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Plowden (1967) Notes on the text Volume 1 (page numbers in brackets) Preliminary pages (i-xxii)
Part 1 Introduction
Part 2 The growth of the child
Part 3 The home, school and neighbourhood
Part 4 The structure of primary education
Part 5 The children in the schools: curriculum and internal organisation
Part 6 The adults in the schools
Part 7 Independent schools
Part 8 Primary school buildings and equipment; status; and research
Part 9 Conclusions and recommendations
Notes (486-495)
Research and Surveys about Plowden |
The Plowden Report (1967)
A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England) London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1967
[page 313] 879. It is not our intention to write yet another report on how to get enough teachers, but our proposals for making better use of the teachers we have must be seen against the national situation. The first factor is necessarily the number of children to be taught. In pre-war years England had grown accustomed to the dwindling numbers entering her schools each year. In 1938 there were half a million children aged five years. After the war the position changed. In 1952 there were three quarters of a million and in the following year 829,000. In 1955 there were over a million more children in primary schools than there had been in 1946. This was the post-war 'bulge', the result of marriages and child bearing postponed during the war. It was assumed that it would be a temporary emergency, and the fall in the number of births after 1948 seemed to confirm this. For a time there was a slight easing in the primary schools, and mounting pressure in secondary schools as the children born immediately after the war reached the age of 11 and an increasing number of older boys and girls decided to stay at school after 15. Then the birth rate rose again. Ten years ago, before the 'bulge' was quite clear of the primary schools, the pressure on them began to return. It has grown steadily worse, and now affects both primary and secondary schools. These two forces, the biological facts of bigger age groups, which educational policy can only accept, and the social pressure for longer school life, which it would be wrong to oppose, have created a record demand for teachers. 880. Many more teachers are needed. Until recently new recruits for the profession have had to come from the small age groups of the pre-war and war years. In spite of this, spectacular progress has been made. In 1947 there were some 115,000 teachers taking primary classes; by 1958, the number was 138,000. There have been two great changes since the inter war period - far more careers were open to women so that more competition had to be faced; women teachers no longer had to resign on marriage so that, immediately at least, the supply of teachers was increased. Today over half the women teachers in maintained schools are married women. But the removal of the ban on marriage carried with it a middle distance threat of heavy wastage as wives became mothers and only a long term promise of a return to teaching once child bearing and child rearing was past. The exodus has been catastrophic; the return slow. Men and Women Teachers 881. Wastage is a particularly serious problem for primary schools because so many primary teachers are women. In primary schools as a whole women outnumber men by three to one; in the secondary schools, men outnumber women by four to three. In infant schools in 1965 there were only 97 brave men out of a total of 33,000 teachers. One in four teachers in junior mixed and infant schools and about two in five teachers in junior schools are men. The tradition that women are better suited than men to work with younger [page 314] children also affects the allocation of classes within schools. The National Survey shows that 90 per cent of teachers of first year juniors were women as compared with 55 per cent of the teachers of fourth year juniors. The NUT Survey of the Primary Schools (2) showed that in 40 per cent of primary schools there were no men teachers at all. A further point should be made: in those areas where the proportion of women teachers is particularly high and where married women teachers tend not to live, the turnover of staff in primary schools is bound to be very considerable. Schools in these districts are staffed by a succession of young women who marry and leave after a few years service. (3) 882. The proportion of men and women teachers in posts of responsibility is different. In 1965 there were approximately as many men as women primary school head teachers. Almost all infant school heads are women; men outnumber women heads in other primary schools. In schools included in the National Survey more than half the men teachers but less than a quarter of the women teachers were heads, deputies or graded post holders. Full-Time and Part-Time Teachers 883. It follows from the preponderance of women teachers in the primary schools that these schools have in the long run more to gain than the secondary schools from the return of married women teachers, and, what is part of the same situation, more need to employ part-time teachers. In the twelve months up to February 1966 the numbers of qualified married women teachers returning to teach full-time was about 3,400, approximately the same number as in the previous 12 months. There was, however, a net increase of nearly 5,000 part-time teachers in the same period. Local education authorities have long been readier to employ these