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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 486] 1. Instead of a nationwide extension of nursery education as proposed by the Council, I suggest that all efforts should be made to provide play centres and encourage play groups, except in 'educational priority areas' where nursery schools are justified. These play centres should be open all day and all year and should cater for a much wider age range. Mothers should play a full part in helping to run them on a pattern similar to the 600 already in successful existence. 2. If harm comes to a child it is too late to rescue him at three. Play centres and groups where much younger children could be brought together would go some way towards mitigating such ill effects so that they could all enjoy a rich play life. I would hope that these groups might have the help eventually of a peripatetic and highly trained teacher so that the mothers could benefit from her expertise and the children come earlier under her benevolent eye. 3. Nursery education as proposed by the Council tends to disrupt the mother, child and sibling relationship. 4. It is unlikely that the scheme as proposed would produce a stable staff of real quality. An earlier and higher marriage rate will lead to a reduction in the number of experienced single women who at the moment make such a valuable contribution and help to form a stable framework. 5. The nursery assistants will be drawn from the same source as the nursing profession, which is already gravely understaffed and cannot afford the loss of any potential nurses. Nor does it seem wise to divert any teachers from the primary schools to effect nursery education. 6. The expansion of nursery education will make for an increase in working mothers and it will be difficult for the mothers to care for their children in the holidays unless special arrangements are made by industry and the professional bodies. Any such arrangement must introduce another element of instability. 7. I am convinced by the evidence concerning the harm that may come to pre-school children of working mothers. Therefore the present increase in working mothers seems to me undesirable on educational grounds and, except where economic necessities are paramount, it should be discouraged. 8. The scheme as proposed by the Council does little to enable mothers to participate actively in the early school experiences of their children. The mothers' loneliness and boredom are also major social problems which play centres and groups might help to solve. 9. Even if fees were charged they would cover only a small fraction of the real cost. 10. It is an open question whether the money which it is proposed to spend on nursery education in 'educational priority areas' might not be better spent on housing. Since all our evidence suggests the quality of the home has the decisive influence on the child's educational future, the money might be better spent on improved housing and means directed towards improving maternal care. [page 487] Day nurseries should be as much within the educational service as nursery schools, and responsible to education authorities. The problems that will arise through confining the under threes to day nurseries and providing all day nursery schools for the over threes will be formidable enough anyway, but less so if the responsibility for the reorganisation rests with one authority rather than two. Any joint authority is liable to have more joint than authority about it. Moreover, the trend of modern thinking is to emphasise the educational needs rather than the purely physical health of children, including the under threes; and in accordance with this trend it would be appropriate for nurseries, whatever the age of their children, to be part of the educational rather than of the health service.
1. Chapter 9 notes that the Hadow Report recommended nursery schools in 1933 and that the Education Act of 1944 gave them the blessing of Parliament; yet it does not draw what seems to us the obvious lesson. Why has nothing effective been done? Quite simply, there have not been enough resources, in teachers or buildings. If that is true of the past it certainly remains true of the present. Resources are relatively as scarce as ever. The prospects of nurseries are not therefore that much better than they were in 1944, and will not become so without the crucial further proposal we make here. Extra resources are needed, and (apart perhaps from some voluntary and private nurseries which will charge anyway) will not be forthcoming on a large scale unless the amount of money being spent on education is substantially increased. The necessity for this is shown in Chapter 31. The answer we suggest is a parental contribution. If nurseries were the Council's overriding priority the situation would perhaps be different. They are not. 2. Our suggestion is advanced as much in the interests of children whose parents cannot afford to pay as it is of others. Without a parental contribution we fear that nursery education will not be extended at all and such children be no better off than they are today. With it, we can be more optimistic, and, if the hopes are realised, there will be nursery schools which can be attended by the children of poorer parents, in and out of educational priority areas. They are often just the ones who could benefit most. Charging the richer will be a means of helping the poorer. Charging those with smaller families will be a means of helping those with larger. 3. What other sources of finance are there? We cannot be confident that, of the public money available for social services, less should necessarily be spent on housing or old age pensions so that more could be spent on nursery schools. Rates and taxes cannot be raised expressly for the purpose. We [page 488] recognise that in public services benefits and contribution to cost cannot, and should not, be precisely equated. Public services exist where one cannot, and should not, try to. But the resistance of people to pay higher taxes is still an important consideration. Pensioners and others would scarcely welcome such an impost just for the purpose of financing nurseries. This is all the more so because a few of the mothers who will send their children to nursery schools will be able in consequence to go out to work part-time and add to the income of themselves and their families, and a great deal could be made of those few by the opponents of nursery schools. Facing up to affluence 4. To the majority of the Council a principle that should be sacrosanct appears to be at stake. Maintained schools have always been free, and therefore should always remain so. But the principle crystallised at a time when incomes were a good deal lower. Parents are now more affluent; they are more interested in education. Today they are for the most part able and willing to contribute, and their willingness to do so could be used as a lever for getting a more general service. Particular proposals for educational improvement should surely be considered to see if on their merits it would be right or not to ask parents to contribute. 5. If this be the approach, contributions for nursery schools recommend themselves. Where the community makes education compulsory it is in general right that the community at large should pay. But this is not proposed for nursery education. It is not to be compulsory. Not to charge would therefore be to create injustice as between parents who do not choose to make use of nursery schools and those who do. The parents who do not would be paying through their rates or taxes for a service to other parents, sometimes wealthier parents, who take advantage of the new schools. Nor is nursery education to be universal for many years. It will develop in some districts more rapidly than in others. Not to charge would be to create further injustice between people in one district who do not yet have nursery schools but have to pay for them through taxes, and people in other districts who do have them. In these two ways nursery schools will be different from most other maintained schools, and, if they differ, so should their finance. 