Plowden (1967)

Notes on the text

Volume 1

Preliminary pages Foreword, Membership, Contents
Lists Tables, Diagrams and Photographs

Part 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 Introduction

Part 2 The growth of the child
Chapter 2 The children: their growth and development

Part 3 The home, school and neighbourhood
Chapter 3 The children and their environment
Chapter 4 Participation by parents
Chapter 5 Educational Priority Areas
Chapter 6 Children of immigrants
Chapter 7 The health and social services and the school child

Part 4 The structure of primary education
Chapter 8 Primary education in the 1960s: its organisation and effectiveness
Chapter 9 Providing for children before compulsory education
Chapter 10 The ages and stages of primary education
Chapter 11 Selection for secondary education
Chapter 12 Continuity and consistency between the stages of education
Chapter 13 The size of primary schools
Chapter 14 Education in rural areas

Part 5 The children in the schools: curriculum and internal organisation
Chapter 15 The aims of primary education
Chapter 16 Children learning in school
Chapter 17 Aspects of the curriculum
Chapter 18 Aids to learning and to teaching
Chapter 19 The child in the school community
Chapter 20 How primary schools are organised
Chapter 21 Handicapped children in ordinary schools
Chapter 22 The education of gifted children

Part 6 The adults in the schools
Introduction the role of the teacher
Chapter 23 The staffing of schools
Chapter 24 The Deployment of Staff
Chapter 25 The training of primary school teachers
Chapter 26 The training of nursery assistants and teachers' aides

Part 7 Independent schools
Chapter 27 Independent primary schools

Part 8 Primary school buildings and equipment; status; and research
Chapter 28 Primary school buildings and equipment
Chapter 29 The status and government of primary education
Chapter 30 Research, innovation and the dissemination of information

Part 9 Conclusions and recommendations
Chapter 31 The costs and priorities of our recommendations
Chapter 32 Recommendations and conclusions

Notes of reservation
Annex A A questionnaire to witnesses
Annex B List of witnesses
Annex C Visits made
Glossary
Index

Volume 2

Research and Surveys

Articles

about Plowden

The Plowden Report (1967)
Children and their Primary Schools

A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1967
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Volume 1 Chapter 26
The training of nursery assistants and teachers' aides
[pages 368 - 376]

Existing schemes of training
1029. Well established schemes of work-based training leading to the Certificate of the National Nursery Examination Board already exist for nursery nurses and those in similar types of employment. These schemes are conducted in institutions approved for the purpose by the Department of Education and Science, and by the Home Office or the Ministry of Health. The National Nursery Examination Board [NNEB] lay down entry requirements to courses, administer the final examinations and provide an outline syllabus for the guidance of those conducting the courses. About 2,000 students qualify each year from over 60 establishments for further education, either in the colleges themselves or in nursery training centres, and there are also nine nursery nurses colleges. The minimum age of entry to a course is 16 years of age but many students enter at 17. Although no formal qualifications are required for entry to examinations many students have one or more passes in the Ordinary Level of the General Certificate of Education. From the evidence that has reached us from individual establishments it seems that the number of candidates greatly exceeds the number of places. The courses generally last for two years although for some students who are at least 18 on entry into training and possess certain qualifications the course may be shortened to 18 months.

1030. Training is the joint responsibility of the training institution and the establishment in which the student is employed. NNEB regulations have recently been changed to include the care of children from birth to seven years instead of from birth to five years. In consequence infant schools have been recently added to establishments which may be used as centres for practical training. Under the new arrangements, each student's practical training is related to the age range of the establishment or establishments to which she is attached. Practical training may take place in either one or two institutions so that students can gain experience with children either in a day or residential nursery, or in a nursery school and in either nursery classes or infant schools.

1031. The courses are devised by each training establishment within broad outlines suggested by the NNEB. About three fifths of the training period is spent on active work with young children, and students follow the pattern of life in the institutions to which they are attached, often undertaking the same hours of duty as the staff. An important part of the training is observation of the growth and development of children, and students are expected to keep records which they discuss with their tutors. The more theoretical parts of the course in the care of children cover the following topics:

Young children in the community
Children's needs
Children's development
Special aspects of the care of children
Services relating to the care of children.

