Taylor (1977)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The third cycle
Chapter 3 The second cycle
Chapter 4 The first cycle
Chapter 5 Organisation and development of the system
Chapter 6 Summary of the report
A note of extension

Appendix 1 ATOs and other bodies supplying reports
Appendix 2 Sources of written evidence
Appendix 3 Sources of oral evidence
Appendix 4 Visits made by members of the Committee
Appendix 5 Training institutions and the teaching force 1962-70
Appendix 6 Examples of course structure for the DipHE
Appendix 7 A possible distribution of Regional Councils
Appendix 8 Training institutions: size and status
Appendix 9 List of recommendations

Index

Report of the Committee of Enquiry appointed jointly by the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Secretary of State for Wales under the chairmanship of Mr Tom Taylor CBE

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1977
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Preliminary pages

[page iii]

24 June 1977

The Rt Hon Shirley Williams MP
Secretary of State for Education and Science
Elizabeth House
York Road
LONDON SE1 7PH

The Rt Hon John Morris QC MP
Secretary of State for Wales
Welsh Office
Cathays Park
CARDIFF CF1 3NQ

Dear Secretaries of State

We were appointed by the then Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Secretary of State for Wales in April 1975 with the following terms of reference:

'To review the arrangements for the management and government of maintained primary and secondary schools in England and Wales, including the composition and functions of bodies of managers and governors, and their relationships with local education authorities, with head teachers and staffs of schools, with parents of pupils and with the local community at large; and to make recommendations'.

I now have the honour to submit our report to you both.

T TAYLOR
Chairman

[page v]

6 July 1977

T Taylor Esq
34 Tower Road
Feniscliffe
Blackburn
Lancs

Thank you for your letter of 24 June enclosing the report of your Committee. Arrangements are being made for it to be published in September. We now look forward to studying the report and its recommendations carefully since, in our view, it concerns an area of central importance to the effective future operation of our schools systems. Your Committee's conclusions will call for wide-ranging discussions amongst all those involved in the provision of education and particularly amongst local education authorities, teachers and parents. It is, we believe, particularly timely for the report to become available at a point when many aspects of the education service are the subject of debate. We are sure that your report will be a valuable addition to these discussions, and wish to express our gratitude to you and to all the members of your Committee for your work.

SHIRLEY WILLIAMS
JOHN MORRIS

The Committee
[pages vii - viii]

Appointments shown are those held by members at the time the Committee was constituted.

Chairman

Councillor T Taylor CBE, JP, Leader of Blackburn Council

Members

Professor G Baron, Professor of Educational Administration in the University of London
Miss J Barrow OBE, Senior Lecturer, Furzedown College, London
Mrs MB Broadley, Headmistress, Dick Sheppard School, London
Mr DPJ Browning, Chief Education Officer, Bedfordshire
Councillor E Currie-Jones CBE, Chairman, South Glamorgan County Council
Mrs AE Edwards, Parent
Mr FD Flower MBE, Principal, Kingsway Princeton College, London
Councillor PO Fulton JP, Chairman of Education Committee, Cleveland County Council
Mr JE Hale MBE, JP, Headmaster, Shears Green County Primary Junior School, Kent
Mr GMA Harrison, Chief Education Officer, Sheffield
Mr RN Heaton CB, formerly Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Education
Councillor EG Hett, Member of Clywd County Council
Councillor JR Horrell TD, DL, Chairman, Cambridgeshire County Council
*Mr JAR Kay, former director of various industrial concerns
Miss B Lynn, Teacher, Beech Hill Primary School, Calderdale
Mr J Macgougan, General Secretary, National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers
Miss AC Millett, Deputy Headteacher, Tile Hill Wood School, Coventry
Mr MJ Moore, OBE, JP, Deputy Chairman, Electricity Consultative Council for Merseyside and North Wales
The Rev PJ Reilly, Secretary, Birmingham Diocesan Schools Commission
Mrs J Sallis, Parent
Mrs J Stone, Parent
Mr KJ Turner, Headmaster, Foxhayes Combined County Primary School, Devon
Canon R Waddington, Bishops' Adviser for Education, Diocese of Carlisle

*Resigned 24 September 1975

Assessors

Mr MW Hodges, Department of Education and Science
Mr CA Norman, HM Inspectorate of Schools (from Nov 1976)
Mr SK Bateman, Welsh Office (until Sept 1975)
Mr JB Davies, Welsh Office (from Jan 1976)

Secretary

Mr J K Sawtell

Assistant Secretaries

Mr CR Appleby (until 31 December 1975)

Mr DA Wilkinson (from 9 February 1976)

The estimated cost of the production of the Report is £99,261, of which £9,261 represents the estimated cost of printing and publication, £66,000 the cost of administration, and £24,000 the travelling and other expenses of members.

Contents
[page ix]

Preface
Main report (a separate table of contents is at pages xiii-xv [below])
Summary of recommendations
Note of extension
Note of dissent
Minority report
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
Appendix G
Index

Preface
[pages xi - xii]

1. The report which follows is the distillation of more than two years' enquiry and discussion. The relevant law, the history of school government, and the development in recent years of a bewildering variety of practice and opinion combine to make our study a complex one.

