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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 324] The Proportion of Men and Women Teachers in Primary Schools 903. The last chapter discussed the sources of supply of teachers and how schools are staffed. We now consider how they can be deployed to the best effect in the primary schools. More men are now teaching young children in England than was formerly the case*, and the number of men head teachers in primary schools is rising. The interest shown by men in the teaching of young children is also demonstrated by their attendance at courses on child development and work in infant schools. There are both educational and practical grounds for urging that as far as possible there should be men teachers in all primary schools. Some young children, particularly boys, may respond better to teaching from a man than from a woman, and most schools and communities benefit from the contributions of both men and women teachers. It is also clear that a staff on which there are men teachers is likely to be more stable than a staff made up exclusively of women. 904. The effect of the planned increase in the number of men students in colleges of education would be to increase to 52 per cent the proportion of men teachers in junior schools by 1980. At present, colleges find it difficult to reach the present targets. We believe that this proportion of men teachers could be effectively employed in primary schools, assuming present age ranges. But we see no reason why men should not teach in first schools, particularly if our recommendation is accepted and children remain there until eight. Present failures in continuity might become more serious if schools for children up to eight were staffed entirely by women, and if in middle schools more than half the staff were men. In any case it is sensible for as many primary teachers as possible to have first-hand experience of the education of the youngest children. Many slow children in junior schools need the methods commonly used in infant schools. We hope that the plans to increase the number of men admitted to training for primary education will be successful and will not lead to a lowering of entry standards. We also suggest that men should be encouraged to teach in first schools. 905. It has often been the practice for the head and deputy head teacher to be of opposite sex, particularly in the case of junior with infant schools. This is desirable, but may no longer be practicable as a general rule because of the small number of women who will accept promotion. This makes it even more necessary that men should have direct experience of work with young children. At the least, in-service training for work with infants should be provided for men appointed to combined schools. Yet we hope that authorities will employ enough women heads and deputies for the characteristic contribution of women to primary education to be maintained. The National Survey shows that it is in danger of being lost. (Appendix 5, Table 18) *The proportion of men assistants at the primary stage in England is higher than in countries abroad we visited. [page 325] The Criteria for Staffing Schools 906. We have had some difficulty in discovering precisely how the present body of primary school teachers is deployed, partly because of the different ways in which staffing establishments are fixed for individual schools. Some authorities make their first object the elimination of oversize classes. Others staff their school according to a pupil-teacher ratio which may or may not include the head teacher. The Department of Education and Science speaks with two voices; its statutory regulations refer to class sizes but its quota system is based on pupil teacher-ratios. 907. We agree with the National Advisory Council for the Supply and Training of Teachers (1) that the number of oversized classes in a school does not adequately describe its staffing, and that the number of oversized classes in the country as a whole is an equally misleading indication of the national situation. A class of 15 boys and girls of varying ages may be as exacting to teach as 35 children of the same age. The reason one class is oversize may be the head teacher's decision to make another small because he has a group of very backward children or a weak teacher. In other schools, classes may be large because there are too few rooms or because some small rooms can only accommodate 20 to 24 children. If the trouble is caused by lack of sufficient rooms, an additional teacher is sometimes provided who can help the class teachers by taking small groups whether in the classroom or perhaps the staff room, or relieve his colleagues by making occasional free periods available. A few head teachers prefer to keep one teacher free of responsibility for a class even when they have accommodation enough to reduce the size of classes. The relief which a head teacher himself can give to class teachers depends on the size of the school and the number of classes which have to share his help. For all these reasons class size is an inadequate index, though an important matter. 908. It is doubtful if the pupil-teacher ratio is by itself a satisfactory clue to the staffing of schools. Authorities differ about the size of school in which they expect the head teacher to take charge of a class, and some head teachers who are without this responsibility nevertheless teach for a substantial part of the week. The most useful way of using a staffing ratio for comparative purposes seems to be to classify schools by size and within each classification to include the head teacher in the ratio. It is of course essential, if valid comparisons are to be made, that all authorities should follow the same convention which they do not do at present. The present situation is like recording temperatures sometimes in Centigrade and sometimes in Fahrenheit without making it clear which is being used. It is important that the inclusion of the head teacher in a pupil-teacher ratio is not used to conceal a deterioration in ratios and is not thought by teachers to be a device for this purpose. 