Taylor (1977)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Preface, Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Present arrangements for school government
Chapter 3 A new approach to school government
Chapter 4 Membership of the new governing bodies
Chapter 5 Communication and cooperation
Chapter 6 Curriculum
Chapter 7 Finance
Chapter 8 Appointments
Chapter 9 Other functions
Chapter 10 Training the new governors
Chapter 11 Procedural arrangements
Chapter 12 The government of voluntary schools
Chapter 13 Recommendations and implementation
Summary of recommendations

Notes of extension and dissent, minority report

Appendix A Evidence
Appendix B History of school managers and governors
Appendix C Visits
Appendix D Education Act 1944: selected extracts
Appendix E Administrative Memorandum No 25 (1945)
Appendix F Letter to parents
Appendix G Aims into practice

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.

Appendix B

School managing and governing bodies: a historical retrospective 597-1945
[pages 141 - 194]

Introduction

1. The purpose of this note to describe the more important developments in the development of the concept of school managing and governing bodies. Other matter is introduced only insofar as it is needed to explain how these developments came about, to give some indication of the climate of opinion at the time and to provide a modicum of relief. Secondary school governing bodies are dealt with first because their history is so much longer than that of primary (or elementary) school managing bodies.

Secondary (or Grammar) Schools

The earliest years

2. 'Le doctrine et enformation des enfants est chose espiritual' stated a Chief Justice of England in deciding a case in 1410 (1). To those of his hearers who understood him, the judge's statement would have seemed a truism. The schools were adjuncts of the Church. After St Augustine had brought his mission to this country in 597 he and his successors had to establish schools as well as churches - grammar schools to teach the English priests the foreign language (Latin) in which the services of the Church were conducted and song schools for the boys who chanted the services. The concept of education that Augustine and his followers brought with them was derived from the Roman and Hellenistic schools of rhetoric. It comprised the seven liberal arts and sciences which were regarded as preparatory to the study of theology, law and medicine. Of these the trivium - grammar, rhetoric and logic - were studies in preparation for the quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. The only one systematically taught in the grammar schools,was grammar, ie Latin literature and, in particular, the necessary preliminary study of Latin grammar. The aim of the schools was strictly vocational, to prepare pupils for entry to the Church, which undertook much that was subsequently to be done by other, public bodies, and later also to the legal profession. For a long time to come Latin continued to be, to a great extent, the language of theology, law, science and diplomacy.

3. The first grammar school was, in all probability, established at Canterbury in 598 and by the reign of Edward VI the cathedrals and the major collegiate churches, such as those at Beverley and Southwell, all had their grammar schools and their song schools. Up to the end of the 11th century the cathedrals and collegiate churches were staffed by secular, or ordinary, priests. Of the principal members of the chapter, the chancellor was usually responsible for the grammar school, as may be seen from the Institution of St Osmund, the Foundation Statutes of Salisbury Cathedral (1091) (2). These provided that:

'The dean presides over all canons and vicars [choral] as regards the cure of souls and correction of conduct.

The precentor ought to rule the choir as to chanting and can raise or lower the chant.

The treasurer is pre-eminent in keeping the treasures and ornaments and managing the lights. In like manner the chancellor in ruling the school and correcting the books ...

The school master ought to hear and determine the lessons, and carry the church seal, compose letters and deeds and mark the readers on the table ...'

The foundation of Winchester

5. From about the middle of the 14th century benefactions to monasteries began to dwindle. Instead wealthy benefactors, and in some cases guilds, established chantries, each with its own priest, to celebrate masses for the repose of the benefactors' souls, and also, in many cases, to conduct a school. Probably the earliest of these chantry schools was the grammar school founded at Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire in 1384 by Katharine Lady Berkeley. But the most significant event of this period was the founding by William of Wykeham of his 'Saint Marie College by Wynchester' (1382), which was to consist of a Warden and 'seventy poor and needy scholars clerks, living college-wise in the same studying and becoming proficient in grammaticals or the art, faculty or science of grammar' (5).

6. Wykeham's immediate purpose, as with his earlier foundation of New College at Oxford (1379), was 'to cure the common disease of the clerical army, which we have seen grievously wounded by lack of clerks, due to plagues, wars and other miseries' (6).

Winchester's special significance was that, though connected with New College, it was a separate and distinct foundation for school boys, 'a sovereign and independent corporation existing by and for itself, self-centred and self-governed' (7). As such it served as the model for other later foundations, notably of Eton and as the centuries rolled by, of many others. Many former pupils became the masters of other grammar schools and 'according to the use of Winchester' is a phrase often to be read in the testamentary dispositions of other benefactors. Thus was spread what AF Leach has called 'the Wykehamist afflatus'. As will be seen, these were not the only educational concerns which that spirit influenced.

7. Wykeham also provided for an external assessment of the work of the school and of its food. Every year between the 7 July and 1 October the Warden of New College and two of the 'discreeter' Fellows were, at the cost of that college, to go to Winchester 'with no more than six horses' and there 'diligently inquire and hold a scrutiny on the government of the warden of the same college and the master teacher in grammar, the ushers under him, and the scholars and other persons living in the same, and on the teaching and progress in school of the scholars of the same college, and the quality of the food provided for the same, and other articles contained in the statues of the college at Winchester; and shall correct and reform anything needing correction or reform' (8).

Government by laymen

8. In the fifteenth century, in the less inhibited atmosphere generated by the renaissance, laymen began to be more prominent both in founding and managing schools. One of the earliest schools to be managed by a mixed body of laymen and clerics was Oswestry Grammar School, for whose benefit David Holbeach, a Welsh lawyer, bequeathed land in 1404-5 (9). In 1443 John Abbott took an even more decisive step. He made the Mercers' Company Trustees of the School which he founded at Farthinghoe in Northants (10). John CoIet did the same in 1512 when he made the Mercers' Company trustees for the 'new scole at Poules'. His friend Erasmus recorded that his reason for doing so was that 'there is no absolute certainty in human affairs, but for his part he found less corruption in such a body of citizens than in any other order or degree of mankind' (11).

9. It was a natural development to make local laymen the trustees of a school, as did Sir John Percyval, a Merchant Taylor, when he founded a 'Fre Grammar Scole' at Macclesfield in 1503 'for gentilmen's sonnes and other godemennes' children of the Towne and contre thereabouts'. He did so considering that 'in the countie of Chester, and specially aboute the towne of Maxfield ... God of his habundant grace hath sent and daily sendeth to the inhabitants there copyous plentie of children, to whose lernyng and bryngyng forth in conyng and vertue right fewe Techers and Scholemaisters be in that contre' (12). From the same period dates the foundation of the grammar school at Blackburn where in 1509 the church reeves and parochyens had bought land for an 'honest, seculer prest and no reguler, suffyciently lerned in gramer and playn song, if any such can be gettyn, that shall kape continually a Free Gramer Schole' (13).

The statutes of Westminster School

10. After the Reformation and up to about 1620 the industry and commerce of the country were greatly expanded and many new schools were founded by men who had prospered from this expansion. School statutes, too, became much mote detailed. Thus those of Westminster, refounded by Elizabeth I in 1560 after the second dissolution of the monastery there, prescribed the regime for the entire school day, beginning at 5am when the boys, who slept two in a bed, were roused by the cry of 'Surgite' till 8pm when they went to bed (14). The statutes of the schools at Bangor Friars (1560) and, Ruthin (1564) were modelled on those of Westminster; they even prescribed the same number of pupils (120)(15).

11. The qualifications and duties of the Head Master and the Under Master, who were to be elected in turn by the Dean of Christ Church and the Master of Trinity, with the consent of the Dean of Westminster; were prescribed in no less detail.

'... Their duty shall be not only to teach Latin, Greek and Hebrew grammar, and the humanities, poets and orators, and diligently to examine in them, but also to build up and correct the boys' conduct, to see that they behave themselves properly in church, school, hall and chamber; as well as in all walks and games, that their faces and hands are washed, their heads combed, their hair and nails cut, their clothes both linen and woollen, gowns, stockings and shoes kept clean, neat, and like a gentleman's and so that lice and other dirt may not infect or offend themselves or their companions and that they never go out of the college precinct without leave. They shall further appoint various monitors from the gravest scholars to oversee and note the behaviour of the rest everywhere and prevent anything improper or dirty being done. If any monitor commits an offence or neglects to perform his duty he shall be severely flogged as an example to others.' (16)

The Jacobean, Georgian and early Victorian eras

12. Greek had been added to the curriculum in many schools in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and also, in a few schools, Hebrew. In the seventeenth century the growing demand for ships' captains and officers with a knowledge of mathematics led to the founding of a few schools with a mathematical bias (17). The first such school was established in Sunderland in 1652 with the aid of a grant from the Commission responsible for implementing the Act of 1650 for the Propagation of the Gospel in the four Northern Counties. (There was a similar Commission for Wales). There was in Sunderland 'exceeding great want of a Schoolemaster ... to teach children to write and instruct them in Arithmetique to fitt them for the sea or other necessary callings' (18).

13. But further progress on these lines and the liberalising tendencies that emerged under the Commonwealth were checked at the Restoration. The tendency to revert to the status quo ante was aggravated by the policy of ecclesiastical uniformity adopted after 1660 (19) and also in that and the following century by the torpid condition of the two ancient universities, where, according to Gibbon, 'decent, easy men ... supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder'. And throughout there operated what Dr RF Young has called 'that conservative and imitative tendency which is so salient a characteristic in the evolution of English political and social institutions' - and which yields to radical change only under some dire threat of national dimensions (20).

14. The consequence was that by the nineteenth century the grammar schools were, for the most part, very little changed from what they had always been. With the secular fall in the value of money their incomes had declined, unless they happened to own property in the newly developing commercial and industrial areas; they were poorly staffed - often by indigent and inadequately educated parsons in search of a benefice (21); and their curriculum was limited to Latin and Greek, which had no appeal for the emerging middle classes, who for the more practical and relevant education they sought for their sons turned to the Nonconformist dissenting academies, which had been established in increasing numbers after 1670, and to the private schools; which after 1779 (22) flourished in London and the large industrial towns. Further, though the public schools had had troubles of their own and were the subject of much criticism in the press and elsewhere, some of them under energetic and enlightened headmasters were beginning to reform themselves. The development of the railways made access to them and also to the new boarding schools that were founded from 1840 onwards much easier. But, above all, the shifts of population consequent upon the industrial revolution (and in rural areas the coincident enclosure of the commons and open fields) and the growth of population due to the decline in the infant mortality rate meant that in a great many places there were schools with too little population to support them and, in the new industrial and urban areas, too few schools, or even no schools at all, to meet the needs of their greatly increased populations. These deficiencies, and others in other aspects of life, were to be emphasised, despite the nation's outward seeming prosperity, by the threat increasingly posed by its competitors overseas and by the revealing light cast on its administrative competence by the Crimean War (1852) (23).

15. The action taken set a pattern that has endured to this day. A succession of Commissions were set up to probe into different facets of the overall problem.

The Clarendon Commission

16. This Commission was set up in 1861 'to inquire into the Revenue and Management of Certain Colleges and Schools and the studies pursued and instruction given there' (24). It reported in 1864 and the subsequent Public Schools Act set up new governing bodies for these schools (with the exception of St Paul's and Merchant Taylors') and laid on them the duty of revising the statutes, which had to be submitted for the approval of the Queen in Council.

17. There were some common features which the Commission considered these governing bodies should have:

'Such a body should be permanent in itself, being the guardian and trustee of the permanent interests of the school; though not unduly large, it should be protected by its numbers and by the position and character of the individual members from the domination of personal or local interests, or professional influences or prejudices; and we should wish to see it include men conversant with the world, with the requirements of active life and with the progress of literature and science' (25).

19. The governors' powers should include, at the least:

'The management of the property of the school and of its revenues, from whatever source derived, the control of its expenditure, the appointment and dismissal of the Head Master, the regulation of the boarding houses, of fees and charges, of Masters' stipends, of the terms of admission to the school, and of the times and length of the vacations; the supervision of the general treatment of the boys, and all arrangements bearing on the sanitary condition of the school' (27).

21. But to this statement of the headmaster's responsibilities the Commission added an important qualification.

'The introduction of a new branch of study, or the suppression of one already established, and the relative degrees of weight to be assigned to different branches, are matters respecting which a better judgement is likely to be formed by such a body of Governors as we have suggested, men conversant with the requirements of public and professional life and acquainted with the general progress of science and literature, than by a single person, however able and accomplished, whose views may be more circumscribed and whose mind is liable to be unduly pressed by difficulties of detail. What should be taught, and what importance should be given to each subject are therefore questions for the Governing Body; how to teach is a question for the Head Master.' (29)

'not only ... consider attentively any representations which the Head Master may address to them, but of their own accord ... consult him in such a manner as to give ample opportunity for the expression of his views'. (30)

24. Finally it may be noted that the Commission were not oblivious of the part that parents could play. If, they said, the parents' real object in sending a boy to a public school

'is merely or chiefly that he should make advantageous acquaintances and gain knowledge of the world, this is likely to be no secret to him, and the home influence which ought to be the Master's most efficacious auxiliary becomes in such cases the greatest obstacle to progress.' (32)

The Taunton Commission

25. This Commission was appointed in 1864 to inquire into those schools which did not fall within the remit of the Clarendon Commission or the Newcastle Commission on Popular Education of 1858. They considered 782 grammar schools, as well as proprietary and private schools, and also the secondary education of girls, to which, in the event, they gave a considerable impetus. Their recommendations for the setting up of Provincial Authorities were not accepted but others formed the basis of the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 which set up an Endowed Schools Commission to approve new schemes for the schools (33).

26. The Commission found that the country was 'in some places thickly dotted with grammar schools, which have fallen into decay because they give undue prominence to what no parents within their reach desire their children to learn'. The first requisite they concluded was:

'to adapt the schools to the work which is now required of them, by prescribing such a course of study as is demanded by the needs of the country.' (34)

28. What is of interest are the failings which the Commission's Assistant Commissioners found when they investigated the government of individual schools. Some of these were, of course, peculiar to the time; others were ordinary human failings, which could recur.