Students are encouraged to develop their own creative abilities and to read widely. General studies form part of the course and provide opportunities for personal development and for education for parenthood and for good citizenship. Some of these courses, of which details have reached us, provide a vigorous cultural and social life. Many include a large number of visits of a general educational nature and draw on visiting lecturers for a wide range of subjects. Students are encouraged to extend their knowledge of children through holiday work in private homes and through many forms of service to the community.

1032. At least two centres have established a course for mature students aged 25 to 45 years. They take the two year course for the NNEB examination and certificate. For both courses the number of applications far exceeds the number of places. At another training establishment many applications from married women have been received for an NNEB course but it has not been possible to admit them because of the competition from girls leaving school. A one year course is at present under consideration.

1033. When trained, NNEB students work in a variety of establishments, including nursery schools and classes, day nurseries, residential nurseries, children's homes and children's wards of hospitals. They also work as welfare assistants in infant schools. Others enter various kinds of private employment. Details received from training establishments show that some trained students have gone on to colleges of education and to SRN [State Registered Nurse] courses; in some instances the numbers doing this have been large.

Other training schemes
1034. An enquiry to local education authorities has shown that some ten authorities are running courses on a more modest scale for welfare assistants in infant schools. Two courses consisted of one session meetings each week for a year; two courses took the form of once weekly meetings for a term. One authority ran a concentrated course for a month which ancillary workers had to attend. Other courses varied in length from ten days to one day. In addition to local schemes, the Central Training Council in Child Care is about to launch a new type of training in colleges of further education. This will emphasise residential child care and general further education, to meet the needs of girls who do not wish to be committed at 16 to work with children of any particular age. Some eight or nine pilot two year courses of 12 to 20 students started in September 1966. It is already clear from the interest shown in these courses that a good many more may be expected to be set up in the future.

Our proposal
1035. The NNEB courses have made a substantial contribution to the staffing of nursery schools and classes during the period when little encouragement has been forthcoming from the central government; those who provide them have a fund of experience on which any new scheme can be built. Our proposals must call for some changes in the existing arrangements because the scale of the new schemes will make a greater flexibility in organisation desirable. There will also be some change in purpose. Thus, because we are recommending large increases in the number to be trained and because of the need for greater stability of staffing, it is essential that many more older women should be trained. Only a small beginning has so far been made on this. We are also recommending that teachers' aides should be trained for employment throughout the primary stage of education and that their training should equip them for wider functions in the schools than those of welfare assistants. These changes of scale and purpose may make it necessary to adjust the composition and the structure of the central examining body.

Similarities of training and recruitment
1036. Nursery assistants will work with children up to five or six; teachers' aides with children from 5 to nearly 13. Different emphases in their training will therefore be needed, just as different emphases are found in the training of primary and secondary school teachers. But there should be much in common, in their qualifications for entry to training, their status and the training itself. Their work will overlap since under our proposals children of the same age will be found in nursery groups and in reception classes. Young children in both types of institution need more opportunities for conversation with adults than children in admission classes usually have. In all respects, there ought to be continuity of method and aims between nursery and first school education. In some areas there might be vacancies for aides or assistants, but not for both. What is needed in fact is the development of a general class of helpers for an integrated nursery and primary system who will have a bias towards a part of the age range. They can assist hard pressed teachers and take over some of their lesser responsibilities.

1037. Recruitment will be determined both by the entry qualifications required and by the demand for women workers in other sectors of the economy. Although no hard and fast lines can be laid down, two main sources may be envisaged. There should be large numbers both of qualified school leavers and of older women, many of them married, who could be encouraged to train. Both types have a place both in the schools and the nursery groups. Their recruitment will, however, be determined by supply. Local authorities might also recruit older men whose special skills in crafts and the like could make them particularly useful in middle schools. The more that local authorities can recruit women and men from age groups still underemployed, the greater the chance of success and the less the strain that these educational advances will place on the nation's manpower. We examine the sources of recruitment further in the annexes to Chapter 31.