909. To parents and teachers it is class size that matters. Even though there is less class teaching, the class will continue to be important as the group of children for whose welfare a teacher is responsible. A minimum average pupil teacher staffing ratio and the elimination of oversized classes should become a twofold objective for local education authorities and the subject of Department of Education and Science Regulations. Returns from local education authorities and the Department's statistics should continue to record both these aspects of staffing. [page 326] 910. The quota already makes some allowance for authorities who have large numbers of immigrant children, and, as we have suggested in Chapter 5, it might make similar provision where there are an unusually large number of children with a poor social background. Only the local education authority knows enough about individual schools to fix appropriate staffing establishments. In doing this the following factors might constitute a claim for generous treatment: (a) a large number of retarded children, immigrants, or children from poor home backgrounds;
911. The size of schools is the most important single cause of differences in pupil-teacher ratios from authority to authority and from school to school. That is why all authorities would do well to relate their staffing ratios to the size of schools, and permit individual modifications. Very large schools as well as small schools need special consideration in staffing. In the former, the head teacher has too many classes under him to be able to give much time to anyone; in the latter, he himself has full-time duties as a class teacher. There are a number of ways in which small schools can be more economically staffed than they often are at present without sacrificing their efficiency. We suggest that where it is essential to keep them open for social or geographical reasons: (a) part-time teachers might in some instances replace full-time teachers;
The Recruitment and Use of Part-Time Teachers 912. It is good that the Burnham Committee have decided to recommend the adoption of uniform arrangements for assessing part-time teachers' pay. We are also glad to know that a Working Party set up by the Secretary of State have formulated proposals for the admission of part-time teachers to a superannuation scheme. Enquiry is also continuing into the best ways of enabling married women teachers who are out of service to keep in touch with their profession and to return at the earliest possible moment. A national register of such teachers, if practicable, would be of great value in forecasting the supply of teachers and in planning their distribution. Local registers, with arrangements for interchange of information, would probably be a more effective way of keeping these teachers in touch with teaching and with the [page 327] local education authorities to whom they will eventually return. It would be helpful if all authorities would follow the example of those who have already compiled local registers of this kind. 'Return to Teaching Clubs' have been organised in one authority in five education centres. Talks are given by practising teachers and school visits arranged. These are attended by married women out of service so that they can keep in touch with the schools. 913. The Department of Education have published information about ways which have proved successful in recruiting part-time teachers and helping them to pick up the threads after a period of absence from the profession (see Chapter 25). We are in sympathy with these suggestions and add only the following points: (a) authorities ought to see that part-time teachers are reasonably distributed among their schools. There are still a few schools in residential areas with a low turnover of staff where the appointment of part-time teachers would bring more variety of experience and background. Schools in other more difficult areas would benefit from the experienced full-time teachers who would be released;914. Apart from class teaching, part-time teachers are principally used for: (a) 'specialist' subjects such as music, physical education and French - sometimes the teacher may be in full-time service with the authority;
[page 328] 915. Part-time help for such subjects as music, physical education and French is particularly useful to small schools. We have referred earlier to the value of part-time teachers in rural schools. Most part-time teachers employed in remedial work need guidance from a remedial centre or an educational psychologist. It is often best for the full-time class teacher to take the slower children, whose work should arise naturally from their life in the classroom, while the part-time teacher concerns herself with the others. Our evidence suggests that head teachers are often reluctant to assign classes or groups of able children to part-time teachers. Yet these may be the very children who find it easy to adjust to more than one teacher and may in fact be stimulated by change. 916. The success of part-time help for a teaching head is often to be explained by the head's readiness to brief the part-time teacher. In large schools, part-time help for deputy heads would enable them to assist the head teacher in looking after young teachers, probationers and students. 