29. The grammar schools which the Commission investigated fell into three main classes, according to whether the patrons or trustees or governors were:

i. One or two (rarely more) persons, representatives of the founders, either as heirs or proprietors of certain manors or lands.

ii. A society of persons already associated for other purposes, such as a municipal corporation, livery company, an Oxford or a Cambridge college, and the dean and chapter of a cathedral.

iii. A body specially created and continued for the administration of the school or of the charity or charities of which it formed a part.

31. Of the schools in class ii the Commission found that the fears of danger to grammar schools from government by municipal corporations found no confirmation in the state of the 20 which were so governed.

32. It was a different matter with the schools whose trustees were City Companies or Colleges. Of the 27 under City Companies 10 or 12 were described as being really useful. The rest were not all bad but some appeared to involve a great waste of money, while others would have not been missed if they had not existed. It was much the same with the 17 schools which had Colleges as trustees. Three (37) were described as being in a miserable condition, the others needed much help, encouragement and oversight. A fourth, the grammar school at Thame (now part of a flourishing comprehensive school), which had been founded in 1574 by Lord Williams, on the model of Winchester but with the Warden and Fellows of New College as its trustees, was described as 'one of the greatest scandals in the country'. It had two masters receiving £300 between them, one of whom also had a good house. When the Assistant Commissioner visited the school he found one boy in it (38). There were in all four boys on the books, two of them sons of the Master. The registrations were entered in an old buttery book of New College, in which the headings for 'cheese', 'butter' etc were occasionally erased and the names of boys entered. Yet within a short distance of the school there was a private school with 80 boarders and 40 day boys and fees higher than those of the Grammar School.

33. The lessons that the Commission drew from their review of these schools were, first, the serious disadvantage of non-resident trustees and, in the case of the college schools, the serious risk of a conflicting pecuniary interest. This risk also affected the cathedral schools.

34. But it was class iii that was by far the most numerous, about three quarters of the schools investigated. Among the governing bodies of these schools the commonest failing was neglect (39). It is hardly surprising that undue interference was rare, though the Commission did note that at 'Bath a reporter was present at the quarterly meeting of the trustees and the pettiest details are circulated in the local paper'. Other failings noted were defects in the constitution of governing bodies - the requirement of residence within a small area (40); the fact that those appointed tended to be of a different social class from the pupils (41); the tendency for co-option to result in the appointment of like by like; the exclusion of dissenters (42); and the tendency of ex-officio members to be non-resident and inactive.

35. There were also defects in the size of governing bodies. Some were too small, others too large. At Blackburn, for example, there were 50 on the governing body of the grammar school. At Normanton a revenue of £10 was entrusted to a body composed of various ex-officio persons 'who can hardly have been thought likely to be less than 20, and might be almost any number'. When the Assistant Commissioner visited the school he found the master 'leisurely reading Bell's Life in London, and eleven children following their own devices'. And, of course, there were instances of incompetence or indifference on the part of masters and trustees together. Thus at Whitgift's Hospital, Croydon, the Assistant Commissioner was informed that the late master found no pupils attending the school when he came, and never had any at all during the 30 odd years that he was master.

36. In the Commission's view the greatest danger to be apprehended was neglect. They therefore recommended that bodies of trustees for grammar schools should be specially appointed for the purpose, or at least be resident within a moderate distance, and have a natural interest in the school; they should have no pecuniary interest in the estates; and if the schools were not to suffer, they should be controlled in their selection of free scholars and exhibitions by a test of intellectual qualification.

The Bryce Commission

37. This Commission, the first to include women (43), was set up in March 1894 'to consider what are the best methods of establishing a well organised system of Secondary Education in England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having regard to such local sources of revenue from endowments or otherwise as are available or may be made available for this purpose and to make recommendations accordingly'. Its report, which was submitted in 1895, led directly to the establishment, in 1899, of the Board of Education (44). The Commission had also recommended the establishment of local authorities for secondary education. In the event this precise recommendation was not adopted. Instead the Education Act 1902 made the recently created county councils and county borough councils authorities for higher, as well as for elementary education, with power to 'supply or aid the supply of higher education ... to provide or assist in providing scholarships ... and to pay or assist in paying the fees of students at schools or colleges or hostels within or without that area'. (It also made some 169 borough and urban district councils the authorities, under Part III, for elementary education in their areas).

38. The Commission accepted that in many boroughs, and even in the smaller counties, there would be advantage in the local authorities performing the functions of a governing body. 'But in the larger areas such a course would overburden them and interfere with their more important functions. On this ground, and from a desire to preserve continuity as far as possible in the management of schools, most of those who addressed us on the subject were in favour of governing bodies independent within their own spheres of the Local Authority ... As a rule, no doubt, these would, in the case of endowed schools, continue to be constituted separately for each school, but where there are a considerable number of schools fairly close to another, a suggestion made to us with regard to London, for placing groups of schools under a single governing body deserves consideration ...'

39. The Commission further recommended that the local authority should be represented on the governing bodies of endowed schools which it aided and should have a majority on the governing bodies of unendowed public schools. They also recommended that in a school wholly or partially for girls the governing body should include women. 'The proportion must vary according to circumstances but there should be no obstacle in the way of a body composed mainly or even exclusively of women.' (45)

40. As to the functions of governing bodies the Commission took the view that, subject to any general rules made by the local authority, the governing body should be entrusted with the general supervision of the school and with the exercise of such supervision over the management, teaching and curriculum as was usually conferred on governing bodies by schemes under the Endowed Schools Act (46).

41. The relation between the governing body and the head teacher on questions of internal management was seen by the Commission as being more one of cooperation than of employer and employed. They considered it essential that they should be brought together as closely as their respective duties permitted. But because, in their view, a head teacher could not be an ordinary governor and might be more embarrassed than helped by being treated as such, they recommended that every head teacher of a public secondary school should be entitled to sit, but not to vote, on the governing body of his or her school, except when the governing body for special reasons considered that that would be inexpedient (47).

1902-1939 Action under the 1902 Act

42. 'The organisation and the development of the education given in secondary schools is the most important educational question of the present day' said the Board in their report for 1903/4 in reviewing progress since the enactment of the 1902 Act. 'As soon as we pass beyond the sphere of Elementary Education proper (or what may conveniently be called by the almost disused name of Primary Education) ... we plunge into chaos'. (48) 'The object of the first importance ... is to establish a standard of quality rather than to hasten an increase in quantity.' The latter was considered to be mainly a matter for the local education authorities, The Board sought to achieve the objective they had set themselves by the processes of inspection and through the medium of the Regulations for Secondary Schools, which were issued annually (49).

43. This is not the place to examine the soundness of the Board's conception of secondary education or to go into the question [of] whether Sir Robert Morant sought to shape the schools in the image of the public schools. It must suffice to make two points. The first is that in the following half century there was to be a very considerable expansion of secondary education (50) and that, in the opinion of an eminent historian, the 1902 Act went a long way to remedying England's most obvious weakness - her dearth of higher educated personnel (51). The second is that, though as Permanent Secretary Morant (52) occupied the dominant position among officials and was, obviously, a dominating as well as dynamic personality, who provided the drive and much of the guidance, the planning of the new system of secondary education was not just the work of himself. In particular the formulation of the Regulations was very largely a team effort (53).

44. In the very first body of Regulations for Secondary Schools, those for 1902/3, it was laid down that 'every school must be under the superintendence of a body of Managers responsible to the Board' and that the managers should appoint a person to act as correspondent with the Board. Specific provision was also made for a local authority to be the managing body of a school or group of schools (54).

45. The next year the term 'governors' appeared as an alternative to 'managers', and superseded it altogether in the regulations for the following year (1904/5). The regulations for that year, which were framed with the express purpose of 'promoting the provision and organisation of Secondary Schools, each ... [with] a clearly defined purpose, and a well-considered scheme of instruction, suiting it to take its proper place in an organised system of National Education', stipulated that:

'The school must be conducted by a body of governors. The constitution and functions of the Governing Body, and their relation to the teaching staff, must be such as the Board can approve ...'

'the Board regard it as of great importance both that local interest in the management of schools should be preserved and developed, and that the Head Master or Head Mistress should not be liable to any unnecessary interference in matters of school administration for which he or she is primarily responsible. The immediate relations of the Head Master or Head Mistress will be with the Governing Body; and the control of the Local Education Authority over the school, and its relations with the school staff, should be exercised through the Governing Body.

In order to secure the best local knowledge and the best educational experience, the functions of the Governors, and their discretion in exercising them, must therefore both be considerable. Nothing should be done to discourage the best men and women available from serving as Governors of schools, or to weaken their sense of responsibility for the effective discharge of their functions; and control exercised too closely or too minutely by the Local Education Authority would leave insufficient scope in these respects to the Governors, except by their encroaching in turn on the sphere of the Head Master or Head Mistress, a result which would be no less undesirable.'

'the system on which the School is conducted and managed must be such as the Board can approve. It must define clearly both the ultimate responsibility for general control, and also the immediate responsibility for the details of management, including that of the Head Master or Head Mistress and the teaching staff for carrying on the School within the lines laid down for its work.

Where the school is not provided by a Local Education Authority, it must be conducted by a body of Governors acting under and in accordance with ... [an instrument] which defines the constitution and functions of the governing body and their relations to the teaching staff ...'

48. It was still possible for a local education authority (or one of its committees) to be the governing body of a school. That was made clear in the Regulations for 1909/10 which stated that 'the Governing Body of the School, where it is not a Local Education Authority or a Committee of a Local Education Authority, must contain a majority of representative Governors ...'

49. Towards the end of 1908 the Board had issued a model form of Articles of Government for schools provided by a Local Education Authority (Form 245). In the Prefatory Memorandum to the 1909/10 Regulations it was stated that:

'This form is not prescribed, but may be adopted when desired with such adaptations as may be suitable for the particular School. It will in any case be useful as showing the points on which the Board lay stress. Any alternative form of instrument may be proposed for acceptance which makes satisfactory provision for (a) the composition of the Governing Body; (b) the appointment and dismissal of assistant teachers; (c) the powers and responsibilities of the Head Master or Head Mistress; and (d) the relations of the Governing Body to the Local Education Authority in respect of finance. The Governing Body should be so constituted as to ensure that it shall be in full personal touch with the School, that it shall have time and interest for the effective discharge of its duties, and that it shall not be overloaded with other functions. There should be secured to the Head Master or Head Mistress a voice in appointment and dismissal of the assistant staff, and a right to submit proposals to, and be consulted by, the Governing Body.'

'He had envisaged the state secondary school of the future as mirroring the great public school as he knew it - with a responsible governing body, a self-respecting head master and a life and soul of its own. He found that many local officials had very different ideas. They planned to run all the secondary schools of their area under one higher education sub-committee, on one uniform pattern, with the head masters in a subordinate position and without direct access to any responsible body of governors.

Morant fumed and stormed against these petty bureaucrats, as he called them, 'who would technicalise every school in the place'; he cajoled them and he threatened; he even withdrew grants to recalcitrant authorities; but he only partially succeeded (and to this day his plans for locally maintained secondary schools with real status have not come to full fruition).

His partial failure doubtless reflected the strength of local bureaucracy, but it was also in some measure a result of his greatest weakness as an administrator - the tendency, which we have already noticed, to personify opposition.'

52. After Morant left the Board, in 1911, the 1909/10 Regulations continued in force up to 1917 and the new Regulations which were made in that year repeated word for word the management provisions of the 1909/10 Regulations. These provisions indeed continued substantially unchanged until they were superseded by an entirely fresh body of regulations made under a different Act.

The types of grant aided grammar school

53. At this point it may be helpful to describe the different types of secondary grammar school that came into being under the 1902 Act since they were described by terms that were also used in the 1944 Act but with a different connotation. Authorities could exercise their powers under the 1902 Act by building new schools; by aiding schools provided by others and by paying the fees of pupils not under their control. When the Act came into operation a number of schools were already receiving a capitation grant from the Board - a survival from the old grants to Science and Art classes; others were recognised for the first time. Some of these also received aid from the local education authority. This was of no consequence until 1919 when, following the introduction of percentage grants to local education authorities, it was considered that the Board should not pay direct grant to a school and percentage grant to the local education authority on its expenditure in aiding that same school. Accordingly schools were given the option to decide by 1926 whether they would receive grant direct from the Board or indirectly through the local education authority.

54. There were, therefore, three main types of school:

i. Provided and maintained schools (usually referred to as 'maintained schools'). This category included all schools provided or fully maintained by local education authorities. It also included a certain number of former endowed schools which, owing to the depletion of their resources, had been 'municipalised'. A scheme had been framed placing them virtually under the control of the local education authority.

ii. Aided schools, ie all other schools which received their grant solely through the local education authority. They were usually regulated by schemes or similar instruments.

iii. Direct grant schools, ie those schools which received grant direct from the Board.

55. In Wales events had taken a somewhat different course. Following the report of the Committee on Intermediate and Higher Education in Wales (1881), the Aberdare report, the Welsh Intermediate and Technical Education Act of 1889 provided for the establishment for each county and county borough of a joint education committee. It was the duty of these committees to prepare and submit, through the Charity Commissioners, for the approval of the Education Department in Whitehall, schemes for the provision of intermediate and technical education in their areas. The Act also provided for the establishment of a Central Welsh Board to coordinate the system, inspect the schools and examine their pupils.

56. The schemes provided for a county governing body, who acted mainly as trustees, and a local, undenominational and representative, governing body for each school. Many of the provisions of these schemes are like those in English schemes. It is, however, noteworthy that the appointment (and dismissal) of the headmaster was vested in the county governing body, which had first to consider a written report by a specially constituted committee. This committee consisted of not less than seven persons, of whom three were to be local governors and four county governors. The latter were not appointed until it was known who the local governors were to be.