Entry qualifications
1038. Entry qualifications should be the same for both services. The emphasis ought to be, as it is now in NNEB courses, on qualities of character, personality and interest, as identified through a study of the candidate's previous record and by interview. Candidates will need to be of an educational level enabling them to get a grasp of the purposes and functioning of nursery and primary education. With the younger candidates, evidence of a good general education, demonstrated perhaps, but not necessarily, by passes in some subjects of the Certificate of Secondary Education or General Certificate of Education, might be expected. For the older women, many of whom may have left school at 14 or 15 years, evidence of one form or another of further education, or of relevant experience at work, would be sufficient if there was evidence from the interview, or other tests, of ability to understand and apply the more theoretical parts of the course.

1039. The importance of personal qualities cannot be overstated. Nursery assistants will carry immediate responsibility for a group of young children. Teachers' aides, too, will have direct contact with, and some responsibility for, children. It cannot be taken for granted that a mother's experience with her own children will of itself qualify her for the work. Neither type of work will be a 'soft option' for a mother who wants an easy part-time job.

The nature of the courses
1040. Courses should be developed by each centre within the general lines laid down by a central examining body. What are given here are merely suggestions for the training institutions and the examining body to consider. Most of the time in NNEB courses is spent with children. This is the pattern that should be continued. For younger students, general and vocational education could take up one third of the course and for the older women one fifth.

1041. Both nursery assistants and teachers' aides need in their training some general education as well as courses on children's development, the educational services and the social services for children, though there might be differences in the treatment of these subjects according to the ages of children with whom the student intended to work. Teachers' aides will need to cover a wider age range in their study of children's development and to know more about the materials and equipment used in primary schools. Their courses ought often to be individually tailored so that they can see the place in a school context of any special skills and interests they may have. How much of the college training of nursery assistants and teachers' aides could be on a joint basis would vary with the number of students involved and the arrangements for distribution of college work and practical work. In the first year, at least, some teaching might be shared between these and other similar courses.

1042. Some NNEB courses have experimented successfully with alternating blocks of time spent in general work in college and practical work. When first year students are in college, second year students are in their nurseries or schools. In this way the college staff are fully occupied and nurseries and schools are not left without help. Some such arrangement would be desirable for mature students. They could begin with a course which would include films of children's growth and development and visits to different types of nursery institution and primary school to help them to observe children. They could then decide the age range on which they wished to concentrate. Students in nurseries and schools should not change institutions so rapidly that children cannot form stable relationships with them and the staff cannot make good use of them. Success will depend on close cooperation between the colleges of further education and nursery centres, and the nursery groups and schools where students will be working. There are some excellent models of this cooperation in existing NNEB courses. In one case, regular meetings are held of the staff at the training establishment and of the heads and matrons of institutions where students practise. Details of students' courses of study are sent to the schools and nurseries and their staff are welcome to attend lectures. Visits are paid each term by the full-time tutors of the course to the schools and nurseries. As the pace of expansion increases, the sense of responsibility should not diminish.

1043. At present the NNEB approve institutions for practical work. Schools and other establishments will, however, be hard pressed to make room for all who will need practical training. Course tutors will, therefore, need considerable freedom in selecting practice schools and groups. Within the present NNEB pattern, practice can take place in those types of institutions in which the student hopes eventually to work. Nursery students will practise in all types of nursery and primary schools. Teachers' aides will, we hope, spend most of their training in first or middle schools, although some introduction to the whole range of nursery and primary education should be available to both groups.

1044. Training schemes must start long before there are enough nursery groups in which practice can take place. Even when nursery groups have been generally established, there will be difficulties. The first schools will have to provide for teachers' aides and nursery assistants in training, and will also be under heavy pressure from colleges of education for practice places. Some schools with a nursery group - perhaps the more remote ones - may be less suitable than others for students because the teacher has other groups to visit. It seems inevitable that the schools will have to accept many more students of all kinds and that all types of training institutions may have to cast their net wider than they would wish. But students training for teaching should work alongside nursery assistants and teachers' aides whose help they must use when they become teachers.