917. Ideally, we should like to see all classes of younger children in charge of a full-time teacher with additional part-time or ancillary help. Yet in the present staffing situation, the choice may be between two qualified part-time teachers or one unqualified teacher. Cooperation between the part-time teachers is vital; five year olds are particularly likely to be confused by conflicting standards or methods. Various Kinds of Ancillary Help and Helpers 918. We have given most serious thought to the amount and kind of help that can be given in schools by those who are not qualified teachers. The teachers' associations are unanimous in asking for increased help from secretaries and school meals supervisors, and from welfare assistants as long as they do not work in the classroom. The NUT Report of 1962 (2) suggested that most heads were satisfied with the moderate amount of help that they had got. Yet this report included, in a special study of the replies to some general questions, the comment that 'innumerable teachers mentioned what a boon it would be to have helpers, auxiliaries, welfare assistants and the like'. This is much the impression that we have from witnesses and from our visits to schools up and down the country. In answer to our questionnaire to 3,000 teachers, 49 per cent of heads and 37 per cent of assistant teachers thought there was a place for non-qualified assistant helpers inside the classroom. (Appendix 1, Table E.31) We are naturally aware that some teachers are anxious, as are the teachers' associations, in case the profession should be diluted by allowing ancillaries* to operate within the classroom. We sympathise with those who fear that the informal relationships and teaching, which make many infant schools the good places they are, might come to be regarded as the sphere of the ancillary, and the teacher be confined to straight instruction. Junior schools too need to be preserved from such division. 919. Nobody, however, feels this objection to secretaries, meals assistant or welfare assistants. They have been universally welcomed, but more profitable use might be made of them. In some smaller schools the duties of meals *Ancillaries and ancillary staff are terms used henceforward for all paid workers who are not qualified teachers and who assist in the school in any capacity. [page 329] assistant, secretary and welfare assistant (or any two of these) might be combined and the assistant play an even fuller part in the life of the school. This arrangement is already working in some areas, but in others, although teachers have asked for it, nothing has happened because of difficulties over the varying rates of pay. If some at least of the meals assistants have duties which employ them in the school at other times, attitudes and discipline at dinner are more likely to conform with what is expected during the rest of the day. 920. Much of a school secretary's job is confidential, though a good deal is necessarily routine clerical work. Given more time, she could help the staff by ordering books and equipment, looking after stock, and cataloguing library books. Welfare assistants already do many useful services for teachers; they give invaluable help with hygiene and first aid, look after sick children in school, and escort them home or to clinics. Rather less commonly they make and mend apparatus and repair books. There is no reason why they should not prepare the materials for art and craft, look after plants and animals, help with displays and exhibitions, and record school broadcasts on tape so that they are available when needed. It is perhaps unrealistic to hope that these 'all rounders' could, except in exceptional cases, care for mechanical and musical equipment. But as the use of this equipment develops, authorities might appoint a technician to service the mechanical aids in a group of schools. 921. Most of this help is given outside the classroom, but there are many reasons why ancillaries should work in any part of the school where their help is needed. A large number of children are being taught by unqualified teachers, who have no training and who only get guidance in the little time the head teacher has to spare. In our visits, we were occasionally told of the excellent work of unqualified teachers; but we often heard how fortunate a school was in its 'outstanding' welfare assistant and how many sided were her gifts. We believe more ancillaries of this quality can be recruited if it is known that they will work in close association with teachers and be trained for the job. We discuss their training in Chapter 26. As the whole school building becomes more and more a workshop for the children, the distinction between help inside and outside the classroom loses meaning. There are almost insoluble difficulties in defining what is and what is not teaching and what can and what cannot be done by ancillary staff. The only reliable guide is experience. Our suggestions for using ancillaries are in fact a record of help that teachers have found valuable. The effectiveness and status of teachers will eventually be improved by their having assistants who can be used as they judge best. The safeguard against ancillary assistants taking on responsibilities which ought to belong to teachers is the fact that these assistants are appointed for the specific purpose of helping teachers, that their duties lie within the discretion of head teachers and are carried out under the supervision of head or class teachers. Ancillary help should be used not simply to maintain, but to raise educational standards. For this reason, and to allay the anxiety of teachers, any scheme for the employment of ancillaries should be accompanied by an assurance that objectives in pupil-teacher ratios will not be adversely affected. For the same reason, we recommend that all local education authorities, including those which are well staffed, should be encouraged to experiment with different ways of using ancillary help. [page 330] Colleges of education should train prospective teachers to make good use of these helpers, and so should in-service training programmes. Teachers' Aides* 922. There is an increasing amount of experience on which to base our views of what can be done inside the classroom. Recently the scope of the National Nursery Examinations Board syllabus has been extended to prepare students for work with children up to seven instead of five. Infant schools may, therefore, now be used to train NNEB students. Some authorities have for a long time employed unqualified helpers in such subjects as needlework though these helpers