57. The purpose of the Act of 1889 was to bring secondary education within the reach of the whole population. The county committees, therefore, followed a policy of establishing several day schools in each county rather than a few large schools with hostel provision or to which pupils could be conveyed. By the end of 1903 there were no less than 96 intermediate schools, of which 17 were old foundations and 79 new schools. If they did not wholly achieve the expectations of their founders, it was because the Central Welsh Board, established in 1896, tended to overemphasise its examination responsibilities and the parents were vociferous in their demands for certificates. The local governors had discretion to arrange a suitable curriculum (56) and some of them sought to influence their head masters towards a less academic bias. In general, however, they had little real influence over the curriculum (57). The consequence was that notwithstanding the clear intentions of the Act and of the schemes made under it that the instruction should be suited to the needs of each district, the schools tended to be forced into a uniform mould and their curricula concentrated on standard examinable subjects.

1939-45

58. In the inter-war years there had been no significant developments though there was no lack of ideas about what needed to be done. Once more in the history of this country it was to be a major war that was to be the catalyst which precipitated a real advance. At the beginning of the war the conditions and habits of many of the evacuees from the more densely populated urban areas had appalled the rest of the country. Thereafter the crumbling of the evacuation scheme, the persistence of half-time schooling and the delay in starting up school medical and meals services for the returning evacuees gave rise to increasing criticism of the education services and of the Board for what was considered to be the weakness of its authority.

The Green Book

59. On the 19 October 1940 while Mr Ramsbotham (later Lord Soulbury) was still President, the Board's main office was established in the Branksome Dene Hotel at Bournemouth (58). There, in the pine-laden atmosphere and within sight of the gently swelling sea and even though disturbed from time to time by an air raid (59), the Board's senior officers had ample opportunity to reflect on the measures needed in the field of education to achieve the Prime Minister's ideal of 'establishing a state of society where the advantages and privileges which hitherto have been enjoyed only by the few, shall be far more widely shared by the men and youth of the nation as a whole'.

60. The proposals of the Board's officials were set out in Education after the war, the Green Book which was circulated, on a strictly confidential basis, to selected recipients in June 1941 (60). These proposals were the basis of much (though by no means all) of what was subsequently to be enacted in the Education Act 1944. The fundamental aim was to secure a greater unification of the educational system and a wider spread of its benefits. With this in mind, it was proposed, among many other things, that the existing differentiation between elementary and secondary education should be abolished and that, instead, there should be three stages of education, primary, secondary and further; the provision of secondary education should be a duty and not just a power of local education authorities; all schools at the secondary stage should be subject to a single Code of Regulations 'providing for equality of treatment in such matters as accommodation, size of classes, etc'; and all secondary schools provided, maintained or aided by local education authorities should be free. Fees, it was suggested, should continue to be charged in the direct grant grammar schools.

61. Inevitably the Green Book had a great deal to say about the dual system (of provided, or council, and non-provided, or voluntary, schools), and it was predominantly in that context that the position of managing and governing bodies was considered. It was believed that, instead of ending the dual system, public opinion would look for some measure of extended financial assistance to the non-provided schools, 'accompanied, as it must be, by such extended public control as is necessary, not simply to secure a quid pro quo, but to ensure the effective and economical organisation and development of both primary and secondary education'.

62. It is unnecessary to go into the details of the Green Book proposals in this particular sphere since they were, in the event, superseded. It is, however, of interest that whereas it was proposed that a local education authority should have the duty to maintain a non-provided secondary modern school, it was not considered necessary to impose a similar obligation on local education authorities in the case of aided secondary grammar schools. It was thought that it could be left to authorities to decide whether in the altered circumstances brought about by the abolition of fees they would continue to aid the school on the existing basis, or demand, as a condition of continued aid, a greater measure of control in the governance of the school. It was also proposed that the management of non-provided modern schools should be in the hands of governing bodies constituted in accordance with the regulations applicable to secondary schools generally. Aided secondary schools already had such governing bodies.

63. Mr Butler had succeeded Mr Ramsbotham as President in July 1941 and it was he who conducted the ensuing discussions with interested organisations, which lasted, on and off, from November 1941 to April 1943. In these discussions attention was largely concentrated on the proposals for the reform of the dual system and such issues as the redefinition of the stages of education and the recasting of the units of administration. The local education authority associations thought that all post-primary schools, including the direct grant schools, should be governed and administered on similar lines; they objected to the continuance of the direct grant schools because they had too little control over the appointment and actions of the governors (61). The Headmasters' Conference naturally took a contrary line; they agreed that in many areas financial dependence on the local education authorities would be no handicap, but elsewhere they had reason to fear a rigid control by the Education Committee and, still more, by the Director of Education.

64. At first the position of the aided secondary schools attracted little attention but the implications of the proposals for the recasting of the dual system had not escaped the notice of Canon Spencer Leeson (62). In a letter to Sir Maurice Holmes on the 16 December 1942 he said:

'... the Grant Aided Schools are full of suspicion ... they have got the impression that the local education authorities are trying to circumvent their freedom, first, by proposing the abolition of fees, and, secondary, by manipulating the Dual System in ways with which the Headmasters are not familiar; and many of the Headmasters suspect that the Board are with the local education authorities in this matter.' (63)

66. At this meeting it was represented by Canon Leeson and others that the abolition of fees in 'aided' schools was an indirect attempt to destroy their independence; continuation under an independent governing body was life to them and head masters would resist the destruction of their freedom to the limit of their power. They did not wish to see the life of the schools subject to the ebb and flow of local politics. Examples were cited of interference by local education authorities over such matters as the teaching of Greek and the continuation of contingents of the Officers' Training Corps; such interference was said to be specially serious in the north of England and in the county boroughs. If only the President could contrive to smooth out the administrative difficulties without infringing the independence of the school he would find he had their support. Mr Butler told the deputation that it was unthinkable that the secondary schools should be left in isolation, untouched by reform. They must shortly face the day when tuition fees would be abolished and he put it to them that, as well as benefiting financially, they would be better off under the arrangements he was now proposing. (These were the new proposals for the reform of the dual system which had superseded the Green Book proposals, and were to be announced in the White Paper on Educational Reconstruction (Cmnd 6458)). Under these proposals their relationships with the local education authorities would be clearly defined, instead of their being left to be subjected to whatever conditions of aid the local education authority chose to impose, or even municipalised. He cited the severe conditions for grant to aided schools laid down by the Birmingham local education authority as an indication of what they could expect. No definite conclusions were reached beyond Mr Butler's undertaking to write to the associations setting out his proposals, of which he had given a detailed account at the beginning of the meeting.

The Fleming Committee's special report on the abolition of fees

67. Prior to this meeting Mr Butler had, on 7 November 1942, invited the Fleming Committee to make known to him their views about the suggestion on which 'a good deal of discussion has taken place', that tuition fees should be abolished in grant-aided secondary schools. His reason for seeking the Committee's views was that a number of these schools were public schools as defined in the Committee's terms of reference.

68. The Committee's report, which was submitted in April 1943, has by now passed into oblivion (65). Mr Butler was disquieted by the majority's recommendation that fees should be abolished in direct grant, as well as in maintained schools (66). Mr Chuter Ede while accepting the conclusion of the majority was unimpressed by either its arguments or those of the minority (67). Nevertheless the views expressed in the report about the respective responsibilities of local education authorities, governing bodies and head teachers both reflected and influenced the trend of thinking within the Department (68) and outside it and also affected subsequent developments. Because it still merits study there is reproduced in Annex II the passage in which the Committee described their basic approach.

69. The Committee saw themselves faced with two problems - defining and safeguarding the functions and duties of the governors and teachers in the internal organisation of secondary schools of all types; and preserving within the grant-aided system a type of school in which the governors and teachers should enjoy the fullest autonomy compatible with the general responsibilities of local education authorities for their areas.

70. Basing themselves upon the experience of forty years of secondary education administered by local authorities, the Committee's answer was to propose that suitable instruments or articles of government should be adopted by the local education authorities and governors on the lines of a model prepared by the Board of Education, after due consideration of the views of the parties involved. They further recommended that these instruments or articles should be given statutory sanction and that the principles on which they should be based should be included in the Bill. They did not, of course, think that the same instruments or articles would necessarily be suitable for all types of schools but they did believe that the principles they advocated should apply to maintained no less than to aided schools.

71. They further suggested that the points with which the instruments or articles should deal should include:

i. The institution of a separate governing body for each school and its composition and method of appointment.

ii. The functions of the governing body, which should include the appointment of the head masters or head mistresses in consultation with the local education authority, and the general financial administration of the school within the limits of the financial provision made by the local education authority.

iii. The relationships between head masters and head mistresses and their governing bodies, in particular their right of direct access to the governing body and of attendance at its meetings, and their functions, which should include control of the general organisation, curriculum and discipline of the school and of its incidental minor finance, and the appointment of the assistant staff with the approval of the governing bodies.

The discussions continued

73. Following the meeting with the governing bodies and other associations on 18 December 1942 Mr Butler had another meeting with Canon Leeson on 21 December before the annual meeting of the HMC in the New Year. As well as making Canon Leeson read in front of him the Birmingham local education authority's conditions of aid, Mr Butler warned him that he should not attempt to form a block of all the secondary school system in opposition to the alterations in the secondary school world which must be regarded as inevitable. If his whole attitude of mind were dominated by fear he would be neither a good politician nor a good headmaster. He did not feel, however, that fear or 'mighty dread' need overwhelm him. Schemes of management could be drawn up which would define the relationships of the governing body and the head master with the local education authority and its Director (70).

74. The message evidently got through. Reporting on the HMC's meeting Canon Leeson indicated (19 January 1943) (71) that, while they still disputed on educational grounds the wisdom of abolishing tuition fees, their apprehensions would be allayed if there were full statutory guarantees (for which, if necessary, they would have to fight 'tooth and claw'), to be administered by the Board, for the maintenance of spiritual, educational and administrative freedom and independence, and their extension to all schools. He went on to state what these guarantees should cover - a separate governing body for each school; the head master and staff to be represented on the governing body and the head master to have a right to be present at their meetings, with full opportunity to state his views; appointments to the staff to rest with the governors, in the case of assistant masters on the recommendation of the head master; the school premises and endowments to be vested in the governing body; the annual grant to the school to be assessed in relation to the needs of the school and the governing body to have the financial responsibility on the basis of that assessment once it had been approved; and a right in the school authorities, in consultation with others interested, to receive applications for admission and to make a selection from them.

75. In the subsequent letter (4 March 1943) Canon Leeson, while attempting to refute the charge that the Conference were opposing reform, on the ground that what was under consideration was 'not educational reform but administrative change', expressed his Committee's willingness to help in the negotiation of model articles of government (72).

76. Canon Leeson, who was not lacking in either resilience or dog-collared persistence, continued to reiterate these and similar points both at subsequent meetings and in a succession of letters. Even Mr Butler's patience was sorely tested when on 25 May 1943 (73) there was communicated to him a resolution (which Canon Leeson subsequently said he had done his best to avoid) in which the Conference

'while reaffirming their opposition on educational grounds to the abolition of tuition fees in grant-aided schools, desire to cooperate to the full in the advancement of English education by any means in their power. They regard themselves as charged especially to uphold the principle of spiritual and educational freedom in all post primary schools; and they must, therefore, press for the establishment of Model Articles of Government for all these schools to preserve those essential freedoms'.

'I am by temperament for these schools, but this sort of resolution calls I feel for a short answer indicating that we see through this unwise cant.'

78. But from now on the problem became one of identifying the best means of achieving the desired ends. The White Paper on Educational Reconstruction (Cmnd 6458), which was published in July 1943 (75), was warmly welcomed, both in and out of parliament, and there was a general desire to see the reforms it outlined speedily enacted. Within the circles of HMC, for whom Canon Leeson had laboured so unceasingly since 1939, other voices were beginning to come into prominence, including those of some who were members of the Fleming Committee and had, perhaps, a better understanding of the role of the local education authorities and were not obsessed by the fear that the coincidence of the proposals to abolish fees in maintained schools and to reform the dual system was the outward manifestation of a plot to undo the older grammar schools. The IAHM, too, were beginning to play a more prominent part. There was a real desire to cooperate. AlI the outside organisations concerned wanted model articles and wanted to see them produced quickly. The questions to be settled were two. First, would it be feasible to produce a model which would be applicable to schools of such varying types and no less varying in the degree of financial responsibility which would rest on the local education authority? Second, assuming that such a model could be produced, should it, by some means or other, be given statutory backing?

79. The general feeling within the Department was against laying a White Paper on articles of government during the passage of the Bill through parliament. Articles ought to be negotiated between the parties concerned; it would hardly be possible to produce typical articles since there was no typical school and by the time the Bill received the Royal Assent any model articles laid during its passage might no longer be appropriate (76). This view was strongly held by Sir Maurice HoImes (77) and in large measure adopted by Mr Butler in a letter he sent on 24 December 1943 to Mr Henry Brooke, who had mooted the possibility of laying model articles. He did not, however, exclude the possibility of evolving 'sets of Articles which would prima facie be appropriate. But such sets of articles, before being imposed by order, would need examination in the case of each school, in the light of the views of the individual Local Education Authority (not of some body representative of Local Education Authorities in general), the circumstances of the school and the manner in which the school, if an existing one, had previously been conducted.' (78)

80. One obstacle was removed when, early in 1944, a joint submission was made by the Incorporated Association of Head Masters and the Headmasters' Conference specifying the principles which they wished to see included in the Bill or, if that should be impossible, embodied either in a White Paper sent round to local education authorities as a guide or in a statement by the President in the House. In a covering letter LW Taylor, the joint secretary of the two organisations, said 'I think everyone realises that inclusion in the Bill is impossible - hence the suggested alternative methods of establishing basic principles for all Model Articles or rather all articles'. (79)

81. The points to which the two organisations attached importance were developed by their representatives at a meeting on 26 January 1944 (80) (attended also by representatives of the Association of Headmistresses). In summary form they were:

1. Every secondary school should have its own governing body.

2. Such governing bodies should have their own clearly defined spheres of responsibility, including (subject to clause 23 of the Bill) the appointment of the head master and, on his recommendation, of the staff.

