Theme 2 - Education

Question 1

What was education like pre 1918?

Answer 1

• Education provided by LEA’s
• LEA’s paid teachers wages, provided free school meals to children from poor families, ensured the upkeep of school buildings and monitored teaching standards

Question 2

What was the 1918 education act?

Answer 2

• Based on Lewis report which was complied during WW1
• A new school leaving age of 14
• New tier of county colleges to provide vocational training for school leavers up to age of 18 (Employers had to release young workers to attended one day a week but not always the case due to costs)
• Curriculum divided into practical and advanced instruction
• Costs transferred away from LEA’s to central gov resulting in improvement of teachers’ salaries and pensions

Question 3

What two types of schools were there between 1918-39?

Answer 3

Elementary schools - providing children with basic education up to age of 14
-Secondary and tech schools - educating children to age of 16

Question 4

What was the 1926 Hadow committee? Why was it unsuccessful?

Answer 4

• Highlighted the diversity of educational provision in different areas
• Recommend raising age to 15 + abolition of elementary schools and the division into primary and secondary with children transferring at 11
• costs and responsibility for education had been devoted to local authorities

Question 5

What was the state of secondary education in the interwar period?

Answer 5

• Only really available to middle+upper classes as education only compulsory up to 14
• 1939 only 13% of working class children 13+ were in school
• only 20% of children were in some form of secondary education in 1931

Question 6

What were grammar schools?

Answer 6

-Created by 1918 act
-Academic curriculum based on fee-paying public schools
+Provided excellent education
+Provided scholarships to poor and smart children
-Based on wealth not skill
-Needed to be earning a decent wage to attend

Question 7

What did WW2 highlight?

Answer 7

• Highlighted the huge division between the classes in terms of education
• The poor were unable to access the education that the children of the middle class enjoyed and as a result they remained stuck in cycles of poverty
• Grammar schools did increase number of free places however the other costs such as uniform and transport increased making it unaffordable for many

Question 7

What was the 1936 education act? Effective?

Answer 7

• specified a day in 1939 for raising leaving age to 15
• provided grants of 50-70% for denominational schools to provide additional secondary places
• Act nullified by WW2

Question 8

What was the 1938 Spens report?

Answer 8

First to recommend the tripartite system

Question 9

What was the 1944 education act?

Answer 9

-State secondary schools would no longer charge fees and costs would come out of general taxation
-Education up to 15 compulsory
-Tripartite system created:
Grammar schools = Provided a route into greater education opportunity for many poor children if they could pass 11+
secondary modern = Taught poorer middle class kids, had less money to spend and therefore worse. 75% went to them in post-war but in 1964 only 318 were entered for A levels
Secondary Tech = Intended to educate scientifically inclined middle class kids but few were built due to costs

Question 10

Impact of 1944 act?

Answer 10

For first time millions of poor children had a free and compulsory secondary education and girls were also able to attended

Question 11

What were comprehensive schools?

Answer 11

• Included all children regardless of ability
• They could offer equality of educational opportunity
• Give students opportunity to transfer between streams of attainment and different courses
• More flexible and offer more courses

Question 12

What was the Crowther report (1959)?

Answer 12

• Looked into education for people aged 15-19
• Intended to:
• raise age to 16
• create county colleges for post 16
• Create more tech colleges
• Attract better sixth form teachers
• Enable all O level capable students to take O levels
• Increases amount of teachers
• Treat all pupils equally and prepare them for uni
• Increase amount of sixth form courses

Question 13

What was the Newsom Report (1963)?

Answer 13

• Made for average or less able children between 13-16
• Recommended:
• New focus on teaching methods to help kids who struggled at school
• More attention should be paid to teaching deprived kids and social development (sex education etc)
• A working party in parliament should be set up to examine the links between deprivation and poor education attainment
• More practical subjects should be provided for less able kids

Question 14

1) What happened to comprehensive schools from 1955?

2) What was Labour’s opinion on selection?

Answer 14

1)
-Started to grow
-1955 16 comprehensive and 1180 Grammar
-1980 3297 comprehensives and 224 Grammar
2)
-Hated it and wanted to abolish it by getting rid of 11+ exam
-Believed it created social divide

Question 15

What was the 1976 education act?

Answer 15

• Wilson wanted to abolish Grammar schools and replace them with comprehensive ones by ended funding for non-comprehensive schools
• However he faced huge backlash from middle class and instead just demanded that LEA’s submit proposals for making their schools comprehensive (Did not compel them to act)

Question 16

What did the Plowden report recommend?

Answer 16

• Banning corporal punishment
• Giving children more freedom in classroom instead of forcing them to sit in chairs
• Encouraging teachers to help and advise rather than lecture

Question 17

+/- of progressive education?