have often been classed as 'occasional' teachers. The type of help that is, or might be, given by teachers' aides, who ought to have equal status with nursery assistants and have a comparable training, falls into three kinds: (a) Help that amounts to an extra pair of hands for the teacher. Young children working as individuals or in small groups need encouragement and help in their play, their reading and other activities. They want stories read to them and several groups and many children want help at the same time. The teacher can only tend one at a time. Other children, individually or in groups, use visual aids, tape recorders and simple learning machines; they learn on their own, but not without help. Teachers' aides can accompany teachers and children on out of school expeditions and help inside and outside the classroom in the preparation and maintenance of materials and equipment;923. Teachers' aides can make a contribution to junior as well as infant schools and their employment in both will reduce the risk of their being thought 'good enough' only for the younger children. In practice, general purpose aides would be most useful with children up to eight or nine (or rather older in areas with special problems), and aides with special skills, who can also give some general help, would be valuable with older primary children. It is assumed that some aides would be full-time and some part-time. 924. It has not been easy to suggest how many aides should be employed. If the figure is high, the quality of applicants may fall, and recruitment of nursery assistants may be adversely affected. The National Association of School Masters recommended that one general assistant should be assigned to an infant school of up to 200, and two assistants to an infant school over 200 (and for a junior school one for numbers up to 400, and two assistants for a school above that size). Our concept of an aide is broader than that of a 'general assistant'. We think that, as a first step, aides should be employed *Teachers' aides is the term used for trained ancillaries who give substantial help to teachers inside and outside the classroom. [page 331] on a scale which will provide the equivalent of one full-time aide for 60-80 infants (two classes), and one aide for 120 to 160 juniors (four classes). For the educational priority areas we have suggested a rather more generous scale. These proposals will mean the training and recruitment of over 50,000 aides by 1973/4. 925. The nature of ancillary assistance for schools is bound to vary according to local circumstances. In small schools in rural areas, all purpose assistants are likely to be most helpful. In large schools, separate secretarial help will probably be essential and, for an interim period at least, welfare assistants may be needed in addition to teachers' aides. But as more of the latter become available they will take over the duties at present covered by welfare assistants. It would be desirable that a salary structure should provide for equality of status between nursery assistants and trained aides, though special allowances would be less necessary for aides than for nursery assistants. The status and salary of aides and nursery assistants would be superior to that of welfare and meals assistants. A national agreement between the authority and teachers' organisations on the functions of teachers' aides is desirable, but we hope that a good deal of discretion will be left to the head teachers. 926. To avoid keeping children out of school, authorities with insufficient qualified staff employ unqualified temporary and occasional teachers to take charge of a class. Constructive suggestions in this field, more than in any other, are apt to be blocked by the understandable anxiety of the teaching profession to avoid dilution. We cannot, however, avoid the responsibility of advising what should be done. On no account should children be in charge of untrained helpers without supervision by a qualified teacher. It is preferable that, when circumstances make some arrangement of this kind necessary, children should be looked after by a trained aide and their class linked with a qualified teacher. Responsibility allowances should be paid to teachers whose duties are increased in this way. Where accommodation permits, the total number of children under the supervision of a teacher and a teacher's aide should be smaller than Schools Regulations provide for two classes taught by qualified teachers. Where the two classes have to be big two teachers' aides should be assigned to one teacher. 927. Parents sometimes accompany school expeditions or make equipment for use in school. We do not wish to limit the sources from which help can come, or the conditions under which it is given, so long as it is at the invitation of, and under the strict control of, the head teacher. Too many primary schools assume that schools naturally contain only teachers and pupils. There are mutual advantages in opening the schools to the community. Mothers can help in school libraries and in other ways as is common in the USA; in New York it is organised by the School Volunteer Service. Parents and others can assist in clubs as was happening in schools which some of us visited in the USSR. There are schools in England where the village policeman trains the boys' football team, a local choirmaster helps with the school concert, and local studies are pursued with help of those who know the area well. We should like to see this kind of help enlisted on a larger scale. There is no reason why help should be limited to out of school activities. The head teachers of a few London infant schools which have many children from problem families have enlisted Care Committee workers to look after small groups of children with behaviour difficulties for a day each week. This extra [page 332] attention has had a valuable effect on the children. Head teachers (or secretaries of PTAs) might keep a record of help which parents are willing to give and local education authorities might make it their business to interest the local community and to keep a central register of offers of help, much as has been done in connection with the Youth Service. This help would take little of the time of any one individual and would usually be voluntary. It might be a useful source for the recruitment of paid ancillary workers. 