3. Every governing body should include persons of educational experience who need not be members of the local education authority or any of its committees.

4. Subject to clause 22 of the Bill, the head master should have control of the internal organisation, management and discipline of the school.

5. The head master should have direct access to the chairman of the governing body and the right to be present at its meetings, save when otherwise determined at any particular meeting.

6. The articles should include legitimate safeguards for the position of the head master and the staff.

83. In reply to suggestions from the head master of Nottingham High School, one of the Fleming minority, he said that he could hold out no hope of the Bill's being amended by the government to enable the Board, as a long term policy, to insist on a separate governing body for every school and in the meantime to require separate governing bodies for grammar schools or, where joint governing bodies were proposed, to set a time limit to their existence. Many senior public elementary schools would be entering the secondary sphere and some large urban local education authorities took the view that there was no practicable alternative to grouping.

The Genesis of the White Paper (Cmnd 6523)

84. In the event, the divergence of views apprehended by Mr Butler did not prove to be so great. By the middle of February both the IAHM and the Association of Directors and Secretaries of Education (ADS) had produced tentative draft models and an examination of them within the Department disclosed a considerable measure of agreement, as may be seen from the following tabular summary (81).

85. The way was, therefore, clear for discussions to take place. The talks with the ADS and the IAHM (on 29 February 1944 and 2 January 1944) proceeded on the basis of a document headed 'Points for Interview'. No copy of this document seems to have survived but it seems likely that it posed three general issues and then the five specific topics listed in the summary of the two bodies' proposals. Both bodies accepted the general propositions that a memorandum setting out agreed principles, with detailed suggestions where appropriate, would be appropriate; that there was no reason why the same broad principles should not apply to all types of secondary schools; and that the same principles might apply to county, controlled and aided schools, subject to certain differences in matters of detail. There was also ready acceptance of the proposition that schools should be governed by properly constituted governing bodies, though the ADS considered that the governing bodies of county schools should be made sub-committees of the local education authorities. The IAHM for their part agreed that the authority should settle the broad type of education to be given in a school and its place in the local system, subject to changes in its organisation and character being made in consultation with the governing body and to directions about the organisation and curriculum being communicated to the governors by the local education authority and not given individually by the Director of Education. They also recognised the need for grouping governing bodies in some cases, though they did not favour combining different types of school under the same governing body.

86. Such few differences as emerged - and they were not serious - concerned such matters as:

1. The appointment of the head teacher - the IAHM favoured appointment by the governing body, subject to confirmation or consent by the local education authority, but agreed that the joint committee procedure in force in Surrey merited further consideration; for county and controlled schools the ADS preferred the practice, analogous to that in London, of the shortlist being drawn up by the governors, with the help of a local education authority representative, and the final appointment being made by the appropriate committee of the local education authority, with a governor present but not voting.

2. The suggestion, favoured by the IAHM, that the governors and head teacher should have a proportion of the vacancies at their disposal. The ADS were opposed to this but were inclined to agree that, if possible, some means should be found of associating the governors and head teacher with the process of admissions.

88. The draft of the White Paper was submitted to Mr Butler on 21 April 1944. It was published on 4 May 1944, twelve days before the Education Bill had its first reading in the House of Lords.

The Bill in Parliament

89. For the secondary schools the significant features of clause 16 (Constitution of managers and governors and conduct of county and [voluntary] schools) in the Bill presented to parliament were two. First, whereas all grammar schools had had instruments or articles, which varied a great deal and did not in many cases require the approval of the Department, in future all secondary schools were to have instruments and articles, the voluntary school instruments and articles being made by an Order of the Minister and county school articles requiring the approval of the Minister. This last requirement was a change from past practice. The second innovation was the stipulation that the position of the head teacher in relation to the governing body should be settled in the articles.

90. The fact that discussions were proceeding with the interested parties and the knowledge that there was a good prospect of reaching agreement undoubtedly facilitated the passage of clause 16 and the related clauses. So also did the fact that on the day, 9 March 1944, on which the House of Commons in Committee considered these clauses they were for the first time working to a voluntary timetable which had been devised to speed up the examination of the Bill (85). There was, therefore, little disposition to be long-winded or to press amendments (86). The only amendment pressed to a division was one moved by Mr Clement Davies (Carmarthen, Lib) to reduce the number of foundation members on managing bodies. It was essentially a demonstration of Welsh nonconformist sentiment and as such both brief and calm (87).

91. Mr Butler had, therefore, little difficulty in dealing with amendments to ensure that articles would be in general conformity with articles set out in a schedule to the Bill. He promised to lay the results of the discussions before the end of the passage of the Bill 'either here or in another place'. He was equally successful in resisting amendments moved by spokesmen for the schools designed to extend the Minister's power of approval or control and amendments moved by local authority spokesmen aimed at limiting it. He based himself on the proposition that the object of the clause was to preserve a proper, individual life for the school but equally to preserve the proper position of those who had the responsibility for education in their own areas (88).

92. As to the remaining clauses in this group, an amendment to clause 17 (Managers of primary schools), by Mr Harvey (Combined English Universities, Independent), a Quaker, to secure the inclusion of at least one parent on managing bodies met with a sympathetic response. Even so Mr Kenneth Lindsay (Kilmarnock, Nat Lab), a former Parliamentary Secretary to the Board, and Captain Cobb (Preston, Conservative), a former chairman of the LCC Education Committee, were worried by the problem of selecting a parent. So also was Mr Chuter Ede. He confessed to being a little suspicious of the nominees of parents' associations, 'because it is not always the best person who is put forward, but the most thrusting person who thinks he has to justify his existence by making as much trouble as he can' (89). A similar amendment, to clause 18 (Governors of secondary schools), moved by Mr Lindsay to secure the inclusion of parents and persons of educational experience on the governing bodies of secondary schools also met with a sympathetic response (90), though the consideration of it was overlaid by the discussion of another (unrelated) amendment which the Deputy Chairman had selected for discussion with it.

93. Clause 19 (Grouping of schools under one management) provoked amendments designed either to limit to four the number of schools that could be grouped (Mr Harvey) or to restrict the operation of the clause to county boroughs (Professor Gruffyd, University of Wales, Lib) or to primary schools (Captain Cobb). In his reply Mr Butler reminded the House that the clause re-enacted existing legislation and went on to say that, in the light of discussion with those responsible for education in the great cities, he had concluded that it was essential to have a power to amalgamate certain schools which would fall within the secondary sphere - 'partly because, in a compact city, you will get overlapping of personnel and problems'. He also questioned the wisdom of embodying in the statute a precise numerical limitation. He frankly admitted the weakness in his argument but said that he would rather have the clause with its general powers, on the understanding that it would not be misused. From the information he had he could say that there was no intention on the part of the important authorities to misuse the clause (91).

94. By the time the Bill reached the House of Lords (16 May 1944) the White Paper on the Principles of Government had been published. It is a measure of its general acceptability that only two amendments were put down to this group of clauses. If it had been otherwise, there would have been no shortage of speakers in that House to put the schools' point of view with conviction and force. Of the two amendments put down one, moved by Earl Stanhope, a former President of the Board, proposed to substitute 'articles of association' for 'rules of management' and 'articles of government'. Like Mr Gallacher (West Fife, Communist) and his left-wing supporters who in the House of Commons had sought to substitute 'school council' for both managing and governing body, Earl Stanhope's aim, though he stood at the opposite end of the political spectrum, was to remove the distinction in the Bill between managers and governors. The Earl of Selborne, who was in charge of the Bill, easily persuaded the House that 'articles of association' had commercial associations that made it inappropriate (92).

95. The major relevant change made in the House of Lords was the replacement of clause 8(2)(b), which had been added in the House of Commons (93), by the insertion of what is now Section 76 (General Principle to be observed by Minister and Local Education Authorities: Pupils to be educated in accordance with wishes of parents) (94).

The 1945 model

96. A model instrument and articles for county secondary schools were issued on 26 January 1945. It was known that local education authorities would welcome the issue of such a model.

It was thought, too, that it would reduce the load of work on the Department's Legal Branch who were responsible for approving or making the necessary Orders. No inconsistency was seen with Mr Butler's remarks during the parliamentary proceedings since the model was designed for county secondary schools only and its issue as an administrative action was very different from incorporating a model in an Act of Parliament (95).

The last word

97. The last word in this section may be left with Canon Leeson. In his book 'The Public Schools Question' (96) he included an essay on 'The Education Act, 1944, and The Grammar Schools'. He considered the question how, if the hold of the state over secondary education were to be extended and strengthened, could essential freedoms be maintained in the day to day administration of the schools. He passed in review the relevant provisions of the 1944 Act and also the White Paper on the Principles of Government in Maintained Secondary Schools. On the latter his verdict was that its authors were to be congratulated on the courage and resourcefulness with which they had tackled a difficult problem, and had worked out something which on paper at any rate was fair and reasonable. Then in a passage, which is too long to be quoted in extenso, but which, perhaps especially in this day and age, merits careful study, he specified what he considered to be the essentials for the different parties concerned. He concluded by saying:

'What counts perhaps most of all is mutual confidence and the individual care of the governing bodies for the individual school.'

Elementary (or primary) schools

98. The first schools to provide instruction in reading, and possibly also in writing were the song schools. Such a school was described by Chaucer in the Prioress's Tale:

'A litel scole of Cristen folk ther stood
Doun at the ferther ende, in which ther were
Children an heep, y-comen of Cristen blood,
That lerned in that scole yere by yere
Swich manner doctrine as men used there
This is to seyn, to singen and to rede,
As smale children doon in hir childhede.'

'I Ierne song, I can but smal gramere'

99. Under the Commonwealth some advance was made, notably in Wales, where under the 'Act for the Better Propagation of the Gospel in Wales' over sixty free schools were established (98). An even more far-reaching development in that period was the increasing acceptance of English as the proper medium of instruction. This paved the way for the remarkable expansion of elementary education which took place in the following century. There was at the time a great sense of philanthropy which manifested itself in a variety of ways. Of these the most popular was the establishment of charity schools. A great many schools were established either by endowment (99) or by private subscribers, who also contributed to the schools' maintenance. 'Instruction in Bible and catechism during the formative years of childhood', the historian of the charity school movement has written (100), 'before the infant population was ready for apprenticeship or service, would build up a God-fearing population and, at the same time, would inoculate the children against the habits of sloth, debauchery and beggary, which characterised the lower orders of society' - especially in the slums of London and Westminster. It would also help to protect the Protestant succession against the machinations of Rome. Children who had learned the Anglican catechism, the psalms and prayers, said the Archdeacon of Huntingdon in a charity school sermon in 1706, 'would never stoop to beads and Latin charms, nor bow their neck to the dark slavery of Rome' (101).

100. Of special interest for present purposes is the Grey Coat Hospital School, Westminster, which was established by six tradesmen of the parish of St Margaret's. As well as contributing generously themselves, they persuaded others to do so, and they called a meeting of subscribers to discuss a scheme for the charity. A house was taken for the school, a master appointed and a statement of what would now be called 'aims and objectives' drawn up for his guidance. 'The principall designe of this Schoole' was the education of poor children in the principles of piety and virtue. The master was instructed 'to study to endeavour to win the love and affection of the children, thereby to invite and encourage them, rather than by correction to force them to learne ... reason as well as experience having plainly shown that too great severity does rather dull than sharpen the wits and memory'.

101. Nor was that all. The trustees, records Miss Jones, 'met every week to supervise the charity they had set up. They ordered the new grey coats for the children, and were present when the tailor tried them on. They supplied the mothers with grey yarn to make stockings for the children and prevailed upon their own wives and daughters to make the caps and stitch the bands which constituted the boys' uniform. Convinced believers in the value of inspection, they evolved schemes for testing the children's progress in learning, at first making themselves each responsible for the examination of five of the children, and later arranging on every quarter day a general examination by the whole body of governors, putting on a file specimens of the children's writing 'to judge, from time to time, of their progress in learning' (102).

102. The charity school movement petered out towards the end of the century partly because of defective administration and the misappropriation and mismanagement of so much of the monies left for the education of the poor and partly because it got caught up in the struggles between high and low churchmen early in the eighteenth century. Nevertheless it had laid a foundation on which the National and the British and Foreign Schools Societies were able to build when they entered the field in 1811 and in 1814. Though his figures must be treated with reserve, Lord Brougham estimated that there were in 1818 about 18,500 schools in England and Wales, of which about 4,100 were endowed schools; the remaining 14,500 were financed by fees or by voluntary subscriptions.

103. The National Society provided building grants - its aim was the establishment of a church school in every parish; applications for help towards the teachers' salaries were refused. The British and Foreign Schools Society supplied its schools with teachers trained at its expense. As a result of both societies' efforts the number of children attending day schools in 1828 was double that of 1818. But there were still a great many children who were not attending school at all and it was becoming ever more clear that the needs could not be met by unaided voluntary effort. In 1833, the year after the passing of the first Reform Act, parliament made its first grant (£20,000) for education. Six years later the Committee of the Privy Council on Education was established, with Dr James Kay-Shuttleworth (as he became known) as its first secretary, to administer the increased grants then made available by Parliament.

104. The Committee made it a condition of aiding a school that it should be open to inspection and that it should be conducted in accordance with a suitable scheme of management. Their reasons for insisting upon the latter were explained in a letter sent to the Diocesan Board of the Deanery of Bristol on 7 October 1847:

'The provision for school management in the trust deed comprised every form of negligent or discordant arrangements. Often there was no management clause, in which case the government of the school devolved on the individual trustees, and their heirs, who might be non-resident, minors, lunatics or otherwise incapable. When a management clause was inserted there was seldom any provision for the supply of vacancies or re-election, nor any qualifications for the office of management.

