HMI Primary Survey (1978)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Contents, Foreword
Chapter 1 The national survey
Chapter 2 The schools and the teachers
Chapter 3 The classes: organisation and arrangements affecting children's work
Chapter 4 The curriculum: planning and continuity
Chapter 5 The content of the curriculum
Chapter 6 The curriculum: scope and standards of work
Chapter 7 Associations between characteristics of the schools and classes and aspects of the children's work
Chapter 8 The main findings, issues and recommendations
Annex B HMI schedules
Index

A survey by HM Inspectors of Schools (1978)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1978
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 1 The national survey
[pages 1 - 3]

1.1 The main survey began in the autumn term of 1975, following preliminary feasibility and pilot studies, and was completed in the spring term of 1977. (1)

1.2 A three-stage random national sample was employed for the survey. (2) At the first stage a random, stratified sample of 542 schools was selected. Schools were classified by region and by the size of the year groups and included separate infant schools, combined junior with infant schools, separate junior schools, first schools and combined first with middle schools. No separate middle schools were included.

1.3 The second stage involved selecting from within each school, subject to the age range, one class containing 7 year old children, one containing 9 year olds and one containing 11 year olds. This represented the end of the infant and junior stages of education and the intermediate stage at 9 years old. Where there were two or more classes in a school containing children of any of these ages, the class to be inspected was chosen randomly. (3) If children of more than one age group were contained in one class, only the work of the children of the age group relevant to this survey was inspected.

1.4 At the third stage sub-samples of 9 and 11 year old children were selected from among the children in the classes which had been inspected. The National Foundation for Educational Research administered objective tests of performance in reading at 9 and 11 years and mathematics at 11 years for these sub-samples. (4)

1.5 The findings of the main report are based on information from 540 of the 542 schools in the sample and from 1,121 of the 1,127 classes which were inspected. (5) Since the three-stage sample was statistically representative, the findings reflect the situation in English primary schools at the time of the survey. (6)

1.6 Individual pupils, schools or local education authorities are not identified in the report. In the early stages of the exercise there was consultation with associations representing teachers, educational advisory services and local authorities and, during the course of the survey, with the schools and local education authorities actually involved.

1.7 The head of each school and the relevant class teachers completed questionnaires providing information about their professional experience, the school and the classes containing the teaching groups selected for the survey. (7) Each of these teaching groups was inspected by two of Her Majesty's Inspectors who made an agreed return using schedules designed for the survey. These schedules were constructed by HM Inspectors on the basis of their knowledge of primary schools and teaching and on their collective experience of assessing the work of children in primary schools. The items in them are concerned with the curriculum, teaching methods and school organisation. The schedules are described in detail in Annex B. (8)

1.8 The length of time which HM inspectors spent in a school depended on the age-range and size of the school and varied from one and a half to three days. In order that the full range of work being done could be inspected and recorded, the schedules were more comprehensive in what they contained than any individual class was likely to be in a position to provide; moreover some classes had to be visited during the autumn term when only a small part of their programme for the year had been completed. It also has to be recognised that some types of work are more readily available for inspection than others: children's written work can be examined in their books, some paintings and models are likely to be displayed; but other kinds of work, particularly in spoken language, music and physical education, usually have to be observed in progress in order for any evaluation of quality to take place. HM Inspectors assessed the quality of work only when they were able to inspect this for themselves. (9)

1.9 The information obtained from heads, class teachers, HM Inspectors and from the objective tests administered by NFER was processed by computer and appropriate statistical techniques were employed. (10)

Footnotes

(1) Appendix A, Feasibility and pilot surveys.

(2) Appendix B, The sample design.

(3) Appendix C, Administration.

(4) Appendix D, Weighting and calculation of standard errors.

(5) Appendix E, Withdrawal and replacement of schools, and response rate.

(6) Appendix F, Comparison of the survey sample and National estimates.

(7) Appendix C and Annex A.

(8) See also Chapter 6i and Appendix C.

(9) Appendix C and Annex B.

(10) Appendix G, Methods of analysis.