators expressed in their report the view that the proposals of the examining bodies should be given a trial. At this point the war intervened, and not long afterwards this Committee was established to consider examinations in Secondary Schools.

The examinations in the schools, a pupil's career

At the risk of going over familiar ground it may be worthwhile to trace a pupil's career through a Secondary School with a view to assessing the function which external examinations actually do fulfil.

The pupil may enter the Secondary School as the holder of a 'special place' obtained through success in a written entrance examination taken from the primary school. Once in the Secondary School he will find a curriculum in which certain subjects loom larger than others; he will discover that these subjects are those likely to be taken in the School Certificate examination. As he moves up the school, he is likely to give up some subjects, as, for example, Scripture, art, music and crafts, and he will follow an interest which will lean to languages and literature on the one hand or to mathematics and natural science on the other; the degree of leaning will vary much from school to school. By the time he is a year from the taking of the School Certificate examination, he will know its regulations nearly as well as his teachers know them, and he will realise that he must take certain subjects to gain a certificate at all, certain subjects in certain combinations to clear matriculation or to obtain exemption from the preliminary examinations of professional bodies. It will be advisable for him to take seven subjects, as the majority of candidates in fact do, in order to allow for possible failure in any. He will with good reason concentrate on his examination subjects and tend to minimise the importance of others. A term or so before the actual examination it is probable that the school will conduct a dress rehearsal of the examination to give him experience under examination conditions. The actual examination will occupy the equivalent of six days.

The examination over, various courses are open to him. If he has failed and intends to stay at school, he will take the examination again in six months' or a year's time; if he has obtained a certificate but not matriculation, he can take the examination again, and for many purposes unconnected with entrance to universities it will be advisable that he should. If he has gained a certificate and wishes to enter employment at once, he will show his certificate to the employer whom he approaches. His reception may vary; some employers looking for recruits to fill particular posts will demand a certificate giving exemption from matriculation on the assumption that this is a superior certificate (which it need not necessarily be); others will accept the School Certificate, and these are increasing in number. If he wishes to enter a profession, his certificate will, under certain conditions, obtain for him exemption from the preliminary examination of professional bodies.

If he has passed and stays at school, he will go into the sixth form. At some schools, though a minority, he will be required to take selected subsidiary subjects in the Higher Certificate examination after one year; the reasons for this practice - which is not common - are, first, that an objective to his work is desirable, secondly, that success may carry additional weight in seeking entry to certain professions, and thirdly that a School Certificate together with a pass in four subsidiary subjects in the Higher Certificate examination gives exemption from the matriculation examinations of certain universities. On the other hand he may take the principal papers in the Higher Certificate examination, since some schools take these papers in lieu of papers set at the school. At the end of his second year in the sixth form he will take the Higher Certificate examination as a candidate; if he is young enough, he will take it again at the end of his third year. On success in this examination much will depend: on its results he may be awarded a state scholarship and/or a local education authority scholarship to enable him to go to the university. He may sit six months later, or may have sat six months earlier, for an open award at a university; for this award he may have one or two or possibly three shots. Other paths also lie open; a Higher Certificate is often an advantage in making application for certain vacancies, as for example, in training colleges, though this applies more often to girls than to boys: and under certain conditions the Higher Certificate gives exemptions from parts of the First MB [Bachelor of Medicine] examination.

From this sketch many details have been omitted, as for example, that old examination papers may play a considerable part in the classroom work or that emphasis may be laid on achievement in examinations in the review of the year's work on speech day or in school magazine. But it is important to note that admittedly some pupils would sit not more than twice for external examinations, while others, and among them the best, might sit two or three times for the Higher Certificate and also for open scholarship awards.

The examinations clearly have moved much from their original purposes, or perhaps more accurately there has been a change of emphasis. Instead of assessing the normal work of a form which has completed a stage of education, the examinations are now a matter of supreme importance to each individual child. What concerns us is to discover how the pupil and the teacher are affected by the atmosphere of examinations which this review suggests as pervading the school at all stages, till it may become the life breath inspiring all effort. For this purpose we recapitulate the arguments favourable and unfavourable to the present system of examinations. We lay under contribution evidence from a wide variety of sources as is shown in the list of witnesses appended to this Report.