Consequently in the majority of these schools, the seeds were sown of future parochial disputes or litigation; of uncontested usurpation, of alienations of the trust property to other public uses, or of absorption of the property into the estate of the proprietors. Time and opportunity alone were wanting to ripen this harvest of discord, confusion or plunder.' (103)

106. Taking model A as a sample, the principal officiating minister had the superintendence of the religious and moral instruction of the scholars. In all other respects the management, direction, control and government of the school, its premises, funds and endowments ... and the selection, appointment and dismissal of the school master and school mistress and their assistants were vested in and exercised by a committee of management. This committee consisted of the principal officiating minister, his licensed curate(s), the wardens (if so desired), and an unspecified number of other persons who were members of the Church of England and who had at least a life interest in property in the parish or were resident in it, and who contributed twenty shillings a year to the funds of the school. They were elected annually by contributors of at least ten shillings a year who were members of the Church of England and qualified by residence or estate. The officiating minister was chairman and another member of the committee was deputed to act as secretary. Decisions were reached by a majority of votes.

107. Differences within the managing body about religious education were determined by the bishop. Other differences were referred for determination by a panel consisting of HMI and a beneficed clergyman nominated by the bishop and an Anglican JP selected by HMI and the clergyman.

108. The managing body was also authorised to appoint a committee of Anglican ladies to assist them in the visitation and management of the girls' and infants' school.

109. Somewhat similar models were evolved for the Wesleyans and the Roman Catholics. The principal differences were that in the case of the Wesleyans, the chairman was the (circuit) superintendent (or his nominee); in the case of the Roman Catholics the managing body consisted of the priest and six other members nominated by him, unless and until the bishop directed that they should be elected by contributors to the funds of the school. The associated ladies' committee was also limited to six.

110. It was the aim of the Committee of Council in framing these models 'to secure for the clergy their rightful influence in the management and to provide for a proper representation of those of the laity who, as members of the Church, by their subscriptions, exertions and influence, promote the prosperity of the Parochial schools'. (104)

111. The models did not pass unchallenged. The Roman Catholic Poor Schools Committee pressed for a provision which would give the bishop the power to decide whether any particular matter or dispute did or did not involve or affect religion or morals. To their Lordships that savoured of absolutism. 'It would not be consistent with their view of the civil interests of education ... to provide for the absolute supremacy of the spiritual power ... The only tribunal they could sanction would be one in which all the parties would be adequately represented'. (105)

112. A more serious and sustained challenge came from the National Society and in particular from Archdeacon Denison (106) and his supporters. For the Archdeacon, it has been written, there were two principles which were above question. First, there must be no state interference in the internal affairs of schools; this meant no State-Management Clauses whatsoever. Second, school promoters must be at liberty to give to the parish priest absolute control and no representation of the laity must be enforced (107).

113. If the moderates in the National Society had had their way they would in all probability have reached an accommodation with the Committee of Council. But the turbulent Archdeacon and his supporters were too strong for them and since neither the Society nor the Committee could or would give way, negotiations were broken off. But this did not prevent the Committee of Council from enforcing the clauses on promoters who sought aid. And brought into operation they were, in Wales to begin with (108).

The Newcastle Commission 1858-1861

114. The report of this Commission, which was set up to inquire into complaints (109) against the existing system is relevant in the present context only insofar as its outcome, Lowe's Revised Code of 1861, put more responsibility on voluntary school managers and changed their relationship with the teachers. From then on grants were no longer paid, as some had been, to teachers and pupil teachers, but to the managers. All payments to a school were merged into a single capitation grant and the payment of this grant, which was limited to pupils under 12, was dependent on a certain number of attendances being made by the children and to the examination by HMI of each child in reading, writing and arithmetic. To stimulate local cooperation the amount of grant was related to the school's income from fees and subscriptions. 'If the new system will not be cheap' said Lowe, 'it will be efficient, and if it will not be efficient, it will be cheap'.

The Education Act 1870

115. The new arrangements aroused widespread criticism and in 1864 Lowe was driven from office. In any case it was by then becoming increasingly clear that more fundamental measures were required if the country's educational needs were to be met. This was what Forster's Education Act of 1870 sought to do. It had two objects - to cover the country with good schools and to get the parents to send their children to them. As a first step the country was mapped out into school districts, each separately chargeable with the duty of providing elementary education within its borders. These districts were boroughs and parishes or groups of parishes; the metropolis was made a district by itself. A school board was to be established in every school district which required more schools. A school fund was also to be established, made up of income from fees, grants and money raised by rate. The Board were empowered to delegate to local managers any of their powers except that of raising money.

The Cross Commission 1886-1888

116. This Commission was set up to review the working of the Elementary Education Acts in England and Wales (110). In chapter 3 of its Final Report it considered school management.

'If we regard the school as a place of education in which the character is to be formed as well as the intelligence cultivated and the success of which is to be estimated not so much by the scholars passing examinations or gaining prizes, or even by the amount of knowledge acquired, as by their conduct in after life, then much more than oversight is demanded from the managers as well as the teachers, inasmuch by their active sympathy with, and kindly influence over, individual scholars, they may do much to mould their character, and help to make them good and useful members of society.'

'A general zeal for education being presupposed as a necessary condition for both branches of management, breadth of view, business habits, administrative ability and the power of working harmoniously with others, are important qualifications for the work of the school management committee. For the personal oversight of schools, some amount of education, tact, interest in school work, a sympathy with the teachers and the scholars, to which may be added residence in reasonable proximity to the school, together with leisure time during school hours are desirable qualifications; and it is hardly necessary to say that personal oversight of the religious and moral instruction implies religious character in those who are to exercise it.' (111)

119. Some of the other larger School Boards chose not to delegate powers of management to local managers, thus instituting a practice which in some cases has persisted to this day. These Boards included Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Hull. At Salford a committee of the Board undertook the whole management. At Stoke-on-Trent the elected members of the Board superintended the schools in the township which they represented. Birmingham was another Board which took a similar line and the Commission regarded the evidence of Dr Crosskey, the chairman of the school management committee, as of such significance that they reproduced it in the main body of their report. Since it is of contemporary interest extracts from it are reproduced here.

31,238 Q. How do you get on without managers?

A. By a system of inspectors and by hard work on the part of the committee ... the school management committee have to make themselves acquainted with the state of their schools.

31,243 Q. Then they act as managers, do they not?

A. No ... We have inspectors who examine the schools, child by child precisely on the lines of HMIs; we have another inspector who goes through and sees the general condition of the school. Reports from these inspectors [and from HMIs] come regularly before the committee with a very perfect and systematic analysis of the work of the teachers and of the condition of the schools ... [The committee] form their opinion of what is going on in the schools; they take the measures to appoint the teachers or to add to the staff, or what not, as may be necessary, based upon these reports and upon personal examination of the schools.

31,244 Q. Do these inspectors take a personal interest in the children?

A. No personal interest is being developed in another and ... better direction. Our great object is to make the teachers come into such a relationship with the parents and children that the parents and children group themselves around the school as they do their home; the personal interest of the head teacher and the staff goes into the homes of the children, and in that direction we are very anxious to extend the influence of the school.

31,245 Q. I do not quite see how you secure such interest in the homes of the scholars as you desire?

A. They frequently have entertainments; the teachers will go to the homes of the children very often; they visit them if they are irregular ... We think that if the children and the parents feel it to be their school, and take a pride and interest in it, if you get a personal interest between the staff and the parents, that is the best thing; we think that no committee of managers dropping in, or any work in visiting that they can do, will equal that.

31,246 Q. Then you trust in fact ... to this cooperation between the parents and the teachers?

A. We try to cherish it largely. (113)

121. The Commission went on to draw a comparison between the management of board schools and that of voluntary schools. Their verdict was that in that branch of administration which could be conducted outside the school it was impossible to deny the superiority of the management of the school board dispensing the money of the rate payers. If, however, they looked for the closest supervision of the school and the most effective sympathy between managers and teachers, or between managers and scholars, they felt, on the whole, bound to pronounce in favour of the efficiency of voluntary management. It was in the combination of the advantages of both systems that they looked for progress in the future (114).

The composition of managing bodies

122. Managing bodies and especially those of the voluntary schools tended to be drawn from the leisured and moneyed classes. As evidence of the extent to which it was possible to interest various classes of a community in elementary education the Cross Commission cited the fact that the chairmen of local managing bodies in Liverpool included eight merchants, two medical men, a county court judge, a journalist and two 'extensive' clothiers (115). In London an analysis by P Gordon of the composition of managing bodies shows that the leisured classes accounted for 31 per cent, the professions for 10½ per cent, the churches for 21 per cent, merchants and managers for 8½ per cent, sub-managers for 22 per cent, skilled workers for only 4½ per cent and teachers for 2½ per cent. The workers were mostly higher paid workers in such trades as printing, ship building and building, together with a few less well paid workers, such as boot-makers. The teachers were head masters or principals of independent or endowed grammar schools or training colleges (116). Teachers serving in the board's schools were not allowed to be members.

123. The position of women was in some doubt up to the passing of the 1902 Act. There was no shortage of capable women. The London School Board numbered among its members such women as Miss Susan Lawrence, Mrs Pankhurst, Mrs Annie Besant, and Miss Bayliss, who headed the poll one year. Of the members of local managing bodies in 1884, 19½ per cent were women. But though Section (1)(a) of the Interpretation Act 1889 specifically provided that unless the contrary intention appeared, words importing the masculine gender should include females, the Courts in that same year had decided that where a statute dealt with the exercise of public functions, unless that statute expressly gave power to women to exercise them, the exercise of the powers was confined to men (117). The thinking underlying this decision, as it was explained in the 1902 debates, was that, legally, a married woman was not a personality; she was merged in the personality of her husband, and therefore disqualified both by sex and couverture (118).

124. The Cross Commission had said that they would be glad to see parents represented on the committee of management, so long as they were not a preponderating element (119). Though, however, the idea of parental representation was widely debated, there was no great support for it. A committee set up by the London School Board in 1887 'to investigate the Mode of Election and the Powers of Managers' found that opinion was almost unanimously against it. Bills in 1890 and 1891 to permit the representation of parents on the managing bodies of voluntary schools made no progress. An amendment to secure the inclusion of parents on the governing bodies of diocesan associations of voluntary schools, for which the Voluntary Schools Act, 1897 provided, was defeated. So was an amendment to the 1902 Bill to make provision for parent managers (120).

The Education Act 1902

125. This Act effected a transformation. The local education authorities which it established were made responsible for secular education in both the old board schools, which they took over, and in the voluntary schools. They were also made responsible for the maintenance of the voluntary schools (apart from the cost of repairs, other than those necessitated by fair wear and tear, and of improvements to the buildings) and, in particular, for the payment of the salaries of the teachers serving in them. Teachers in voluntary schools continued to be appointed by the managers (subject to the veto of the authority on educational grounds) nor could they be dismissed without the consent of the authority except on grounds connected with the giving of religious instruction.

126. Changes were also made in the management of the schools. Under Section 6 (121) (largely re-enacted in Section 30 of the 1921 Act) all public elementary schools provided by a county local education authority had to have a body of managers, of whom four were appointed by the local education authority, two by the minor authority. It was left to the discretion of a local education authority which was the council of a borough or urban district whether or not they appointed managing bodies for provided schools. Under Schedule I B (4) (= Section 35 of the 1921 Act) the managers of a provided school dealt with 'such matters relating to the management of the school, and subject to such conditions and restrictions as the local education authority may determine'.

127. Every non-provided school had to have a managing body consisting, usually, as to two thirds of foundation managers and as to one third of public popular representatives. In county areas, assuming a managing body of six, one of the popular representatives had to be appointed by the local education authority, one by the minor authority (122). Under Section 11(1) (= Section 31(1) of the 1921 Act) foundation managers were managers appointed under the provisions of the trust deed or of an order made under the Act. If the trust deed were defective the Board could make an order under Section 11 ( = Section 32 of the 1921 Act). In making it they had to have regard to the ownership of the school building, and to the principles on which the education given in the school has been conducted in the past (123).

128. Under Section 12 (= Section 33 of the 1921 Act) provided schools could be grouped for purposes of management and so also, if the managers agreed, could non-provided schools. The groups had to consist entirely of provided schools or entirely of non-provided schools. This section was added by the government in committee in response to strong expressions of opinion in favour of grouping from MPs representing urban constituencies.

129. Under Section 2 of the Education (London) Act 1903 every public elementary school in London had to have a body of managers but the number of managers and 'the manner in which schools, in cases where it is desirable' should be grouped under one body of managers was determined by the council of each borough, after consultation with the local education authority, and subject to the approval of the Board.

The Education Act 1944

130. The terms of the 1902 Act aroused strong opposition at the time and subsequently. Though they lasted for over forty years, the legal safeguards and the divided responsibilities of the dual system gave rise to endless complications in administration which, in the words of the 1943 White Paper, retarded educational progress, engendered friction and consumed time and energies which could have been spent to much better purpose. An even more serious problem was that most non-provided schools were conducted in old buildings, nearly 92 per cent of them dating from 1902 or earlier.

131. The basic aims of the 1944 Act have already been outlined. Here it is necessary to do no more than summarise the changes it made in the management of primary schools. They are as follows:

(i) Under Section 17 every primary school, county as well as voluntary, has to have an instrument providing for the constitution of the whole body of managers, made in the case of county schools by the LEA and by the Minister in the case of voluntary schools. Both county and voluntary schools are to be conducted in accordance with rules of management made by the local education authority.

(ii) In aided schools, assuming a managing body of six, there are four foundation and two local authority managers. In controlled schools, where the whole financial responsibility rests with the local education authority, the proportions are reversed.

(iii) Under Section 18 in county primary schools the managing body consists of such number, not less than six, as the local education authority may determine.