928. Help of this voluntary kind will be hardest to come by in the areas which are most short of teachers. They will have to rely more heavily on paid help for which systematic arrangements should be made. The Head Teacher and His Staff 929. The independence of the head teacher within his school is great. The intervention of local authority or managers in the curriculum and organisation is no more than nominal. It is for the head teacher in cooperation with the staff to crystallise the school's aims and to see that schemes and organisation serve them. The head teacher must know the staff, both the teachers and others, be aware of their gifts and weaknesses and assign their duties in such a way that children are well taught. It is also the head teacher's responsibility to ensure that the staff are provided with essential equipment and are kept in touch with new ideas. 930. It is rare to find a primary school so large that the head teacher cannot know every child, which is particularly valuable at this time of rapid turnover of assistant teachers. The best way to get to know children is to teach them and be with them inside and outside the classroom. In this way a good head teacher can stimulate the children, inspire the staff, weld the school into a unity and set its values. If there are areas of a curriculum which other teachers cannot effectively cover the head teacher will have to equip himself as far as possible to deal with them. 931. During the last war, and in the immediate post-war period, the administrative duties of head teachers increased and they had no secretarial help. They had as a result to teach less. We are glad to learn, from an enquiry (3) made for us into the role of primary school teachers, that the heads in the small sample were spending much of their time in visiting classrooms and teaching small and larger groups. There is no better way of commending their leadership to the staff than by demonstrating their skill in the classroom. The fact that the head continues to teach raises the whole status of teaching. 932. The head teacher must also keep in touch with parents and know where to get help if children's problems or their home circumstances call for specialist advice. It is also primarily the head teacher's responsibility to be in personal contact with the schools from which his pupils come and to which they go. 933. Whether all this really happens depends a good deal on the extent to which the whole staff share in the making of school policy and are given the right blend of freedom and guidance. Some research suggests that young teachers, who should be a sensitive measure of how well collaboration is working, benefit greatly from informal discussion with their colleagues and with head teachers but little from staff meetings. There is an important place both for informal consultation and for more formal discussion among the staff as a whole. A staff meeting may sometimes have little value because it is [page 333] given too limited a function. It is more important to discuss educational topics than arrangements for a party or a sports day. Matters of routine can properly be cleared by circular notes to the staff; changes of policy and policies which have been unchanged for many years are worth detailed examination. Staff meetings should, we think, be held regularly. There should usually be a central topic for discussion of which advance notice has been given, and topics ought to be suggested and introduced by assistants as well as by the head. 934. In the past head teachers were responsible for all schemes of work. Now that the primary school curriculum is being widened it is increasingly difficult for them to be up to date with all the developments and sensible that they should invite the help of assistant teachers in preparing schemes, in giving advice to their colleagues and in the selection of books, materials and equipment. Since students in colleges of education now study at least one subject in some depth there should be no lack of response from teachers, though at present it is improbable that any school will have sufficient choice to build up a staff which is nicely balanced in specialist knowledge. It is important that head teachers should be consulted by the authority on staff appointments so that, whenever possible, marked deficiencies in a staff can be made good. 935. It will, we think, strengthen primary schools if heads go further than is commonly done in delegating duties. The deputy head usually stands in for the head teacher in his absence and may relieve him of such jobs as interviewing parents or taking the morning assembly, though these responsibilities should not be confined exclusively to head teachers and their deputies. Occasionally a deputy head teacher has no class of his own though we doubt the wisdom of this. It is also often suitable, particularly in large schools, for the deputy head teacher to give guidance to probationers and to students. Out of school activities which involve parents and children are often well left to deputy head teachers. A large school may have need for two deputy head teachers. 936. The Burnham structure provides for graded posts in the primary school. The intention is that they should be awarded for specific duties. In practice the duties for which they are assigned are sometimes trivial. It is usual, and it should continue to be usual, for a graded post or a deputy headship to be given to a member of staff who takes charge of the infants in a junior mixed and infants school. The same principle might be adopted for other age groups in the school. A member of staff might act as consultant for the teachers and ancillaries working with one or two age groups. Whether or not a graded post is available, heads will often want to arrange for an experienced and an inexperienced teacher to take parallel classes and work together. But there are no invariable rules. Occasionally, when a staff has become set in its ways, it may be helpful for two young teachers to be associated with an age group so that, with the head teacher's help, they may reinforce one another in experiment. 