The School Certificate examination

(a) The case in favour

The existence of an external examination has a tonic effect upon the pupil, giving him a goal towards which to strive and a stimulus to urge him to attain it. He must reach a given standard in a given time; he must have his knowledge in a form which he can reproduce, and he gains from the necessity to acquire that knowledge for a definite purpose. Since his effort must extend over a considerable period, he is trained in perseverance and steadfastness. He has confidence in the measurement of his attainments by an external standard, by which also his fellow pupils in his own school and in others are measured; if he fails or if he succeeds, he is satisfied that the test was objective and universal, and this consideration is particularly valuable for pupils from schools which have not yet acquired a reputation as high as the longer established schools.

For the teacher, also a goal and a stimulus are desirable. He is provided with a syllabus of work which has been tested by experience; indeed he may put forward his own syllabus, though he rarely does, and means exist for him to bring criticism of the examination to the notice of examiners. By the syllabus he is given a sense of direction towards an end which can be reached. He must plan his work, treat it with consistent emphasis, avoiding the temptation to digress too far. He must attend equally to all pupils in his class, knowing that success or failure is as important to the bottom boy as to the top. From the syllabuses and the papers he gains a sense of standard; he becomes acquainted with achievement elsewhere as assessed under similar conditions, and in the light of it he can estimate the success of his work. As regards the examination of his work, he would be placed in a difficult position if he were asked to examine the pupils whom he had taught.

On general grounds, it is maintained, the external examination is indispensable. The school is given a standard which it can strive to reach; it can thus measure itself against other schools and the standard of education throughout the country will thus be raised. If a test is to carry any weight outside the school, there must be some approximation to uniformity of standard in assessing attainment. The test and the verdict must be objective, and conditions must be equal; there can be no prejudice and no favouritism as between school and school or pupil and pupil. Employers, parents and professional bodies need the Certificate; employers ask for a disinterested assessment, and would not be satisfied with a head master's certificate; parents look for something which will be a hallmark of their children, valid wherever in the country they may go.

(b) The case against

The School Certificate examination is harmful to pupil and teacher and to education. It is the task of the school to provide the goal and the stimulus, in the way most appropriate to it, without the aid of an external examination which pervades the consciousness of pupil and teacher. At present the examination dictates the curriculum and cannot do otherwise; it confines experiment, limits free choice of subject, hampers treatment of subjects, encourages wrong values in the classroom. Pupils assess education in terms of success in the examination; they minimise the importance of the non-examinable and assign a utilitarian value to what they study. They absorb what it will pay them to absorb, and reproduce it as second-hand knowledge which is of value only for the moment. Teachers, recognising the importance of the parchment to the individual child, are constrained to direct their teaching to an examination which can test only a narrow field of the pupil's interest and capacities, and so necessarily neglect the qualities which they value most highly; they are forced to attend to what can be examined and to spoon-feed their weakest pupils. Originality is replaced by uniformity; the mind of the examiner supersedes that of the teacher; every effort is subservient to the examination, in order that a hallmark, estimated by those to whom the pupils is an examination number, may be stamped upon a pupil on the result of single judgement on the examinable portion of his work at a particular moment. No one can examine better than the teacher, who knows the child; and a method of examination by the teacher, combined with school records, could be devised which would furnish a certificate giving information of real importance to employer or college or profession, and yet would preserve intact the freedom of the school and would rid teacher and pupil of an artificial restraint imposed from without. As for uniformity of standard, even under present conditions two apparently similar certificates mean very different things, and illusory uniformity can be bought too dearly.

The arguments reviewed

In giving our own estimate of the position we would remark first that some of us have been intimately associated with this examination from early days and have had opportunity to observe its influence at close quarters.