(iv) Section 20 permits the grouping of schools for purposes of management. It differs from Section 12 of the 1902 Act in that it covers secondary as well as primary schools; it also permits the grouping of county with voluntary schools, provided that the managers of the latter agree.

General conclusion

132. What has this look into the past shown? There are several conclusions that might be drawn but two points stand out.

133. The first is the shift in the balance of control. For many years the church had exclusive control. Then, after the Reformation, even though the bishops' right to licence teachers lasted, at least formally, until 1869, laymen came more and more into the picture. The state, too, intervened by requiring the teaching of the doctrines and formularies of the established church and the use of such text books as 'the Grammar set forth by King Henry VIII of noble memory' (124) and also, especially after the Restoration, by imposing religious tests on teachers. But the provision and maintenance of schools continued to be a wholly voluntary effort until well into the nineteenth century. Then, as it became increasingly evident that the burden was too great for voluntary effort to bear unaided, the state had to step in, first by making grants and then by transferring to newly created public authorities an increasing share of the responsibility for school provision and maintenance. This transfer of responsibility was accompanied by an increasing measure of control by those authorities. Today when the responsible public authorities are fewer in number and, it is said, more 'remote', when the teachers are no longer the 'poor ushers' of bygone days, when, largely as a result of the reforms of 1944, there is a much larger body of better educated and articulate parents, many of them anxious to 'participate' and when, in terms both of beliefs and of ethnic origins, the nation is of a more heterogeneous character then it has been for a very long time, other voices are to be heard claiming that they too should have a share in this control.

134. The second point is the persistence of ideas and practices. The concept of school governing bodies has a long history and it would be expected that over the years ideas about their composition and functions should change. There have been changes but what is noticeable is, first, how comparatively little change there was before the middle of the nineteenth century and, second, how the changes that were then effected by the Public Schools Commission and the Endowed Schools Commission have endured. Many of the ideas that they evolved, and in some instances even the language in which they expressed those ideas, have survived to this day. Also noticeable is the persistence in certain of the larger urban areas (125) of the scepticism about the need for managing bodies in provided elementary or primary schools that first emerged in 1870.

135. A body to look after the interests of the foundation will, obviously, continue to be needed in the voluntary schools. But so far as the rest of the maintained school system is concerned, the greater part, the question inevitably arises whether in the circumstances of today, managing and governing bodies are still needed. Should they be abolished? Or, if the new demands for a share in the control are thought to be justified, should they be replaced by an entirely different kind of body? - Governing bodies were after all evolved to meet the administrative needs of a type of school, the grammar school, that is now in process of being eliminated from the public system of education. Or can they, with such changes in their composition and functions as may be considered necessary, be given a further period of useful and worthwhile life? These are questions which are considered in the main body of the report.

Footnotes

(1) Year Book, II, Henry IV, case 21, p. 17. Cited in Fleming Report on the Public Schools.

(2) AF Leach Educational Charters pp. 72-3.

(3) It is to this that AF Leach (loc cit pp. XXIX and 252-261) attributes the fact that at Canterbury the master had the power of excommunication. Thomas of Birchwood (a pupil) and Richard HaIl and Jane Moody (citizens) have earned a place in educational history because, having assaulted an usher or a pupil (1311-23), they suffered this penalty.

(4) Section 21 of that Act provided that 'In every scheme the Commissioners shall provide for the abolition of all jurisdiction of the ordinary relating to the licensing of masters in any endowed school, or of any jurisdiction arising from such licensing'. The earlier, and largely ineffective, Grammar Schools Act, 1840 had preserved the rights of the Visitor and the Ordinary (the Bishop).

(5) Leach Educational Charters p. 325.

(6) The Black Death of 1349 and the plagues of 1361 and 1367.

(7) Leach The Schools of Mediaeval England p. 208.

(8) Leach Educational Charters Statutes of New College, Oxford p. 363.

(9) Leach The Schools of Mediaeval England p. 235.

(10) Leach Educational Charters pp. 415-7.

(11) JH Lupton John Colet pp. 166--7 (cited in GG Coulton's Mediaeval Panorama).

(12) Leach Educational Charters p. 436.

(13) Leach The Schools of Mediaeval England p. 284.

(14) Lessons started after prayers at 6am and, with an interval for dinner, continued until 6pm when the boys had supper. After supper there was another half-hour's work and then, after prayers, they went to bed. Intentionally or not the statutes made no provision for breakfast but in practice, apparently, the hour from 8 to 9am was not spent in school. The regime on saints' days was somewhat less exacting. Then, in addition to spending at least one hour before midday 'sometimes in learning the catechism, sometimes learning "Scripture", the boys had in the afternoon to show up to the Head Master, a summary of the sermon preached that morning in the collegiate church - the first and second forms in English, the third and fourth forms in Latin prose and the three highest forms in verse'.

(15) Fleming Report on Public Schools, paragraph 244.

(16) In his Annals of Westminster Schools (1898) John Sergeaunt in outlining this statute thought it best to leave the reference to lice in the original Latin (pediculi). But in those days he could have been confident of the ability of his readers to penetrate 'the decent obscurity of a learned language'. In his History of Winchester College (p 302) AF Leach seized on the same reference and the fact of the pupils sleeping two in a bed to draw the conclusion that Westminster was intended for a 'lower class of scholar' than Winchester.

(17) Well-known examples are the Mathematical Division established in 1673 within Christ's Hospital (1552), Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School at Rochester (1701) and Neale's Mathematical School in Fetter Lane, London (1722).

(18) Leach Educational Charters pp. xlvii and 538.

(19) 'The connection of education with religion', GM Trevelyan has written, 'and of religion with politics, had the grave disadvantage of continual proscription in the universities and the schools, first of Puritan teachers by Laud, then of Laudian teachers by the Puritans, and finally of all save Anglican teachers by the Restoration Parliament'. History of England (1945) p. 431

(20) Spens Report p. 72.

(21) Like Mr Partridge in Fielding's Tom Jones.

(22) An Act passed in that year (19 Geo III c44) allowed Nonconformists to follow the teaching profession. A similar Act passed in 1791 (31 Geo III c32) extended a like measure of liberty to the Roman Catholics, and made possible the establishment of the Teaching Orders in this Country.

(23) 'From the frozen and blood-stained trenches before Sebastopol', GM Trevelyan has written, 'and from the horrors of the first Scutari hospitals have sprung ... many things in our modem life that at first sight seem far removed from scenes of war and the sufferings of our bearded heroes on the winter-bound plateau'. One of these was 'a new conception of the potentiality and place in society of the trained and educated woman'. History of England p. 653.

(24) The nine schools were Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, St Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby and Shrewsbury.

(25) Clarendon p 5. In reproducing this passage in The Government and Management of Schools (p. 12) Baron and Howell by a strange aberration make it conclude '... progress of literature and letters', notwithstanding that so worded it would be incompatible with the passage about the control of the curriculum which they reproduce on p. 13. They also omit from the passage about discipline and teaching the words 'as far as possible' and reproduce 'school terms' as 'school time'.

(26) Clarendon p. 5.

(27) Clarendon p. 6.

(28) Clarendon p. 6.

(29) Clarendon p. 6.

(30) Clarendon p. 6.

(31) Clarendon p. 6.

(32) Clarendon p. 40.

(33) The Commission's powers were subsequently transferred to the Charity Commission and in 1899 to the Board of Education.

(34) Taunton p. 576.

(35) There was, however, one new issue to which they addressed their minds - whether in a day school the head master ought to be allowed to expel a boy without reference to the governors. On the whole, it seemed to them best to allow a master to expel a day scholar till the end of the term or half year, but not finally to expel him without the governors' sanction. Taunton p. 617.

(36) See para 5.

(37) Portsmouth, Middleton (in Lancashire) and Childrey.

(38) The boy was aged 11 years 9 months and was the son of a farmer; his reading and arithmetic were bad, his spelling very bad.

(39) At Lewes, the then trustees, who had been appointed in 1852, had not met since 1859 - five years before the Commission was appointed. At Burtonwood the full number of trustees was 15. Of the three surviving when the Assistant Commissioner made his visit, two were paralytic and one an imbecile.

(40) The Commission were really in a dilemma. 'Trustees who are non-resident, as many county gentlemen often are non-resident for all practical purposes, are often little better than no trustees at all; trustees who are chosen from a narrow area, and perpetually on the spot, if they have not a tendency to be meddlesome, are least likely to take wise and enlightened views.' But they did cite the Heath Grammar School at Halifax as an exception to the disadvantages usually attendant on the appointment of governing bodies from within parochial limits. Because the parish of Halifax was one of the most extensive in England, the range of choice open to the governors when they filled up vacancies was very large. 'They watch over the interests of the school with much more care and judgement and evince the greatest desire to increase its usefulness.'

(41) Though the Commission accepted that the class of the parents should be well represented, they thought it very undesirable that the parents themselves should have much power of interference. They cited, with evident approval, the dictum of one of their Assistant Commissioners, that 'judicious parents, when they have once reposed confidence in a school master, never do interfere. They are nevertheless subject to all the evils resulting from the interference of other parents more ignorant than themselves'.

(42) Governing bodies were usually composed exclusively of Anglicans, the law often requiring such a restriction, and the power of self selection supplying the deficiencies of the law. It was reported to the Commission that in Birmingham, where at least half the population were dissenters, the governing body of King Edward VI School had once had a majority of governors who were non-conformists, 'but accident having given the opportunity to the churchmen, none but churchmen were ever afterwards elected'.

(43) They were Lady Caroline Cavendish, Dr Sophie Bryant and Mrs EM Sidgwick.

(44) The Board of Education Act 1899 merged the powers of the Education Department and the Science and Art Department; the powers of the Charity Commissioners in respect of educational charities were transferred to the Board, which was also authorised to inspect 'any school supplying secondary education and desiring to be so inspected' (Section 3(1)).

(45) Bryce, paras. 110, 111.

(46) Bryce, para. 114.

(47) Bryce, para. 115.

(48) Annual Report 1905/6 p. 45.

(49) Among the first steps taken by the Board were the establishment at South Kensington of a Secondary Branch and the strengthening of the Inspectorate. The first head of the Secondary Branch was WN Bruce, a former Charity Commissioner, who had been the Bryce Commission's secretary. Up to the middle of 1904 the Board conducted its inspections through the Inspectors previously employed by the Science and Art Department, with the assistance of men and women of established reputation in the educational world who were engaged for particular inspections. During 1904/5 a permanent staff was built up specifically for the inspection of Secondary Schools. Annual Report 1913--14. Chapter I. Inspection of Secondary Schools by the State. Its History and Character.

(50) In 1904/5 the number of secondary schools recognised for grant was 491 with 85,358 pupils, The corresponding figures for 1925 were 1,161 and 334,194, nearly half the latter girls. Over the same period the number of schools provided or controlled by local education authorities rose from less than 200 in 1906 to 624 in 1925.

(51) Sir Robert Ensor England 1870-1914.

(52) It is a pity that there is no adequate full scale biography of Morant. The best short account of him is by his successor, Sir Amherst Selby-Bigge, in the Dictionary of National Biography. A penetrating and informative assessment of his work was contributed, on the centenary of his birth, by Professor Eaglesham to the British Journal of Educational Studies Vol XII No 1 November 1963.

(53). At that time, and indeed up to the end of the 1914-18 War, the Board recruited its office staff directly and not, like other Departments, through the Civil Service Commission, Many of those so recruited had already earned, or were to earn, distinction in other walks of life, such as EK Chambers, JW Mackail, and CS Schuster, all of whom were involved in one way or another in work on the Regulations for Secondary Schools.

(54) See Regulation VII and its side note.

(55) There is an account of it in Baron and Howell's The Government and Management of Schools (pp. 17-23).

56. The earlier schemes, such as that of Caernarvonshire (1893), prescribed a core curriculum and a number of optional extra subjects. This common core was not the same in all the early schemes and from 1912 onwards such detailed prescription was abandoned.

57. Owen M Edwards, the Chief Inspector for Wales, discovered to his surprise that 'in one school the Governors admitted that they had never regarded the drawing up of school courses as part of their duties, and had left this in the hands of the Headmaster, whose natural tendency was to disregard the adaptation of education in favour of the demands of examinations, and a good haul of certificates'. Leslie Wynne Evans Studies in Welsh Education p. 294.

(58) The staff were billeted in nearby hotels and a variety of boarding houses, with names like 'Linga Longa'. The Bournemouth contingent and the small cadre which, with the Minister and their private offices, had remained at Alexandra House, Kingsway, were reunited in London at Belgrave Square on the 5 November 1942, much to the relief of all concerned.

(59) In one of these raids several members of the staff were seriously injured.

(60) In response to parliamentary and other pressures, a very brief summary was published on 24 October 1941. The whole book has now been published as an Appendix to Middleton and Weitzman's A place for everyone (Gollancz 1976). It deserved a better setting.

(61) At that time Dr Percival Sharp (formerly of Sheffield) was secretary of the AEC. The CCA and the AMC's principal advisers were directors of education of the 'old guard', such as JL Holland (Northants), FA Hughes (Staffordshire), WG Briggs (Derbyshire) and PD Innes (Birmingham). A less authoritarian breed of chief education officers was not to emerge in any significant numbers or in positions of influence until later.

(62) Canon Spencer Leeson was born in 1892 and educated at Winchester and New College. After serving in the 1914-18 war he was an Assistant Principal at the Board of Education from 1919 to 1924. He left to become a schoolmaster and was Head Master of Winchester from 1935 to 1946, when he became Rector of St Mary's, Southampton. Appointed Bishop of Peterborough in 1949 he died on the 27 January 1956. He was Chairman of the Headmasters' Conference from 1939 to 1945 and with AB Emden, Principal of St Edmund's Hall, and GG Williams, the head of the Board's Secondary Branch, he was a member of the unofficial 'Committee of Three' which produced a report on the prospects, which at the time seemed gloomy, of the public schools. The activities of this committee led directly to the passing of the Public and Other Schools War Conditions Act 1941, and indirectly, when representative governors decided it was time they took charge, to the establishment in 1940 of the Association of Governing Bodies of Public Schools (GBA) and in 1942 of its feminine counterpart (GBGSA). The sequel to that was the establishment in July 1942 of the Fleming Committee on 'The Public Schools and the General Educational System'. Canon Leeson had a slight stammer which was most noticeable when his feelings were deeply moved. At one meeting at Belgrave Square he advanced from the back of the conference room where he had been sitting within a few feet of the President, not, as some thought, to attack him but to overcome the difficulty he was having in uttering the words 'But, Minister!'.