937. In the assignment of classes, in the award of graded posts and in the nomination of consultant teachers, head teachers will also want to take into account their teachers' knowledge of subjects. The main role of a consultant teacher should be advisory, but he might sometimes take over a class for part [page 334] of the week. This may be desirable in order to raise the quality of work, or indeed to ensure that a subject such as music or physical education is covered in some classes. It is also important that consultant teachers or teams of teachers do not remain permanently with the same age group. Two successive years may consolidate understanding of the problems involved. But there are too many schools in which teachers settle down with a particular age group or even with a stream within an age group, for the bulk of their career. 938. There are at present striking differences between authorities on the size of school in which head teachers are expected to take charge of a class. In some areas the head must teach full time when there are as many as 200 children in the school; in others, he may be freed of a class in a school of 100 or fewer. We are clear that, except in one class schools, all heads need part-time assistance so that they can get to know both children and parents and advise the staff, including probationers. It is equally essential that head teachers of larger schools should not have to spend so much time on administrative duties and on general supervision that they are unable to teach. One authority has told us that they think head teachers should spend three quarters of their time in teaching. Relief for head teachers could be given by additional secretarial assistance. The returns required by authorities and by the Department should be kept under continuous review to see whether they can be reduced in number or simplified. Part-time teaching help ought to be provided in large schools to enable deputy head teachers and consultant teachers to share with the head teacher the responsibility of guiding the staff. Unless these teachers are freed for some part of the week from their work with their own class they will be unable to exercise satisfactorily the responsibilities assigned to them. It is particularly important that the teachers in charge of the infants in a junior mixed and infants school should be able to spend time in all the infant classes. 939. There must, according to the Burnham scale, be a deputy head teacher in a junior mixed and infants school of more than 100 pupils, and in a separate junior or infant school of more than 200. Local education authorities have discretion to create posts in smaller schools. Difficulties occur in primary schools of 200 and less when the head teacher is absent and there is no deputy to take his place. We hope that authorities will use more generally the powers they have to appoint deputy heads in small schools. There may be one or more posts for heads of departments in the larger primary schools. New arrangements allow some increase in the number of graded posts in primary schools which previously may have been insufficient. A school with 300-500 pupils may have two Scale I posts; with 500-700 pupils it may have four such posts; the available points may be used to provide fewer but more valuable posts. 940. It has been put to us that the hierarchy of deputy headships, headships of departments and graded posts in large primary schools makes for frequent changes of staff. A sub-committee of the Burnham Committee is now examining the points system; we hope it will take account of the overriding need of primary schools for a more stable staff. Clearly, an assistant teacher in a small school who seeks promotion must change his school. There is less need for movement when graded posts are to be filled in a larger school, though promotion should be a reward for merit and not for seniority. It seems also that the policy of some authorities in appointing head teachers is [page 335] out of date. It is not unknown for candidates to be denied promotion because they have not had experience in a sufficient number of schools. We believe that attention should now be directed more to the variety of experience and responsibility that teachers have exercised within schools, the short courses they have followed and the visits to other schools which they have made, and less to the number of schools in which they have taught. Advice and Inspection 941. We have described the support the individual teacher can get within the school from being a member of a team guided but not dominated by the head teacher. But help from within the school is not enough, especially at this time of a rapidly changing curriculum, methods and organisation. The freedom of the class teacher to prescribe for his pupils, and of the head teacher to prescribe for his school, must be informed by a knowledge of the successes and failures of others. Both will benefit from outside advice from somebody who knows the inside of their school. 942. How is the knowledge and advice to be supplied? Is there too much of it or too little? Though on at least one occasion we heard the familiar description of the teaching profession as the most inspected of all professions, the general impression given by our evidence is that teachers are still too isolated and that they are under rather than over advised. 