teachers in secondary schools because they fitted into the structure of specialist teaching, particularly in shortage subjects. In 1962 two thirds of the primary schools still had none, and almost another 30 per cent had only one or two part-time teachers. The average primary school employed only 0.9 of a part-time teacher for one day a week. (4) By February 1966 17,373 teachers were employed part-time in primary schools (the full-time equivalent of 8,189 teachers) compared with 18,330 in secondary schools (the full-time equivalent of 9,032). Ninety-four education authorities (out of a total of 162) had reached the target of five per cent set by the Departmental Circular (6/65) issued in May 1965 while in one in ten education authorities ten per cent of the teachers were employed part-time. The pattern is still too uneven; 14 education authorities still employ less than three per cent. Some variation may be explained by the absence of married women teachers in many areas: elsewhere it is due to the policy of the education authority. The employment of married women teachers, both full-time and part-time can bring strength to the schools. They are to be welcomed and they will form part of the permanent pattern. We have suggested in Chapter 5 that all authorities should be encouraged to identify and employ 'immobile' married women teachers and that, if necessary, the Department should refine the quota system to make their employment universal. Unqualified Teachers 884. Though regulations have laid down that only qualified teachers should be employed on a permanent regular basis, there has never been a time when [page 315] all primary school teachers have been qualified. The employment of unqualified teachers is to be deplored and should be discontinued as soon as possible. Nevertheless it has helped to prevent a growth in the number of oversize classes and the pupil-teacher ratio. Unqualified occasional teachers may be employed on a daily basis to meet a particular emergency. Many authorities are in a permanent state of emergency and thankful to recruit anyone who can keep a class occupied. Those eligible for admission to a college of education may become temporary teachers and it has been common practice for students waiting to go to college to become temporary teachers. In areas which are well staffed they are supernumerary. They can then be given opportunities to observe work at various stages in the school and can gradually take some responsibility. In other districts boys and girls straight from the sixth form are put in charge of a class. 885. The NUT Survey of 1962 (5) found that only six per cent of teachers in primary schools were unqualified. There seems little doubt that this figure has now risen substantially. An analysis of teacher supply (6) showed an increase in primary schools from 1964 to 1965 of 665 temporary teachers and 284 occasional teachers. The proportion of unqualified teachers in infant schools is substantially greater than in junior and junior mixed and infant schools. In 1965, in the Christmas term when staffing is usually at its best, the percentage of unqualified teachers had risen to 35 in two authorities and was well above 20 in three other areas. Ratio of Teachers to Pupils 886. The staffing of a school can be expressed in two ways - by class size or by number of pupils per teacher. Both are shown in Tables 18 and 19. These figures are a measure of the efficiency of national policy and of the severity of the teacher's task. They are encouraging in view of the difficulties, daunting when one remembers how the educational service has had to struggle in order to stand still or make relatively slight gains. 887. To those teachers who have to face oversized classes the situation must seem intolerable. It is also depressing when a rehousing programme reduces numbers, so that a hard pressed authority has to take away staff, and the equipment allowance falls. The effect of shortages of staff, coupled with the growth of the secondary schools and their staff, have reinforced a suspicion that the dice are unfairly loaded against the primary schools. The attempt to divert teachers from the primary schools to the secondary schools in the 1950s as the 'children of the bulge' grew older was not matched by equal endeavour to get them back again when the next wave hit the primary schools. Training colleges were asked to concentrate mainly on preparing students for primary schools, but this change could only take effect after a delay of three years as the length of the course was raised at the same time. Primary school teachers had to pay heavily for this reform. Special campaigns by the Department and local authorities are being aimed at bringing back married women teachers, recruiting graduates after short courses and employing more part-time teachers. The emphasis is on the needs of the primary schools, particularly those for infants. [page 316] Distribution of Teachers 888. We need to know not only how many teachers there are, but where they are in order to appreciate the situation in the schools. A crude but reasonably reliable way to show this is to divide England into counties and county boroughs. A few of the counties are almost exclusively rural; most are made up of a mixture of villages, small and middle size towns and the commuter belts which surround the great cities. There are rather more than twice as many children in the counties as in the county boroughs. Tables 20, 21 and 22 set out the position.*
Source: Statistics Branch, Department of Education and Science.