In the last twenty years the examination has rendered useful and valuable service under the skilful and devoted labours of the university examining bodies; At a time when the rapid expansion of Secondary Schools caused uncertainty about standards in the different subjects of the curriculum, when newly recruited teachers bringing with them little tradition and little experience were in doubt about aims and methods, syllabuses and curricula, the programme put before them in carefully devised regulations exerted a steadying influence, gave a sense of direction, defined levels of achievement and helped in no small measure to establish secondary education on a sure and sound basis. To the beneficial influence of the examination in past years we wish to pay sincere tribute.

Yet its very success has tended to bring about its progressive disintegration. Rapidly winning recognition on all hands, the certificate awarded on the examination has gathered more authority and more significance than was ever intended at the outset, till it has become a highly coveted possession to every pupil leaving a Secondary School. As the curricula of schools have widened to meet the needs of a Secondary School population rapidly growing more diverse in ability and range of interests, the original structure of the examination has changed. Subjects have necessarily been multiplied, whether susceptible to external examination or not; rules which were framed to give a unity to the curriculum tested by examination have been relaxed. Secondary education has become too varied to be confined within a rigid scheme; teachers are becoming too enterprising to be hedged in by set syllabuses, and subjects themselves are gaining in independence and resourcefulness. In the early days a scaffolding was needed for the building of secondary education; and there was some justification for examinations dictating curriculum, for we find it difficult to accept the dictum that external examinations can follow curriculum; the time lag is too long and the ruts grow too deep. In this sense external examinations must necessarily determine curriculum, and the earlier the stage in the school course the tighter is their hold. But secondary education has passed through its early phases; it can stand alone, and already finds the framework which supported it to be a barrier preventing growth. Teachers are more confident of themselves; they have been increasingly associated with the work of examinations and can no longer be said to be inexperienced.

In our view the time has passed when such guidance and direction of their work as teachers need can best be given by means of an external examination; to retain a profession in leading strings is to deny it the chance of growing up to responsibility, with resulting harm to itself and to those who depend upon its services. The examination in its present form is having a cramping effect upon the minds of teachers and pupils. On this our evidence leaves no room for doubt. A substantial volume of evidence comes from teachers who regret the curtailment of their own freedom and regret the false values suggested to the pupil by the external examination. Similarly a large volume comes from teachers who are generally satisfied with present arrangements, and regard external examination as a necessary part of a school education. Notwithstanding this evidence we affirm our belief that the time has come when the teaching profession should have the chance to shoulder its own responsibilities and thereby gain its freedom and enhance its prestige.

As regards the pupil there can, we think, be little doubt that the examination has come to dominate his mind too much. We do not see how he can be blamed; he naturally adapts his attitude according to the prevailing trends of opinion. We do not attach much importance to the plea that the pupil needs the goal and the stimulus of an external examination. We take it to be the function of the school and the teacher to provide the goal, and to be their duty to supply, if necessary, the stimulus. In so far as they surrender these tasks to others, they are in our opinion surrendering what belongs primarily to the school and the teachers.

Nor are we convinced that the attitude of employers and professional bodies is as favourable to present arrangements as is sometimes represented. We have been at considerable pains to gather opinions from both. We have been much impressed with the widespread dissatisfaction with the present School Certificate taken by itself as a credential for employment; it does not tell the employer what he wants to know about the applicants for a post; he demands it in default of any more revealing document. He would prefer a statement which would tell him more about the boy or girl as a human being rather than as an examinee, and this statement would be supported by the evidence of the record of the school career expressed in terms which would carry their own meaning. That firms and business houses should press this need upon our attention seems to suggest that neither the School Certificate nor at present the head master's letter tells them what they wish to know about an applicant.

The same attitude is manifested in considerable measure by professional bodies. Again the plea is that they can gather little about the entrant from the certificate. They accept it as an indication of 'general education' and ask for proficiency in particular subjects which are of special concern to them; but they want evidence which reveals more about the candidate, and regret the tendency to assume that the possession of a certificate in itself constitutes fitness for entry to a profession without regard to other qualities which an examination cannot assess.