943. Two bodies exist to inspect and advise the schools, HM Inspectorate and local inspectors. Both originated in the 19th century in the need to supervise the expenditure of public money. Since that time the education and training of primary school teachers have been greatly improved and the teaching profession has established its own traditions. But we doubt if the time has yet come to throw over entirely the principle of inspection and simply substitute advice. Assessment of a school is a necessary preamble to giving relevant advice, and a safeguard against the preaching of an educational gospel, regardless of the different circumstances of different schools. Very occasionally children and the public still need to be protected. There are rare occasions when a report, whether by HM Inspectors or local authority inspectors, ought to draw attention to the fact that a school is positively harmful to children. Local inspectors must also assess schools since they often advise managers on promotion. Without this knowledge, selection would have to depend mainly on the impression at an interview, a notoriously hazardous method. Yet we welcome the growing stress on the role of adviser rather than of inspector, and note with pleasure the friendly relationships which are usual between HM Inspectorate and the teaching profession. The more informal the schools become in their organisation and relationships, the more informal ought to be the routines of inspection. 944. The roles of the national and local inspectorates are complementary. HM Inspectorate is a relatively mobile body which can watch the development of education in maintained and independent schools throughout the country. Advances in education or practice are often surprisingly local and often owe much to local inspectors and advisers. They can be made widely known by HM Inspectors. 945. Local inspectors through courses, visits and placing of staff can help to build up a group of outstanding schools which may serve as a spearhead of [page 336] advance within their own authority and often in the country as a whole. These schools should not become show schools. Often a monthly teachers' meeting, held in different schools in succession, is the best way of propagating educational ideas without seeming to single out individual schools. 946. There is a danger that at this time of shortage of teachers too much of the time of the local inspectorate may be devoted to the placing of teachers. We have been much impressed by the work of advisory teachers* who have a small group of schools and who concentrate on help for teachers. What distinguishes them from other inspectors and advisers is that much of their time is spent in teaching in the classroom, often side by side with the class teacher. 947. The National Association of Inspectors and of Educational Organisers has been unable to tell us with any exactitude how many local authority advisory officers there are or what subjects or stages of education they cover. Authorities are obliged to employ a youth officer and a school meals officer. The Association thinks that not more than 50 out of all local education authorities appoint a range of advisers or inspectors which is significantly larger than this minimum. On the whole it is the counties which are best provided. These authorities certainly have many small schools in which there may be a lack of stimulus for teachers. Nevertheless the County Boroughs where there are the biggest problems of social deprivation are worse staffed. Even in authorities where there are a number of posts, the majority tend to be assigned to physical education, music, housecraft and handicraft, subjects which were added to the minimum curriculum in the 19th century and were thus thought to require special supervision. Traditions yield slowly. Some of these subjects are usually taught today by specialists who should require little help from advisers. We see three main needs for development in the advisory services. There should be additional inspectors or, even better, advisory teachers in primary and particularly in infant education. Only in this way can the large number of young teachers receive sufficient help. Advisory posts should be established for such developing subjects as mathematics, science and drama, for English, in which class teachers have too long been left to their own devices, and in religious instruction, in which the need for change is generally acknowledged and where few primary teachers have thought out their position clearly. Experiments might be tried in appointing advisers who combine knowledge in two or three subjects with interest in primary education. Finally small authorities which cannot individually maintain an adequate range of advisers might combine for the organisation of courses and to provide other advisory services. We have heard of only a handful of instances in which an arrangement of this kind is made, though without it it is difficult to see how otherwise probationary teachers can be given a minimum of care or all teachers the help they need. We are aware that these suggestions rest on incomplete evidence. We believe that a comprehensive survey should be made of advisory services and of the work which they do. *We distinguish between 'consultant teachers' whose function is to advise members of the school staff on which they serve, and 'advisory teachers' on the authority's general staff who serve a group of schools. [page 337] Recommendations 948. (i) More men are needed in first schools. Prospective men head teachers or deputies of first or combined schools should have had direct experience or in-service training in infant as well as junior work. A sufficient number of women heads and deputies should continue to be appointed. [page 338] (xii) In bigger schools part-time teaching help should be provided for deputy heads and holders of graded posts so that they may assist the head with guidance of probationers and students, interviews with teachers and in other ways. 1. 'The Demand for and the Supply of Teachers 1963-64'. Ninth Report of the National Advisory Council for the Training and Supply of Teachers, paragraph 29. HMSO, 1965.
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