(63) PRO File Ed 136/261.

(64) PRO File Ed 136/224.

(65) There is, for example, no reference to it in Baron and Howell's The Government and Management of Schools.

(66) Personal knowledge.

(67) Copy of minute dated 27.4.43 PRO file Ed 136/622.

(68) GG Williams, and the Chief Inspector for secondary education, FRG Duckworth, were assessors to the Committee.

(69) It included, in addition to the Chairman, the Bishop of London (Dr Geoffrey Fisher) and Dr AW Pickard-Cambridge, formerly Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University.

(70) PRO file Ed 136/224.

(71) PRO file Ed 136/224.

(72) PRO file Ed 136/224.

(73) PRO file Ed 136/423.

(74) Note of meeting with GBA etc on 19 May 1943. PRO file Ed 136/224.

(75) The original intention had been to publish the White Paper and the Bill simultaneously but, because of its complications, the Bill could not be got ready in time. Mr Butler turned this to advantage by presenting the prior publication of the White Paper as a thoroughly democratic way of proceeding, because it provided a renewed opportunity for views to be expressed. There was another round of intensive discussion with the interests concerned.

(76) Note of meeting with Ministers on 22 xii 43, PRO file 136/529.

(77) Minute dated 23 xii 43 PRO file Ed 136/529.

(78) PRO file Ed 136/529.

(79) Letter of 17 January 1944, PRO file Ed 136/470.

(80) PRO file Ed 136/470.

(81) Minute of 19 February 1944 (PRO file Ed 136/529). It is not apparent from the available Departmental records whether the two associations took this action on their own initiative or whether they were prompted to do so.

(82) PRO file Ed 136/529.

(83) ie the Bishop of London.

(84) See footnote 81 above. According to a minute by GG Williams dated 20 April 1944 there had been discussions with the LEA Advisory Committee (a consultative body of representatives of the Associations of LEAs and Education Committees and the LCC), the ADS the NUT, the GBA and the Joint Four Associations (separately). The two statements can be reconciled if one assumes that GG Williams forgot to mention the London Aided Schools Association and the Aided Schools Committee and that GBA should have read GBAs.

(85) The House of Commons had spent three days on clauses 1-8 and another three on clauses 8-15.

(86) The House had yet to learn the unwisdom, in wartime, of carrying amendments against the wishes of the government. They learned that lesson on 29 March 1944.

(87) Personal knowledge.

(88) Hansard, 9 March 1944-Col 2251.

(89) Hansard, 9 March 1944-Cols 2303/4.

(90) Hansard, 9 March 1944-Col 2313.

(91) Hansard, 9 March 1944-Cols 2328-2331.

(92) Hansard, 21 June 1944-Cols 323/4.

(93) Hansard, 15 February 1944-Cols 138-143 and 16 February 1944-Cols 197-9.

(94) Hansard, 12 July 1944-Col 864. See also 20 June 1944-Cols 285-9 and 11 July 1944-Col 774.

(95) Personal knowledge. Later in 1948 there was a proposal by three of the LEA Associations to issue model instruments and articles for aided and controlled secondary schools. The Ministry made a number of suggestions for improving the models but declined to give them their imprimatur unless and until they commanded the assent of the other interests concerned. Subsequently one of the Associations withdrew and no more was heard of the proposal.

(96) Longmans Green & Co, 1948. It is not mentioned in the appendix entitled 'The Literature on School Government' in Baron and Howell.

(97) He did so because 'that county produces many youths endowed with the light and sharpness of ability, who do not all wish to attain the dignity and elevation of priesthood, that these may be better fitted for the mechanical arts and other concerns of this world, we have ordained a third fellow, learned and skilled in the art of writing and accounts'. Leach Educational Charters pp. 423-5.

(98) Miss MG Jones The Charity School Movement p. 16.

(99) One such was the school at Lamport and Hanging Houghton, founded in 1772 by Sir Edmund Isham, from which came the first president of the NUT, Mr IJ Graves (1832-03).

(100) Miss MG Jones, p. 4.

(101) Miss MG Jones, p. 35. The Archdeacon of Huntingdon was White Kennet, who later became Bishop of Peterborough.

(102) Miss MG Jones, loc cit pp. 53, 54.

(103) Committee of Council on Education. Minutes and correspondence 1848-9.

(104) Committee of Council on Education. Letter to Bishop of Ripon dated 7 November 1947.

(105) Committee of Council on Education. Letter to the Ron C Langdale, Chairman of the Catholic Poor School Committee.

(106) GA Denison (1805-96), a high churchman of the old school, 'dignified, kindly and paternally despotic, with a keen eye to the temporal as well as the spiritual needs of his flock', was successively vicar of Broadwinsor and East Brent. Appointed Archdeacon of Taunton in 1851 he was prosecuted in the ecclesiastical courts in 1856 for breaches of the 28th and 29th Articles of Religion and deprived. The decision was reversed in 1857. He was one of those who opposed the election of Frederick Temple as Bishop of Exeter in 1869 because he had been a contributor to 'Essays and Reviews' (1860) which included essays denying the inspiration of scripture and the eternity of punishment. From 1862-5 he edited the Church and State Review. In 1885 he published a violent political diatribe against Gladstone. (DNB (1975) p 2404).

(107) HJ Burgess and PA Welsby A Short History of the National Society 1811-1961. Chapter V Controversy.

(108) Kay-Shuttleworth had by that time been succeeded by RR Lingen, one of the three Commissioners appointed in 1846 to inquire into the state of education in Wales, 'especially into the means afforded to the labouring classes of acquiring a knowledge of the English language'. It is said that having on one occasion been told by Kay-Shuttleworth 'Get it done, let the objectors howl', he made that his maxim for the conduct of affairs. According to the Saturday Review he was quite as powerful as Mr Lowe 'and a good deal more offensive. It is from Mr Lingen that all the sharp snubbing replies proceed'. In 1869, fittingly enough, he was made Permanent Secretary of the Treasury. On his retirement in 1885 he was made a peer (DNB (1975) p 2754).

(109) The principal subjects of complaint were the excessive cost of education, the inadequacy of the instruction even in the best schools, the insufficiency of the provision in rural areas, the undue shortness of school life and the great irregularity of attendance.

(110) The Chairman, Sir R Assheton Cross, was Home Secretary. Other members included Cardinal Manning and the Bishop of London, Dr Frederick Temple. The latter on leaving Oxford had been for a short time an Examiner in the office of the Committee of Council on Education. He subsequently became a school master and was Head Master of Rugby from 1859 to 1869 when he was appointed Bishop of Exeter. See also footnotes 106 and 62.

(111) Cross Report ch 3 p. 65.

(112) Cross, p. 70. There is a more detailed account of the London arrangements in P Gordon's The Victorian School Manager (Woburn Press 1974). There is in that book a great deal of detailed information about school management in the period 1800-1902.

(113) Cross. pp. 67, 68.

(114) Cross. p. 69.

(115) There were several reasons for the paucity of working class representation, among them the fact that managers' meetings were usually held in the day time, the cost of travel and the fact that not many workers were (direct) ratepayers. Nor were they likely to be able to qualify as voluntary school subscribers. During the parliamentary proceedings on the 1902 Act an amendment to permit the payment of travelling expenses was resisted on grounds which have a marked affinity with the reasons for rejecting the 'equal pay' amendment in 1944 (See note 84). The reply of the President of the Local Government Board provoked from Mr Winston Churchill the comment that there was no great question in which the thin edge of the wedge had not already been inserted. He held that if there was any board upon which the working classes ought to be represented it was the education authority. (Hansard 13.xi.02. Cols. 891 and 894).

(116) P Gordon, loc cit pp. 161-3.

(117) Beresford Hope v Lady Sandhurst 23 QB, 16.5.89. p. 91 (cited by P Gordon).

(118) Section 23(6) of the 1902 Act dealt with the immediate problem by declaring that a woman should not be disqualified either by sex or marriage from being on a body of managers. The Education (London) Act of 1903 provided that due regard should be had to the inclusion of women in the proportion of not less than one third of the whole body of managers. The wider problem was not resolved until the enactment of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919.

(119) Cross, p. 67.

(120) P Gordon pp. 173-81.

(121) The House of Commons spent no less than seven days in Committee on this section, largely because of its denominational implications.

(122) 'Minor' authority was defined as the council of any borough, including a metropolitan borough, an urban district, or the parish council (or parish meeting).

(123) This wording may be compared with that of Section 16(5) of the 1944 Act. Parliamentary Counsel who drafted the 1944 Act considered that the 1921 Act, which had been drafted within the Board, was one of the worst drafted Acts on the Statute Book. It was his ambition that the Education Act of 1944 should be one of the best. (Letter of 24 February 1943 on PRO file Ed 136/293).

(124) The injunctions of Elizabeth, 1559. Gee and Hardy Documents illustrative of the History of the English Church (cited by DW Sylvester Educational Documents 800-1816).

(125) But no longer in Sheffield.

Annex 1*
[pages 185 - 192]

*The purpose of this Annex is explained in Appendix B paragraph 51.

Bradford (1871)

Governing Body

Part II - Constitution of Governing Body and Management

2. The Governing Body, hereafter called the Governors, shall, from and after the date of this Scheme, consist of not more than 16 persons, nor less than 13, as hereinafter provided. Of these, four shall be ex officio Governors, four representative or elective, and the remainder co-optative.

3. The ex officio Governors shall be: The Vicar of Bradford; The Mayor of Bradford; The Chairman of the School Board of Bradford; and the President of the Bradford Mechanics' Institute, if they will respectively undertake to act in the Trusts of this Scheme.

4. Of the Representative Governors two shall be elected by the Town Council of Bradford, and two by the School Board of Bradford. The first elections shall take place as soon after the date of this Scheme as can conveniently be managed.

5. The Representative Governors shall be elected to hold office for the term of five years, and shall then retire, but be re-eligible.

Clauses dealing with

46. Headmasters' stipend
47. Payments for entrance and tuition
48. Payments to be made in advance
62-64. School exhibitions and other awards
65. Repair and improvement fund
66-68. Pensions
69. Use of residue

34. The Head Master, who shall have control over both departments, and shall be responsible for the whole work of the boys' school, shall be appointed by the Governors at some meeting to be called for that purpose, as soon as conveniently may be after the occurrence of a vacancy, or after notice of an intended vacancy. The Master shall be a graduate of some University within the British Empire. In order to obtain the best candidates the Governors shall, for a sufficient time before making any appointment, give public notice of the vacancy, and invite competition by advertisements in newspapers or by such other methods as they may judge best calculated to secure the object.

Dismissal

35. The Governors may dismiss the Head Master without assigning cause, after six calendar months' written notice, given to him in pursuance of a resolution passed at two consecutive meetings held at an interval of at least 14 days, and duly convened for that express purpose, such resolution being affirmed at each meeting by not less than two thirds of the Governors present.

36. For urgent cause the Governors may by resolution passed at a special meeting duly convened for that express purpose, and affirmed by not less than two thirds of the whole existing number of Governors, declare that the Head Master ought to be dismissed from his office, and in that case they may appoint another special meeting to be held within not less than a week of the former one, and may then by a similar resolution affirmed by as large a proportion of Governors, wholly and finally dismiss him. And if the Governors assembled at the first of such meetings think fit at once to suspend the Head Master from his office until the next meeting, they may do so by resolution affirmed by as large a proportion of Governors. Full notice and opportunity of defence at both meetings shall be given to the Head Master.

Head Master to appoint and dismiss Assistant Masters, and to distribute fund assigned to Assistant Masters and plant

44. The Head Master shall have the sole power of appointing and dismissing all Assistant Masters, and shall determine in what proportions the sum assigned by the Governors for the maintenance of Assistant Masters and of plant or apparatus shall be divided among the various persons and objects for the aggregate of which it is assigned. And the Governors shall pay the same accordingly, either through the hands of the Head Master or directly, as they think best. In the case of the Senior Master of the Junior Department his appointment or dismissal shall not be valid until it has been confirmed by the Governors.

45. The Head Master may from time to time submit proposals to the Governors for making or altering regulations as to any matter within their province, and the Governors shall consider such proposals and decide upon them.

Jurisdiction of Governors over Scholastic arrangements

41. Within the limits fixed by this Scheme the Governors shall prescribe the general subjects of instruction, the relative prominence and value to be assigned to each group of subjects, the division of the year into term and vacation, the payments of the scholars, and the number of holidays to be given in term. They shall take general supervision of the sanitary condition of the school buildings and arrangements. They shall determine what number of Assistant Masters shall be employed. They shall every year assign the amount which they think proper to be paid out of the income of the Trust for the purpose of maintaining Assistant Masters and a proper plant or apparatus for carrying on the instruction given in the School.

Governors to consult the Head Master

42. Before making or altering any regulations under the last preceding clause the Governors shall consult the Head Master in such a manner as to give him full opportunity for the expression of his views.

Jurisdiction of Head Master over Scholastic arrangements

43. Subject to the rules prescribed by or under the authority of this Scheme the Head Master shall have under his control the choice of books, the methods of teaching, the arrangement of classes and school hours, and generally the whole internal organisation, management and discipline of the School: Provided that if he expels a boy from the School, he shall forthwith make a full report of the case to the Governors.

