The Study Of Primary Education

A Source Book - Volume 3: School Organization And Management

Colin Connor, Brenda Lofthouse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781134957538
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

First published in 1990. These books were compiled to help the professional development of primary school teachers, and represent wholly enlarged, updated and revised editions of the three primary source books.

1 Primary Education: Historical Perspectives

Introduction

For most of those who teach in them and for all those who learn in them, the place of primary schools within the educational system and within society more generally is rarely, if ever, seriously questioned. Teachers view them as the institutional expression of the state’s concern to educate the young up to the age of 11; children see them as part of the ‘natural’ order of things. Yet primary, as opposed to elementary, education and schools to foster this kind of education are comparatively recent developments within the educational system of England and Wales. As a stage of education, primary education was formally established by the 1944 Education Act (pp. 34-6), though it had been government policy since 1928 to establish schools specifically for children of this age-group. During its short history, primary education has had to contend with a number of formidable problems in its attempts to create a distinct identity, as the second paper in this section documents. These included the legacy of the elementary school tradition with its relatively narrow, instrumental emphasis on the three Rs; the selective role assigned to primary schools and symbolized by the ‘11 + ‘ examination; the vast expansion followed by spectacular contraction in the number of children of primary school age; and the inability of the sector to attract resources on a scale comparable to secondary and higher education. Despite these difficulties it has established itself as a distinct, and in some ways distinctive, sector, though with very considerable internal variations in ‘philosophy’ and practice, as the papers in the second section of the reader reveal.

The material in this section has been chosen to illustrate developments and landmarks within primary education, not within elementary education (in relation to which there is a more extensive historical literature). For a short overall view of the ‘pre-history’ of primary education, readers are referred to Blyth’s (1965) essay, ‘Three traditions in English primary education’ (in English Primary Education, Vol. 2, Routledge and Kegan Paul), from which the first extract in this section is taken. The second extract, Simon’s essay on the ‘Evolution of the primary school’, is an important analysis of the development of primary education since it was first proposed as a separate stage in education by the Hadow Report of 1926 (pp. 22-3). Many of the remaining extracts are from government publications documenting the establishment of, and the official thinking behind, these new institutions. Prominent among these documents were the Hadow Reports of 1931 and 1933 (pp. 24-7 and 28-9) which did much to shape the development of primary education immediately before and after the Second World War, and the Plowden Report of 1967 (pp. 37-9) which provided more up-to-date ‘footnotes’ to Hadow, almost forty years on. This section also contains three extracts from the Black Papers outlining the kind of criticisms levelled against primary schools post-Plowden, and two pieces from official publications attempting a more balanced appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of primary education. Simon’s essay makes brief reference to the notorious William Tyndale ‘affair’ which helped fuel the public disquiet; some of the main issues associated with that cause célèbre are discussed by Gretton and Jackson (pp. 45-50). This is followed by a brief synopsis of changes which have characterized primary schools up until the 1978 Primary Survey.

The Parliamentary Select Committee report on Achievement in Primary Schools (HMSO, 1986) introduces a perspective on primary education nearly twenty years after Plowden, and the article by Eric Bolton, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, introduces some critical commentary on the evaluation of primary education. The section concludes with a synopsis of the arguments offered to support the implementation of a National Curriculum.

Three Traditions in English Primary Education

(From Blyth, W., 1965, English Primary Education, Vol. 2, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 20, 20-1, 30, 34-5, 35, 40-1, 41, 42, 43.)

This first extract has been included for two main reasons. Firstly, it serves to remind readers that primary education was not created from nothing by either the 1944 Education Act or the Hadow Reports of 1926, 1931 and 1933. Schools catering for children of primary school age had a long history, though state provision for this age group dates back only to the nineteenth century. As Blyth argues, primary schools grew ‘mainly, if tardily’ out of elementary schools, though other formative influences are distinguished in his analysis. Secondly, the extract indicates that competing views of primary education (such as those featured in the next section) have a history and are not simply the result of contemporary or near-contemporary circumstances and thinking. The author’s historical analysis neatly complements the ideological analysis presented later in this book. A particularly valuable feature is the delineation of the ‘preparatory’ tradition — a tradition neglected elsewhere in this reader and in most contemporary discussion of primary education.