The Higher Certificate examination

The Higher Certificate examination concerns fewer pupils than the School Certificate examination, and criticism, favourable or unfavourable, is not as pronounced. It has offered a two-year course of sixth form work and undoubtedly has had great value in the establishment of sixth form work in the newer schools. Originally little depended upon it for the individual pupil; but its use as a selective examination for the award of state scholarships and local education authorities' awards has increased its importance. We have noted that in 1937 the working of this examination was reviewed by the Investigators, and in their report they drew attention to the double purpose which the examination served, namely, to provide an examination testing the work of the ordinary sixth form pupil after two years, and at the same time to select the ablest candidates for state scholarships.

We have reviewed the matter in the light of this report and of much evidence which we have received. Our conclusions may be summarised thus:

(i) In the first place the examination too often offers to the average pupil an unduly specialised course covering a syllabus which is sometimes too ambitious. Subjects which are not part of the examination syllabus tend to be crowded out of the curriculum, and the average pupil is thus led to concentrate too rigidly upon too narrow a field; admittedly this field is narrower in some subjects or combinations of subjects than in others.

(ii) Secondly, the use of the same examination for two purposes tends to result in the pupil who is not a candidate for a state scholarship being overpressed, in order that he may work with the candidate, in schools where there is not sufficient staff to provide for the teaching of both types of pupil; and, in proportion as the standard of the examination is raised to make it a better selective instrument, the effect upon the non-candidate becomes increasingly harmful.

(iii) Thirdly, an examination based upon syllabuses is by no means universally recognised as the best means of selecting entrants for the Honours Schools of universities.

(iv) Fourthly - though this is not a criticism of the Higher Certificate examination itself - our evidence is quite clear that a written examination taken by itself is not the best method of selecting those students who can best profit to the full from a university course. Other qualities in addition to ability to answer examination questions are necessary. Our witnesses from universities supply evidence that some of the students who win state scholarships derive less profit than they should from university life and fail to make a full contribution to it. Some go even further and say that attention in the last years of school life has been unduly concentrated upon examination requirements, and assert that some students come up to the universities not only narrow in intellectual outlook, but also lacking in general interests. Admittedly many do well in their degree courses, many avail themselves of all opportunities and are valuable members of the university. We shall hope to make proposals which overcome these difficulties.

Footnote

(1) The passages quoted are from Circular 849, which issued from the Board of Education in July 1914. The following paragraphs give the context:

(iii) The first examination will be designed to test the results of the course of general education before the pupil begins such a degree of specialisation as is suitable for Secondary Schools. It will correspond very closely in its scope to the present School Certificate examinations of the English universities, and will be based on the general conception of the Secondary School course up to this stage which underlies the Board's regulations and is set out in their recent Memorandum on Curricula of Secondary Schools. That is to say, the subjects for examination will be treated as falling into three main groups - (i) English subjects, (ii) languages, (iii) science and mathematics; and the candidate will be expected to show a reasonable amount of attainment in each of these groups, and will be judged by this test rather than by his power to pass in a prescribed number of specified subjects.

(iv) The standard for a pass will be such as may be expected of pupils of reasonable industry and ordinary intelligence in an efficient Secondary School. The form and not the pupil will be the unit for examination, and it is contemplated that a large proportion of the pupils in the form should be able to satisfy the test. It is therefore proposed that, as is the case in most of the existing examinations, the conditions for attaining a simple pass shall be somewhat easier than those required of candidates in order that the certificate shall be accepted for the purpose of matriculation.

(v) If the examination is conducted on the principle of easy papers and a high standard of marking, the difference between the standard for a simple pass and that required for matriculation purposes will not be so great as to prevent the same examination being made to serve, as the present school examinations do, both purposes; and with this object a mark of credit will be assigned to those candidates who, in any specific subject or subjects, attain a standard which would be appreciably higher than that required for a simple pass. The Board hope that the reorganisation of the school examinations will facilitate the organisation of the conditions of admission to the universities and the professions. But it is no part of their plan to lay down conditions of such admission, and it will be for the universities and professions, on a consideration of the new examination, to say on what terms they will accept the passing of the examination as exempting the pupils from their ordinary tests for admission.