Length of courses
1045. Nursery assistants will have a definable responsibility for children, although working under supervision, but aides will work in closer contact with teachers. We have considered whether the course for teachers' aides should be as long as that for nursery assistants. We believe that girls who enter training shortly after they leave school should follow a two year course, whichever type of service they propose to enter. Those employed as teachers' aides will be in close contact with children and with the teaching situation. They require a minimum of two years' training to reach a suitable educational standard. A course of this length will ensure that they are at least 18 before entry into full service - an important consideration because they may be working in middle schools where some pupils will be nearly 13 before transfer to secondary schools. Furthermore, interchange between aides and assistants will be permissible only if comparable training is given. A two year course agrees with the suggestions contained in the Newsom Report for combining education in schools with training for a specified job, and with the provisions of the 1944 Education Act for part-time release for attendance at county colleges. For teachers' aides, as for nursery assistants, the greater part of the two year course will be training on the job; the course will be the equivalent of a nine or ten month course of full time study.

1046. At present most NNEB students undertake a two year course. We are anxious, however, to attract older women and to bring them as rapidly as possible into full service in the nurseries and schools. We therefore recommend that suitable candidates of 21 years of age and over should be permitted to qualify after one year of training in which the equivalent of one day a week would be spent on course work. Although training institutions should be free to advise older students, in individual cases, to take a two year rather than a one year course, we hope mature students will normally be admitted to a one year course.

Status and salaries of trainees
1047. The status and pay of both aides and assistants should be the same and they should receive NNEB student salaries while they are in training. Whereas aides in training will work under the close supervision of a teacher and can, therefore, be regarded as part of the school staff, nursery students in the nursery groups ought not to be so regarded because a qualified teacher may not always be on the premises. Although students should participate fully in the work of a nursery group, they should not take responsibility for children, which must include responsibility for safety.

Part-time training
1048. Because of family and other commitments, some older women may be able to work only part-time in schools or nursery groups, and may want to train part-time. Since much of the training will be practical, it should be possible to arrange for part-time training over a longer period. Some who already help with older children on such subjects as needlecraft and games could be encouraged to take the parts of the course which will help them to use their skills more effectively in the school.

Location and staffing of training
1049. NNEB courses are at present held in colleges of further education, training centres and nursery colleges. They are not provided by colleges of education, and with the continuing expansion of the number of students training to become teachers, it is unlikely that the colleges could find room for them. In any case, it is important that training for assistants and aides should be available in every area if women who cannot live away from home are to attend them. We envisage, therefore, a continuation of existing courses and a substantial increase in the number of institutions providing training, particularly since the present courses are concentrated largely in areas where there is a strong tradition of nursery provision. Both the central and local arrangements for training should provide for close contact between nursery training institutions and the colleges of further education. Additional accommodation may have to be found in some colleges of further education or their annexes, but no large building programme is envisaged. Whilst courses in colleges of further education should benefit from and contribute to the general activities of the college, including their social life, it is hoped that they will be able to establish an identity of their own and enjoy reasonable autonomy. Much of the work in general education could be undertaken by the present lecturers in colleges of further education. It may be difficult to recruit teachers, particularly nursery teachers, since so few have been trained in recent years.

Award of qualifications
1050. Although certificates should be awarded by the institution responsible for training, there should be a central examining body who would moderate qualifications throughout the country. Examinations would be set and administered locally, but examination questions would be scrutinised by the central body who would also provide a panel of external examiners. Students would continue, as under the existing NNEB arrangements, to take a theoretical examination as well as being assessed on their practical training. It would be preferable for one body to cover the training of teachers' aides, nursery assistants and of workers in the other services at present within the NNEB field of interest. That body might well be the NNEB suitably reconstituted to take account of the wider functions it would be asked to perform. Alternatively, the NNEB might become part of a more broadly constituted body which would be concerned with teachers' aides as well as with the NNEB's present functions. The NNEB covers a wider field than that of nursery education, since their certificate is a recognised qualification for staff who look after young children in a variety of institutions. The additional responsibilities for training for work with older children must imply that the central body should include representatives of teachers, local authorities and those concerned with training teachers. Our proposals clearly have implications for the NNEB and for those other non-educational services in the nursery field which the present NNEB is designed to provide. Much good could come from the creation of a single body covering a wide range since services for young children ought to be integrated as far as possible. The government departments concerned, the NNEB and other such bodies as the Central Training Council in Child Care should consider these proposals.