Source:
*The Isles of Scilly, for obvious reasons, had a more generous staffing ratio. They are excluded from Tables 20, 21, 22. [page 317]
Source: Statistics Branch, Department of Education and Science. They make it clear that big classes and a widespread resort to part-time teachers are much more characteristic of the county boroughs. The full range of pupil-teacher ratios is from 23.2:1 in the best staffed county to 32.3:1 in the worst county borough (Table 21). This means that a primary school of 250 children might have ten teachers on the first ratio but only seven on the second. But, of course, an authority's staffing ratio as set out here is the average for all its pupils. This average conceals wide variations from school to school just as the national figures conceal the variations between authorities and it does not show the distribution of unqualified teachers. 889. The variations in staffing ratio would have been much greater still if there were not a quota system. The system works by holding steady, rather than depressing, the standards of the best-off authorities. Although it can give no guarantee that deprived authorities will be able to fill their quotas it gives them a better chance to do so by preventing the more popular areas exploiting their natural advantages. Since 1956 the gap in quota standards between the worst and the best placed authorities has at least halved and an increasing majority are now close to the mean. Ancillary Helpers 890. The continuous shortage of teachers and the increasing range of their duties have made the Department and the local education authorities anxious to use their services more efficiently. No longer are teachers expected to do everything that needs doing in school except clean it. School dinners have brought with them not only cooks but, in the end, 'dinner helpers'. Head [page 318] teachers have some secretarial help. Other assistants are being appointed to relieve class teachers of some of the burden involved in looking after very young children. This process has gone a long way but not, in our judgement, far enough. The ancillary services that exist are not yet provided everywhere and they are not comprehensive enough. 891. In 1962 the NUT (7) reported that 87 per cent of primary schools had school meals helpers, and 68 per cent secretaries, but only 22 per cent had the help of welfare assistants to relieve teachers in caring for some of the needs of young children. A report of the Association of Education Committees (8) showed that in 1965 all but seven counties and seven county boroughs provide school secretarial assistance for primary schools and that all but three local authorities employ meal supervisors. It also recorded a very considerable increase in the number of welfare assistants, though it has to be remembered that the figures in the Table below refer to authorities, not schools as in the NUT Survey, and say nothing about the scale of provision.
*This report was based on returns by 156 authorities in England and Wales: not all returns were complete.
Notes:
Source: Employment of Ancillary Helpers', Section VI, Paragraph 1. Report of Association of Education Committees, 1966. 892. One hundred authorities employ trained nursery assistants in nursery schools, 21 authorities employ these assistants in infant schools and one authority made use of nursery assistants in junior schools. In two authorities trained nursery assistants are employed but they are not allowed to work inside the classroom. Information received recently from HM Inspectorate suggests that the number of authorities employing nursery assistants in primary schools is increasing rapidly. 893. There is little logical pattern to be seen in the employment of unqualified teachers and of ancillary helpers other than secretaries and meals' assistants. It is clear that some authorities prefer to allow class size to grow beyond the statutory maximum, while others keep class sizes down by appointing unqualified teachers. There appears to be little connection between the size of the classes, the number of unqualified teachers and the readiness of the authorities to make use of ancillary helpers for quasi-educational functions. Certainly some authorities where classes are very large do not employ ancillary helpers who can work with teachers within the classroom. [page 319] It seems then that some authorities are hesitating to employ helpers of this kind because of their cost, because they are uncertain how to use them or because they share the anxiety of some teachers about 'dilution' or fear the consequences of forcing their employment on a reluctant profession. The Future 894. There are brighter prospects ahead, though teachers might say 'I've heard that one before'. Certainly as far as we can tell there will be more teachers. The problem is how they will be divided between the primary and the secondary schools. The government is committed to implementing the long promised reform of raising the minimum school leaving age in 1970/71. This is estimated to increase secondary schools rolls by 350,000 pupils who will need teachers. The National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers in their Ninth Report (9) anticipated that there would be a transfer of 10,000 teachers from primary to secondary. We understand that they were not advocating this step but indicating only what seemed likely to happen if matters were left to take their own course. It seems to us that this would be a foolish way of staffing the increase from the point of view of the secondary schools. The older pupils whom this reform will retain in the secondary schools need, as the Council's last report indicated, work of a different kind from that which they are now getting, and this 'requires that many of the teachers themselves should have experience of the industrial situation ... men and women recruited to teaching after experience of other kinds of work may have a special part to play'. (10) This means new blood, not a blood transfusion. To transfer teachers for the raising of the school leaving age would be disastrous for the primary schools. It must not be allowed to happen. 895. It is sometimes maintained that there is a 'gravitational pull' towards the teaching of older children and there is some recent evidence which appears to show this. The colleges of education are the main providers of primary school teachers, but more than the expected number of the students who took junior-secondary course have gone to work in secondary schools. It is reasonable to ask why this has happened. Some of the reasons may be deep seated and beyond administrative action to repair. There may be some, however, which are remediable. How do the career prospects of men and women going into primary and secondary schools compare? How does a student who has had teaching practice in both kinds of school weigh the large classes and absence of free periods which confront the primary school teacher against the often more serious disciplinary problems in secondary schools? How far in fact would the consequences of the reforms we suggest, more favourable staffing ratios and a fuller provision of ancillary helpers, correct what seems to be a 'gravitational pull'? These questions deserve careful and immediate study. 896. The greatest shortage in the primary schools is of infant teachers. The cause is clear but the remedy elusive. They have the most severe wastage rate because most of them are young women who tend to marry early and leave the profession. The National Survey (Appendix 5, paragraph 11) showed that only 34 per cent of the teachers who had been in the infant schools between September 1961 and June 1964 were in post at the beginning of the period. The core of stable teachers was smaller and newcomers stayed [page 320] less long. The seemingly hopeless prospect of retaining infant teachers may be one reason why there are local education authorities which show less persistence in seeking them out when there are equal shortages in other parts of the educational system. If so, it is not a good reason.