English society was not built round its schools. Whatever may have been true of newer nations such as the United States, whose social evolution has been mainly confined to the age of widespread education, in England social development has in general been concurrent with, or prior to, educational development. Consequently, primary education has taken institutional shape within English society, and it has done so in three interacting but distinguishable traditions. These bear some comparison with the developments in other Western European countries, but also display features peculiar to England. The first two of these traditions are much older than the third. They may be termed respectively elementary and preparatory. The third tradition is comparatively recent in origin but differs from the other two in that primary education is regarded as something for its own sake, a common right of all children in the Midlands of childhood. This will be referred to as the developmental tradition....

[The author begins by considering the elementary tradition.]

... Occasionally, one still hears the term ‘elementary’ used as though it were currently valid, often by those who never frequented elementary schools when it was in fact valid. Legally, it was intentionally drummed out by the Education Act, 1944, and its passing was acclaimed most joyfully by those who had been most closely associated with it. It had to go, if there was to be any true primary education in the modern sense. One can — we did — have both elementary schools and secondary schools, but one cannot have both elementary schools and primary schools. For elementary schools are a whole educational process in themselves and one which is by definition limited and by implication inferior; a low plateau, rather than the foothills of a complete education.

Yet English primary education grew mainly, if tardily, out of English elementary education with its characteristic emphasis on the basic skills, and in some ways it still bears the marks of its ancestry.... [Alan Blyth goes on to discuss the development of the elementary tradition beginning with the song schools of the middle ages, through the elementary schools of the sixteenth century, and the ‘whole complex of dame schools, parochial schools and private schools’ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to the widespread provision of elementary schools in the nineteenth century.]

... The term ‘elementary’ is legally defunct but it still has a social meaning. The term ‘preparatory’ was never legally established; but it too, has been invested by tradition with a very precise and important meaning which is still current and influential. In one sense indeed it is nearer to the developmental than to the elementary tradition, for it does at least take some account of sequence rather than of social status as a principle of differentiation. But at the same time it implies in name what ‘junior elementary’ often implied in fact, that the education of younger children is mainly to be conceived in terms of preparation for the later stages of education rather than as a stage in its own right. In practice, the preparatory tradition has struck an uneasy compromise between the two meanings emphasising both the developmental and the strictly preparatory function....

[He sketches the history of the preparatory tradition and suggests that its growth in the nineteenth century was related to two major developments in secondary education: the reform and growth of the public boarding schools for boys, and the revival and extension of day grammar schools both for boys and for girls. By the early twentieth century...]

... the preparatory tradition had become embedded in the upper and middle sections of English society while a few lower-middle and occasionally even prosperous working-class families also adhered to it. Whatever its diversity, it had one element in common, namely the assumption that post-preparatory education (if that phrase may be pardoned) was a normal expectation of childhood within higher socio-economic groups and that the education of younger children up to the age of ten in the preparatory departments of the girls’ grammar schools, eleven in the private schools, or (exceeding the Midlands range) twelve or thirteen in the boys’ preparatory schools, should be geared to what was to follow. For prep-school boys indeed, the next phase in the life cycle was often regarded as its zenith, with regrettable results. For girls, with the battle for equality still before them, the status of educated adulthood, married or not, probably exercised a greater appeal. But for them all, there was the incentive to look at least one step ahead with a justified expectation of educational and other advantage. In the preparatory tradition, real education was beginning at just the same age as, in the elementary tradition, full-time education was assumed to be ending.

The twentieth century has seen a complex interaction between these two traditions but this has in its turn been overshadowed by the impact on both of the third, or developmental, approach. ...