Career prospects
1051. Many nursery assistants and teachers' aides will acquire a great deal of experience of young children. It is important that they should not feel that they are in a job without hope of advancement. Career prospects might be offered to them in two ways. Experienced nursery assistants might receive a responsibility allowance for being in charge of an isolated nursery group or of two groups on the same site. Provision for such a post could be made under the Whitley salary structure. Teachers' aides will always work under the immediate guidance of qualified teachers so that it is difficult to envisage the creation of a supervisory grade. Nevertheless, they might move into nursery education and eventually assume responsibility for a pair or more of nursery groups. There should also be a route to teacher training for suitable assistants and aides. Few will possess the minimum educational qualifications but colleges and institutes of education should take into account their training and experience with children. In some instances admission to a shortened course might be justified. A number of students in some NNEB courses have already passed on to colleges of education and to training for SRN qualifications. The proportion suitable for further training would not be large, but a substantial contribution might be made to professions in great need of recruits.

Probation
1052. At present, nursery staff trained by the NNEB do not have to complete a period of probation. We have considered whether, in view of the considerable expansion of the training system that is envisaged, and the fact that nursery assistants may well have to work without continuous supervision by a qualified teacher, they should be expected to work a probationary year. We think this unnecessary because nursery assistants are closely supervised by qualified teachers during their practical training. For a period after training, however, nursery assistants should not work alone in an isolated nursery group.

Build-up of recruitment
1053. In Chapter 31 we have suggested that nursery assistants might be recruited so as to achieve a full build-up of the groups by the early 1980s and we give details of costing. We have assumed that teachers' aides should be recruited at a much faster rate. To recruit the full number in five years, over 12,000 students must be recruited in the early years. In the first year of the scheme the cost of training will be about £5m and in the fifth year of the scheme training and employment will cost over £22m. After the fifth year, recruitment might vary to keep numbers stable.

1054. These training schemes may have effects beyond their immediate intention. Many of the women who take this training will in due course have families. They will be better able because of it to bring up their children sensibly and to give them the understanding and encouragement on which educational success depends. It is in the interests of the community that the general education of its members should be carried forward and that understanding of the social services should be widely diffused. Those who provide the courses should be aware of these wider purposes. They should also be remembered when the cost is counted.

Recommendations
1055. (i) Entry qualifications should be the same for both services. Younger candidates should give evidence of a good general education, demonstrated, if possible, by passes in some subjects of the Certificate of Secondary Education or the General Certificate of Education. For the older women some evidence of further education or relevant experience at work supplemented by interviews or other tests would be necessary.

(ii) Younger students should undertake a two year course of training, three fifths of which would be spent on practical work. Suitable candidates of 21 years of age and over should be permitted to qualify after one year of training of which four fifths will be spent on practical work. Longer part-time training might be arranged for some students.

(iii) Courses should be developed by each training centre within the general lines laid down by a central examining body who would moderate qualifications throughout the country. The responsible government departments and other bodies concerned should consider the creation of a single body to cover the training of teachers' aides, nursery assistants and of workers in other services at present within the NNEB field of interest. Local authority and teacher representatives as well as those concerned with teacher training should be members.

(iv) Aides and assistants during training should receive the rate at present paid to NNEB students. Aides should be regarded as part of the school staff during training. Nursery students in nursery groups ought not to be regarded as part of the staffing complement.

(v) Teacher training should be open to suitable assistants and aides, and colleges and institutes of education should take account of their training and experience with children where they lack the minimum educational qualifications.

(vi) The Whitley salary structure might make provision for experienced nursery assistants to receive a responsibility allowance for being in charge of isolated nursery groups.