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Spens (1938)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Analysis, Preface, Introduction
Chapter 1 Development of the secondary curriculum
Chapter 2 The present position
Chapter 3 Physical and mental development of 11-16 year olds
Chapter 4 The curriculum of the grammar school
Chapter 5 Scripture
Chapter 6 English, classics, mathematics, general science
Chapter 7 The School Certificate Examination
Chapter 8 Technical schools
Chapter 9 Administrative problems
Chapter 10 Welsh problems
Chapter 11 Conclusions and recommendations
Appendix I List of witnesses
Appendix II Liberal education (Young)
Appendix III Secondary curriculum (Kandel)
Appendix IV Faculty psychology (Burt)
Appendix V Transfer of training (Hamley)
Appendix VI Curricula in the Dominions (Clarke)
Index

The Spens Report (1938)
Secondary education
with special reference to grammar schools and technical high schools

London: HM Stationery Office

Notes on the text

The full text of the report (including the Appendices) is online.

Since there aren't pages as such in this web version, footnotes have been collected together (and renumbered) at the end of each chapter.

I've modernised the punctuation so that, for example, " secondary " is shown as 'secondary' (though there's still far more punctuation in the report than would be used today) and I've tried to rationalise some of the more obvious inconsistencies in the use of capital letters.

I've updated a few spellings (show instead of shew, timetable instead of time-table etc) and corrected a few misprints.

Like many older reports, Spens contains some very long paragraphs which are not easy to read on a computer screen. I have, however, left the paragraphing as printed in the original.

I've added explanations to a few archaic words which are no longer in common use.

Anything added by way of explanation is shown [in square brackets].

The tables in this web version of the report are presented in pop-up windows. If a table is bigger than the window and your browser does not automatically display a scroll bar, grab part of the text of the table with your mouse and drag it downwards to see the rest of the table.

Every web page includes chapter links (as in the left hand column on this page) and there are links to the next and previous chapters at the bottom of each page.

I have proof-read and spell-checked the text, but if you spot any errors I'd be grateful if you'd email me.

Other than the above, what you see here is what appeared in the original print version of the report.

Preliminary pages