Alongside the two existing traditions, there has emerged in England a third which is bound neither by the limitations of an education felt or intended to be cheap and inferior, nor by the demands imposed by its own sequel. This may be referred to as the developmental tradition, because its principles are based on those of child development. Its origins cannot be sought earlier than the eighteenth century, for that was when education itself began to acquire some form of autonomy. On the whole, the developmental tradition has worked its way into the matrix of English social life from the periphery as is customary in many instances of social change. Indeed, much of its motivation has come from overseas, but it has been built into English institutions through a long period of individual endeavour, culminating in activity sponsored more directly from the centre....

[A number of formative influences on this tradition are traced during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The author distinguishes five factors which gave impetus to the developmental tradition during the first half of this century.]

... The first of these was the growth of psychology which was becoming established as part of the general intellectual climate of the age. It was related both to the over-confident extension of mental testing, itself largely conducted within the elementary schools, but also to the new horizons in hormic and developmental psychology. At the same time, there developed a further facet of the teachings of Dewey, namely his emphasis on the curricular importance of collective preparation for change, and on liberation from the traditional thought-patterns which could be regarded as undemocratic whether in the home, the school or society at large. Third, and linked with the previous came the great wave of emancipation that characterised the years after 1918. Children were to be given the chance to be themselves at any age and in concert with their peers of both sexes. This trend, often associated with experimental schools, emphasised the positive support which the developmental tradition gave to co-education. A fourth factor which probably influenced the changing conception of primary education was the growth of what is now rather loosely described as the ‘Welfare State’. The fifth factor is an extension of a process already mentioned. The rapid growth of the concept of ‘secondary education for all’, officially enunciated for the Labour Party by Tawney (1923) and soon afterwards to some extent by all parties led to a concurrent definition of primary education as the preceding stage. In one sense, it was thus ‘preparatory’....

[Schools catering for children of junior age became the battleground for a number of forces, especially those of child development and those of the ‘scholarship’ examination. The developmental tradition was given a great boost when ... ] the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education prepared the report on The Primary School (1931). It was a consistent and radical-flavoured document which took its stand squarely on the developmental tradition and recognised the significance of the changes which were taking place. It paid due, though not excessive, regard to the philosophy of Dewey and his followers ... it espoused and reinforced unhesitatingly the nascent belief that children aged seven to eleven should be educated in a social institution with an autonomous quality of its own. Thus it firmly annexed the education of children throughout the Midlands years to the developmental rather than the elementary or preparatory tradition. This Report was followed two years later by its counterpart on Infant and Nursery Schools, but this, though equally forthright, was less of an innovation because it dealt with the heartland of the developmental tradition rather than its advancing frontier.

From this point onwards, the basis of a separate developmental tradition in primary education has been incontrovertibly laid.

[Writing at about the time when the Plowden Committee was set up (19645), the author concludes:]

... Recent developments have thus shown that the developmental tradition continues to gain ground, not only because of changes within the schools but also on account of social change in English society itself. Meanwhile, it must be remembered that the preparatory tradition continues to flourish modified only in part, with a clientèle that is numerically insignificant but socially preponderant, while the divisions within the teaching force, which cannot yet be confidently termed a profession, still run socially deep. The elementary tradition, too, lurks in many corners of the public educational system and is perpetuated by many instances of social inertia. Thus the developmental tradition is still far from unchallenged and the common primary school, for both sexes and all abilities and classes, is in practice a chimera. Any study of contemporary primary education which overlooked the continuing influences of the older traditions would present an oversimplified and distorted picture. On the other hand, any study which belittled the real and in a quite genuine sense revolutionary quality of the developmental tradition would ignore one of the greatest potentialities for wholesome growth which exists in English society today.

Reference

1. TAWNEY, R. (1923) Secondary Education for All: A Policy for Labour, London, Allen and Un win.

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