1908 Model

Governing Body

3. (a) There shall be a Governing Body of the School (in these Articles called the Governors) which shall be constituted as a Sub-Committee of the Committee, and shall, when complete, consist of persons to be appointed by the [Committee] [Council] of whom shall be appointed on the recommendation of the [Borough] [Urban District] Council of [and one shall be appointed on the recommendation of the University of .... .]

(b) There shall always be amongst the Governors:

i. [at least .... women and]*
ii. at least .... members of the Committee,
but the Council, the Committee, and any other body upon whose recommendation members of the Governing Body are to be appointed, may appoint or recommend for appointment persons who are not members of their own body.

*Only to be inserted where the school provides education for girls.

FINANCE

Estimate

10. (a) The Governors shall [when required by the Committee] [in the month .... of in each year] submit for the consideration of the Committee an estimate of the income and expenditure required for the purposes of the School [for the 12 months ending in the following year] in such form and for such period as the Committee require; the estimate shall show in particular the salary to be paid to each master and the estimated amount to be received in fees under the Rules for Payments made in accordance with these Articles.

(b) The Committee shall consider the estimate and make any variation in it which they think fit and shall then submit it [to the Finance Committee for recommendation] to the Council.

(c) The School shall be conducted in accordance with the estimate as approved by the Council, and no expenditure on any object beyond the amount of the estimate so approved shall be incurred by or on behalf of the Governors in any year without the previous consent of the [Committee] [Council].

Receipts and Payments

11. (a) All moneys received by the Governors (except as in this Article mentioned), shall be carried to the [County]* Fund in such manner as the Committee, subject to any directions of the Council, prescribe [and shall be carried to a separate account to the credit of the School].

*If the Authority providing the School is not a County Council, substitute the name of the fund out of which the expenses of the Council under the Education Act 1902, are payable.

(b) The funds necessary for the maintenance of the School shall be provided by the Council and paid to the Governors by .... instalments in each year, and the Governors shall thereupon discharge all liabilities incurred by them on behalf of the Committee.

ALTERNATIVE

Receipts and Payments

[11A. (a) All moneys received by the Governors shall be carried to the [County]* Fund in such manner as the Committee, subject to any directions of the Council, prescribe [and shall be carried to a separate account to the credit of the School].

*See note * above.

(b) The funds necessary for the maintenance of the School shall be provided by the Council, and all liabilities incurred by the Governors on behalf of the Committee shall be referred for payment to the ....* Committee and discharged by them.]

*Insert name of Committee referred to.

Head Master

13. (a) The Head Master of the School shall be a graduate of a University in the United Kingdom or have such other equivalent qualification as may be approved by the Board of Education.

(b) He shall be appointed by [the Governors] after due public advertisement of a vacancy or intended vacancy in newspapers and otherwise so as to secure the best candidates.

(c) The Head Master shall be employed under a contract of service in writing determinable only (except in the case of dismissal for misconduct or any other urgent cause) upon six months' written notice taking effect at the end of a School Term, which may be given by either side. The notice of determination or dismissal may be given by the Governors either on their own motion or after having been requested by the Committee to consider the matter.

(d) The resolution of the Governors to dismiss the Head Master for misconduct or any other urgent cause shall not take effect until it has been confirmed at a meeting of the Governors held not less than a week after the date of the meeting at which the resolution was passed. But the Governors may by resolution passed at the first of those meetings suspend the Head Master from his office until the second meeting.

Assistant Masters

16*

*Note. An Article should be inserted in this place dealing with the terms of employment of Assistant Masters, and the Authority or person in whose hands their appointment or dismissal is to rest. The Board of Education will require that all Assistant Masters and Mistresses should be employed either by, or upon the nomination of, or after consultation with, the Head Master or Head Mistress, under a contract determinable by a notice specified in the contract, and suggest, as the most appropriate term, two months ending at the end of any School Term. The Board will also require that the contract shall only be determinable by, or after consultation with, the Head Master or Head Mistress. Details as to these matters should be contained in the Article, which can also comprise provisions for the employment of Assistant Masters or Mistresses on probation.

Jurisdiction of Governors over School Arrangements

17. Within the limits fixed by these Articles, the Governors shall prescribe the general subjects of instruction, the relative prominence and value to be assigned to each group of subjects, what reports shall be required to be made to them by the Head Master, the arrangements respecting the school terms, vacations and holidays, [and the number of boarders]*. They shall take general supervision of the sanitary conditions of the school buildings and arrangements. Subject to the provisions of these Articles with respect to the submission and approval of estimates, they shall fix the number of Assistant Masters to be employed, and the amount to be paid for the purpose of providing and maintaining proper school plant or apparatus, and awarding prizes.

*In the case of Boarding Schools only.

Views and Proposals of Head Master

18. Before making any rules under the last foregoing clause, the Governors shall consult the Head Master in such a manner as to give him full opportunity for the expression of his views, and he shall be entitled to be present at all meetings of the Governors, save when otherwise determined by them at any particular meeting. The Head Master may also from time to time submit proposals to the Governors for making or altering rules concerning any matter within the province of the Governors. The Governors shall fully consider any such expression of views or proposals and shall decide upon them.

Jurisdiction of Head Master over School Arrangements

19. (a) Subject to any rules prescribed by or under the authority of these Articles, the Head Master shall have under his control the choice of books, the method of teaching, the arrangement of classes and school hours, and generally the whole internal organisation, management, and discipline of the School, including the power of expelling pupils from the School or suspending them from attendance for any adequate cause to be judged of by him, but on expelling or suspending any pupil he shall forthwith report the case to the Governors.

(b) If an aggregate sum is fixed in the estimate for the maintenance of school plant and apparatus and prizes, the Head Master shall determine, subject to the approval of the Governors, in what proportions that sum shall be divided among the various objects, for which it is fixed in the aggregate.

GENERAL

Copies of Reports and Returns

28. Copies of all reports, whether of the Head Master or of examiners or inspectors, and of all returns for the Board of Education, shall be forwarded to the Committee.

Questions under Articles

29. Any question as to the construction of these Articles, or as to the regularity or the validity of any acts done or about to be done under them by the Committee or the Governors, shall be determined conclusively by the Council.

Copies of Articles

30. A copy of these Articles shall be given to every Governor, Head Master and other Teacher, upon entry into office.

1945 Model

FINANCE

3. (a) The Governors shall in the month of .... in each year submit for the consideration of the Local Education Authority an estimate of the income and expenditure required for the purposes of the school for the 12 months ending .... in the following year, in such form as the Local Education Authority may require.

(b) The Local Education Authority shall consider the estimate and make such variation in it as they think fit.

(c) Where the Governors are empowered by the Local Education Authority to incur expenditure they shall not exceed the amount approved by the Local Education Authority under each head of the estimate in any year without the previous consent of the Local Education Authority.

Appointment and Dismissal of Head Master

5. (a) The appointment and dismissal of the Headmaster shall conform to the following procedure:

Either The vacant post shall be advertised by the Local Education Authority and a short list of three names shall be drawn up from the applications for the post by the Governors, a representative of the Local Education Authority being present. The final appointment shall be made by the Local Education Authority, a representative of the Governing Body being present.

One or other of the alternatives to be inserted.

or The vacant post shall be advertised by the Local Education Authority and a short list shall be drawn up from the applications for the post by a Joint Committee consisting of an [equal number] of Governors and representatives of the Local Education Authority under the chairmanship of a person nominated by the Local Education Authority. The said Joint Committee shall also meet to interview the persons on the short list and shall recommend one person on the list for appointment by the Local Education Authority.

(c) A resolution of the governors to recommend the dismissal of the Head Master shall not take effect until it has been confirmed at a meeting of the Governors, held not less than 14 days after the date of the meeting at which the resolution was passed. The Governors may by a resolution suspend for misconduct or any other urgent cause the Head Master from his office pending the decision of the Local Education Authority.

(d) The Head Master shall be entitled to appear, accompanied by a friend, at any meeting of the Governors or the Local Education Authority at which his dismissal is to be considered, and shall be given at least [three] days notice of such meeting.

Assistant Masters

6. The appointment and dismissal of assistant masters shall be subject to the following procedure:

(a) On the occurrence of a vacancy for an assistant master the Governors shall notify the Local Education Authority, who shall if they think fit, advertise the post and shall transmit to the Governors the names of candidates. Provided that the Local Education Authority may, if they think fit, and after giving full consideration to the views of the Governors and the Head Master, require the Governors to appoint a master to be transferred from another school or from any pool of new entrants to the teaching profession.

(b) The appointment of assistant masters shall be made to the service of the Local Education Authority by the Governors in consultation with the head master within the limits of the establishment of staff laid down for the current year by the Local Education Authority, and such appointments shall, except where made under the proviso to paragraph (a) of this Article, be subject to confirmation by the Local Education Authority.

(c) Appointments of assistant masters shall in all cases be determinable upon [ ] months notice in writing.

(d) The procedure for the dismissal or suspension of assistant masters shall be similar to that specified for head masters, except that two meetings of the Governors shall not be required.

8. (a) The Local Education Authority shall determine the general educational character of the school and its place in the local educational system. Subject thereto the Governors shall have the general direction of the conduct and curriculum of the school.

(b) Subject to the provisions of these Articles the Head Master shall control the internal organisation, management and discipline of the school, shall exercise supervision over the teaching and non-teaching staff, and shall have the power of suspending pupils from attendance for any cause which he considers adequate but on suspending any pupil he shall forthwith report the case to the Governor, who shall consult the Local Education Authority.

(c)

(i) There shall be full consultation at all times between the Head Master and the Chairman of the Governors.

(ii) All proposals and reports affecting the conduct and curriculum of the school shall be submitted formally to the Governors. [The Chief Education Officer or his representative shall be informed of such reports and proposals and be furnished with a copy thereof at least [7] days before they are considered].

(iii) The Head Master shall be entitled to attend throughout every meeting of the Governors, except on such occasions and for such time as the Governors may for good cause otherwise determine.

(iv) There shall be full consultation and cooperation between the Head Master and the Chief Education Officer on matters affecting the welfare of the school.

(v) Suitable arrangements shall be made for enabling the teaching staff to submit their views or proposals to the Governors through the Head Master.

11. The Governors shall furnish to the Local Education Authority such returns and reports as the Authority may require.

Copies of Articles

12. A copy of these Articles shall be given to every Governor, the Head Master, and every Assistant Master on entry into office.

Annex II
[pages 193 - 194]

Extract from Fleming Committee's Report on abolition of tuition fees in grant-aided secondary schools

'It is an established principle of our public life that when public money is provided, whether by parliament or local authorities, it is the duty of the elected representatives of the people to ensure that it is wisely and prudently expended. It would be generally agreed that this would not necessarily entail a rigorous or exact examination of every detail in the expenditure. In practice a system of mutual trust between the representatives and their officers on the one hand and those actually engaged in a special field of social activity on the other makes possible a wise latitude. Nor is it generally held that this principle entails that in all the varied services provided for the people the precise lines of policy must always be laid down and controlled by these representatives and their officers. The same atmosphere of trust allows the people to use the services of experts in their own fields, relying on their integrity and sense of duty to ensure that, to the best of their ability, they will act wisely in the public interest.

The question of the extent of such freedom which should be allowed to those engaged in the service of the community as teachers is one of particular difficulty. Education is an art and can never be regarded only as a branch of administration. But it is a subject in which all are interested and in which all feel concern. In the most profound sense of the word it is a political question. Every community has been forced to recognise the truth of Aristotle's words, that "children must be trained by education with an eye to the state, if their virtues are supposed to make any difference to the virtues of the state".

Regard, however, should be paid to another educational principle laid down by the same writer. "To have been educated in the spirit of the constitution is to perform not the actions in which oligarchs or democrats delight, but those by which the existence of an oligarchy or democracy is made possible." England is a democracy and its children should be educated in the spirit of a democratic constitution. This does not mean that it is necessary for the education of children to reflect each change in the minds of the electorate. It does mean that it is necessary for the children to be trained for citizenship in a democratic community, imbued with those qualities which alone can make democracy a successful form of government - a sense of loyalty to the community, a readiness to work unselfishly with others in its service, and the courage and independence of judgement which are needed when the men and women of the community are themselves its rulers.

As a means of training future citizens the school must be itself a community. It must command the loyalty of its members, the pupils and the teachers. This can only be obtained if it has its own individuality, which they themselves build up, preserve and develop. Any action on the part of national or local representatives or those acting on their behalf, which would have the effect of destroying this individuality or corporate sense, would be educationally disastrous. Individuality could be destroyed or seriously endangered if schools were compelled to adopt a uniform line of policy, and the result might be the same if the public representatives or their officers felt they should give minute consideration to the administrative details of the school. We appreciate that the public representatives must ensure a prudent expenditure of public money. That is a duty they cannot abandon. But methods of fulfilling it in the educational field need not be precisely similar to those employed in others.

We wish to make it clear that we do not believe that among those engaged in the administration of education in this country there is any desire to deny to the schools a real variety. But it will be appreciated that the administrative control of schools may, in itself, tend to produce uniformity. If a single committee or their officer undertakes the supervision of several schools, there is a danger that they may be treated alike. Often a sense of fairness, a scrupulous feeling that no one school should receive any different, or what appears to them to be preferential, treatment, will lead to this. But if schools are to preserve their individuality, they must preserve also their variety. This variety is not only a sign of health; it is essential for an effective educational system, designed to meet the needs of different children and the views of different parents. In practice it is immensely difficult, if not impossible, for one man, or one body of men, acting on the principle of majority rule, consciously to effect this variety. We can only hope for this to be secured and developed by allowing those who control the schools, the governing bodies, and those who serve in them, the head masters and head mistresses and assistant teachers, the greatest possible measure of independence. The aim of our educational system should be that expressed by Milton: "The perfection consists in this, that out of many moderate varieties and brotherly dissimilitudes that are not vastly disproportional, arises the goodly and graceful symmetry that commends the whole pile and structure".'