Answer 17

+Friendlier less strict schools that were more welcoming allowed educational attainment to increase
+Outstanding educational results
+Gave children more freedom and more of a say in how the school was run
-Created chaotic classrooms were very little was taught
-Very little schools were like this however the media publicised it saying the new methods were failing

Question 18

What were the Black papers?

Answer 18

-Brain cox and Tony Dyson published series of essays criticising the decline in the teachers authority in the classroom

Question 19

What was the ‘Yellow book’?

Answer 19

• Callaghan’s report into the education system
• stated that school discipline had declined and curricula did not prepare pupils to take up productive roles in the economy

Question 20

1) What was the Ruskin speech?

2) What did it start?

Answer 20

1)
-Callaghan delivered a speech at Ruskin collage stating that:
-progressive education failed when it was applied incorrectly
-Did not wish to return to rote learning of 1950’s
-New National curriculum should be established that all schools follow
-Teachers should be more closely scrutinised and inspected
2)
The great debate which called for education provide school leavers with the skills they would need in an increasingly technological and competitive world

Question 22

What concerns were there about education in the late 1970’s?

Answer 22

• Many felt that comprehensives were to large, impersonal and failed many pupils
• They didn’t offer relevant curricula for life outside of school

Question 23

What was the state of uni’s in the 1920’s and 1930’s?

Answer 23

• Diverse and expanding uni education provision
• Oxford and cambs were still for privileged but provincial unis increasingly took on more middle-class and bright working-class students
• The students were funded mainly through grants and scholarships offered by LEA’s and charities

Question 24

What happened to uni funding in the 1920’s?

Answer 24

• Became directly funded by the gov
• Gov increased the levels of grants to unis but also increased its scrutiny of how unis were managed
• Gov did not overly interfere and amount of financial aid offered only amounted to 1/3 of uni funds. Rest came from fees and endowments

Question 25

What did WW2 highlight about uni graduates?

Answer 25

There was a demand for science graduates thanks to innovations like radar, code breaking, jet tech and computing had developed

Question 26

1) What did the 1945 Percy report recommend?

2) What did the Barlow report say?

Answer 26

1)
-The privileged position of classical education in uni curricula should be challenged in favour of science and engineering
-Uni’s be expanded to cater for the large number of students that would be created as a result of the 1944 Butler act
2)
-Confirmed there were far too few scientists and engineering students
-Argued for gov funded expansion of unis

Question 27

Were the Percy and Barlow reports successful?

Answer 27

-Not initially = still far too few science and engineering courses and uni’s prioritised arts subjects. Despite huge increase in school pupils only 15% of applications to uni’s were successful

Question 28

What was the Robbins committee?

Answer 28

• Showed Britain was being overtaken by other countries in terms of uni performance
• Recommended:
• Uni’s must give more instruction in skills
• Uni’s must must develop ‘general powers of the mind’ to make sure students were well educated
• Teaching academics should still continue to carry out research
• Teaching should also have a social role and teach common culture and citizenship

Question 29

What was the impact of the Robbins Committee?

Answer 29

• Uni of Kent (1965) and East Sussex (1961) were first uni’s to offer a number of different subjects instead of just one
• Encouraged learners to have a rounded education and sense of common culture and citizenship
• 1970 11 more uni’s were established and gov’s at the time agreed that welfare state should be expanded to pay for tuition fees and student grants.
• 32 second-tier institutions and polytechnics were founded focusing on scientific and vocational courses. Designed to counter trend of art focused uni’s

Question 30

What was the open university?

Answer 30

• Founded in 1971 allowed people to study degrees at home

- Ensured that people of any age who had missed out on higher education could become qualified

Question 31

What impact did Thatcher have on uni’s?

Answer 31

• Heavily invested in it despite economic troubles

- Spent more than any of her predecessors on uni and polytechnic funding, increasing grants by 40% throughout heaths gov

Question 32

What happened to the number of students taking undergraduate degrees between 1920-80?

Answer 32

Increased from 4357 in 1920 to 68150 in 1980

Question 33

What social impact did the expansion in state funded uni’s have?

Answer 33

• Increase in number of working/middle class British PM’s
• Large numbers of men and women from modest backgrounds were able to obtain qualifications that enabled them to join professions such as law, engineering, medicine and finance which before would have been impossible
• By 1974 500k students in higher education
• Increase in student funding lead to more degrees

Question 34

What was the sense of Elitism in British Uni’s?

Answer 34

• Publics from private schools such as Eaton and Harrow were over represented at elite uni’s such as Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews
• It appeared that opportunities at the highest managerial and professional levels were still dependent on far more privileged positions

Question 35

What were CSE’s?

Answer 35

• Provided easier alternative to O levels

- included controlled assessment as well as exam