2. Nevertheless, the essential issues which emerge from this study seem to us to be very simple, and we think they are well understood by the public, whose interest in our schools has surely never been greater. Our task was threefold. First we had to identify those areas of decision-making which ought to be school-based, given that on the one hand we have traditionally set great store in this country by the variety and individuality of our schools, and that on the other people are increasingly and properly concerned to ensure that the quality of education available to all our children is as high as we can make it. Second, we had to determine which were the interested groups with a keen and legitimate concern with the success of an individual school. Finally, we had to find a way in which these interests could combine to bring that concern to bear on the running of that individual school, ensuring that in every aspect of its life and work it reached the highest possible standards, was run both cooperatively and responsibly, and was sensitive to the needs and wishes of the community it served. Our goal was a school with enough independence to ensure its responsive and distinctive character, taking its place in an efficient local administration of an effective national service.

3. We were pleased to have been given wide terms of reference in this task, since we were able to apply ourselves to it with few constraints on our freedom of thought. In chapter 1 we describe how we set about our work and the assumptions we made. In chapter 2 we look at the existing framework for the management and government of schools which derives from the 1944 Education Act and at the development of the system as we found it within that framework, adding at Appendix B a historical note on the period preceding the 1944 Act.

4. In chapter 3 we consider the various alternative courses of action, ranging from the retention of the present system unchanged to the complete abolition of managing and governing bodies as we know them. This chapter argues the case for a revitalising of the present system, with one governing body for each school and a clear line of delegated power running from the local education authority through the governing body to the head and staff of the school. This new-style governing body would be an equal partnership of all the interests concerned.

5. Chapter 4 is concerned with the composition of the governing body while chapter 5 sets out its vital role in promoting communication and cooperation within the school and between the school and the local education authority, the parents of its children and the wider community. Chapters 6-9 examine in detail the functions of the new body in relation to the curriculum, finance, staff appointments and other matters. Chapters 10 and 11 deal with the training of the new governors and the procedures by which they should work. Voluntary schools, insofar as their management and government derives from their voluntary character, were outside our terms of reference, but in chapter 12 we consider the implications for voluntary schools of our recommendations for county schools.

Chapter 13 deals with the means by which our recommendations should be implemented, and we conclude the report with a full summary of its recommendations.

6. What the reader will seek, in following our statements of our findings and our thoughts, is evidence of a recognisable guiding philosophy, relating it particularly to the objectives of our study as set out in paragraph 2 of this Preface. The principles which seemed to us important after studying all the evidence, listening to hundreds of people concerned with the education system up and down the country, and discussing the matter among ourselves were these:

i. within the framework of national and local policies, however these may change with time, the special character of the individual school is precious to most people and should be protected;

ii. that character is essentially a product of local considerations and of the skill, support and concern of all those on the spot who care about its success;

iii. one body should have delegated responsibility for running the school, and in forming that body no one interest should be dominant - it should be an equal partnership of all those with a legitimate concern, local education authority, staff, parents, where appropriate pupils, and the community;

iv. the governing body thus formed should be responsible for the life and work of the school as a whole: we did not consider that a school's activity could be divided, and neither could accountability for its success;

v. the decision-making role of the governing body is only part of its functions: equally important is its responsibility for promoting and protecting good relationships both within the school and between the school and its parents and the wider community: where we recommend particular measures to achieve effective communication and harmonious relationships, we therefore charge the governors with the task of ensuring their satisfactory operation;

vi. while the detail of the new arrangements which we recommend should be left to a considerable extent to local discretion, the essential features should be universal.

Contents of the main report
[pages xiii - xv]

Chapter 1 Introduction
Formation and mode of operation of the Committee
The William Tyndale Schools Inquiry
Assumptions underlying the report

Chapter 2 Present arrangements for school government
The legal background
County school government in practice
The reality in 1965-69
Events since 1969
The position in 1975

Chapter 3 A new approach to school government
The range of options
Evidence
The Committee's views
Powers and responsibilities
Separate bodies for each school
The new governing bodies

Chapter 4 Membership of the new governing bodies
Local education authorities
The school staff
Parents and pupils
The wider community
Boarding schools
Community schools
Disqualification
Constitutional position of the local education authority
Term of office
Limit to the number of governing bodies on which any person should serve
Retirement age of governors
Annex: Hypothetical composition of future governing bodies

Chapter 5 Communication and cooperation
Underlying problems
Relations and communications within the school
Relations and communications with parents
The school in its wider setting

Chapter 6 Curriculum
The 1944 arrangements
Evidence
Teachers' control or shared control?
Nature of the partnership
Curriculum responsibility in action
Setting the aims of the school
Translating the school's aims into practice
Keeping under review the life and activities of the school
Deciding upon action to facilitate the school's progress
Consequences for the local education authority

Chapter 7 Finance
The 1944 arrangements
Study by Baron and Howell
Evidence
The Committee's views
Capitation and other school allowances
School building projects
Conclusion

Chapter 8 Appointments
Evidence
Appointment of the head teacher
Appointment of other teachers
Dismissal of teachers
Appointment and dismissal of supporting staff

Chapter 9 Other functions
Admissions
Suspension and expulsion
School premises
Community schools
Holidays

Chapter 10 Training the new governors

Chapter 11 Procedural arrangements for the new governing bodies
Meetings and proceedings
Frequency and time of meetings
Confidentiality and the dissemination of information
Chairman of the governing body
Clerking
Payments to members of school governing bodies

Chapter 12 The government of voluntary schools

Chapter 13 Our recommendations and their implementation

Summary of recommendations

Appendices

A Evidence
B School managing and governing bodies: a historical retrospect 597-1945
C Visits
D The Education Act, 1944: selected extracts
E The Ministry of Education's Administrative Memorandum No 25, 26 January 1945
F The governing body's letter to parents: idea of the letter which governing bodies might send to parents at the time of their formal acceptance of a place at school
G Translating the school's aims into practice: examples illustrating the part to be played by the new governing bodies