*Assumes no transfer of teachers from primary to secondary schools for raising of the school leaving age.
897. The situation calls for measures which have to be taken from the centre. We make three recommendations: (i) those who are concerned with appointing teachers should do their utmost to persuade all those who have been trained for primary work not to transfer to secondary schools; [page 321] (iii) if necessary, a selective quota system should be considered to give teeth to this persuasion.On the assumptions that no transfer of primary teachers to secondary schools takes place and that the primary schools receive the full number of teachers which the colleges of education are planning to train for primary work, the earliest date by which all classes over 40 could be abolished would be 1976*. Beyond then classes can be further reduced. The pupil-teacher ratio in primary schools would have to be reduced from 30:1 today to 25:1 in 1976. The steps by which this would be brought about are shown in Table 24. Primary and Secondary School Staffing 898. Finally, continuing study should be undertaken of the right proportion of teachers to pupils of different ages, given modern equipment and the employment of ancillary staff. The Consultative Committee of 1931 rejected the view that primary school classes should be larger than those for children over 11. In 1944 the regulation maximum size of class was reduced from 50 to 40 for primary schools. But at the same time classes in all types of secondary schools were limited to 30, a size which had previously applied only to grammar schools. Primary school children continued to be at a disadvantage. Two of the Joint Four Associations have told us that they see no reason why children below 11 should be in larger classes than children up to the age of 13. Witnesses from all types of secondary schools said that primary classes should range in size from 25 to 30. Differences between pupil-teacher ratios for primary school age children and secondary pupils up to the age of 15 are similar to those between average class sizes (28.4 for primary schools and 20.8 for secondary school pupils up to 15). But to isolate the secondary school ratio for pupils up to 15 does not give the whole picture. These pupils get some advantage from the far more favourable ratios for pupils of 15 to 18. In consequence, most secondary school teachers have non-teaching periods, whatever the age of the classes they teach. Unlike secondary teachers, primary teachers spend the whole day with their class. 899. The primary schools have a strong case for smaller classes. The younger the children, the less they can benefit from large group instruction or use mechanical devices. They need help from a teacher, and for much of the time they need individual help. Although, as a Council, we have no knowledge of secondary schools, it seems obvious that, as their size increases and the number of pupils following advanced courses (whether at 16 or later) grows, economies in staffing become possible. Nevertheless, secondary schools have big problems to face in the next decade. Reorganisation into comprehensive schools will increase the number of schools whose pupils are scattered among several buildings; the majority of schools will be learning how to meet, in one school, the needs of pupils of all levels of ability; they also have to work out suitable courses up to the age of 16 for all boys and girls, including those where special problems were highlighted by our immediate predecessors on the Central Advisory Council. The available teachers have to be shared between the primary and secondary schools. In these circumstances *As Table 24 shows, if preference were not given to educational priority areas (see Chapter 5) oversized classes would be abolished by 1974. [page 322] we do not think it practicable to suggest the exact number to which primary school classes should be reduced during the next decade and even beyond. We believe, nevertheless, that as a general rule the maximum size of primary classes should be the same as that in the first two or three years of the secondary school. This principle should be taken into account as teachers are placed in post in preparation for the raising of the school leaving age. It will mean that the size of secondary school classes will have to increase slightly, though temporarily, in order to prevent primary school children being at a continuing disadvantage. Adjustments should be made to the Regulations for maximum class sizes to allow for the flexibility that we suggest. 900. The Secretary of State has declared his sympathy with an ultimate objective for a class size of 'say 30/30' for primary and secondary schools. We have studied the ways in which teachers and ancillary helpers are and should be used in the primary school and have come to the conclusion that a class teacher cannot satisfactorily work with more than 30 to 35 children. We suggest that such studies should continue to be made in the future: studies are also needed of secondary school staffing. 901. It is clear that 'education' is becoming easily the biggest employer of the most educated citizens. The National Advisory Council for the Supply and Training of Teachers estimated that half the products of the higher education would be absorbed in the educational system. (11) When we add our own demands in the report to the number of teachers required to meet the lengthening of secondary school life and the expansion of the universities, we cannot make the sum any less. It is then imperative that the manpower employed in the teaching profession should be used as economically and productively as possible. The only way to ensure this is by detailed and patient study. Recommendations 902. The situation calls for measures which have to be taken from the centre. We make five recommendations: (i) those who are concerned with appointing teachers should do their utmost to persuade all those who have been trained for primary work not to transfer to secondary schools; [page 323] 1. Gardner DEM and Cass JM 'The Role of the Teacher in the Infant School', Pergamon, 1965.
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