6. Another argument is that payment - up to 13s 6d [67p] a day - is already made for children attending day nurseries, and for much private baby-minding as well. Day nurseries constitute a precedent on which we lean. The majority do not suggest that charges for day nurseries should cease. The consequence would be that parents would pay for children up to three but at this age, though the service would be much the same, charges would be dropped. To act as we propose on this and to bring nursery schools into line with day nurseries would be more sensible, and should lead to more of the children who are at present privately minded for a charge being given an educational experience in a nursery school. It is also worth noting that in nearly all other countries visited by members of the CAC, including Denmark, France, Poland, Sweden and the USSR, there were charges for nurseries. We cannot see that Britain should on this stand apart. Remission of fees 7. We are naturally in favour of remissions of charges for those who cannot afford to pay. For our main purpose in proposing charges at all for those who [page 490] can afford them is, as we have said, to secure nursery schools which would not otherwise be there at all for those who cannot. The suggestion is that the standard charge should be the 5s [25p] per half day which is reckoned as the full cost (see Table 41), but if some LEAs could get the cost down to less the charges would also be less. Such a sum would clearly be beyond the means of families with low incomes or several children, and these should get free places. The larger the number of children, the higher the level of income that should qualify a family for remission. We further recommend that as soon as charges and remissions are introduced (even experimentally) steps should be taken by means of research to find out whether children who should be in nursery schools are not there because their parents are being deterred by the charges. The system for remission should be revised if necessary in the light of the results of the research. Whatever happens, all nursery schools in educational priority areas should be free to begin with in order to make sure that the children who need them most are not kept out. We propose that fees should be introduced as soon as possible in some other areas so that the size of demand (given charges and remissions) could be estimated as a basis for general national planning. 8. Nursery education needs definition. We do not think it would be right to charge fees for schools given the label of nursery, and not to children of the same age in schools called infant. Age should be the criterion, not type of school. We recommend that fees should therefore be charged for all children under five, irrespective of which sort of school they are in. It also follows that children of over five in nursery schools, who will be plentiful once the single date of entry is introduced, should not be charged. 9. If resources were more plentiful we would not favour charges. This is particularly because some parents who cannot afford to pay may be too proud to accept remission and therefore keep their children away. But new traditions can be created. Few parents are now too proud to accept state support for the education of their children in universities. If in universities, why not in nursery schools?
1. We share the view of our colleagues that the present state of religious education in primary schools is not satisfactory, but do not think that their proposals go far enough in the way of reform. In our view the root of the trouble is that religious education, if it is taken at all seriously, is bound to involve theology; and theology is both too recondite and too controversial a subject to be suitable for inclusion in the curriculum of primary schools. It cannot be properly adapted either to the understanding of children of this age or to the methods by which we are proposing that they should be taught. [page 490] 2. This does not mean that we wish children to grow up in ignorance of the content of Christian beliefs. Whether they end by accepting or rejecting Christian theology, they ought to be given the opportunity to acquire an adequate knowledge of all that it implies. They should be presented with the arguments in its favour and the arguments against it and allowed to decide whether they find it credible. It is, however, absurd to suppose that the average, or even the very gifted child, is capable of appreciating these arguments before he is 12 years old. 3. There is, indeed, more to the study of Christianity than its theology. We believe that, apart from its theological implications, the Bible ought to be studied as literature both on its own account and on account of the literature and art which it has inspired. But the English of the Authorised Version is not easy reading for a modern child, and it is doubtful whether its literary quality can be appreciated until the child's mastery of English has at least attained the secondary level. There is of course no reason why younger children should not be told Bible stories, just as, for very much the same cultural motives, they should be told the stories and legends of classical antiquity. 4. It may be argued that the main function of religious education in primary schools is to supply the children with a moral basis which they may not all be able to derive from their home life. What is true in this argument is that the school has a considerable part to play in inducing the children to accept an adequate set of moral, social and aesthetic values: and, independently of their religious outlook, both parents and teachers are likely to agree very largely as to what at least the moral values ought to be. On the other hand, we doubt if it is either necessary or desirable to insist on tying this aspect of education to theology. We do not deny that religious belief has served as a means of enforcing compliance with a moral code; but all too often the motive to which it has mainly appealed in this connection has been the motive of fear. 5. If religious belief is to serve moral education otherwise than as a weapon of terror, it can only be through its providing children with models for them to imitate, and the idea of a superior guide whom they will freely choose to follow. In this connection the force of the moral example which the story of Christ can be used to furnish is certainly not to be discounted. But no story is likely to have so strong effect upon children's conduct as the examples which they personally encounter. The moral benefit which a young child derives from his schooling will be a function rather of the whole atmosphere of the school, and of the personalities of the teachers, than of any form of homiletics. Even so it is reasonable to assume that something is gained by giving him examples from history or legend. But from this point of view, the theological content of the Christian story is of minimal importance. On the contrary, since the point of such examples is that the child is encouraged to identify himself with the hero, the lesson is more likely to have its intended appeal if it represents Christ as an exceptional human being, rather than as an incarnate deity. 6. We have been told that most primary school teachers do not have any objection to giving religious instruction. Nevertheless there is a minority of teachers, both male and female, who would prefer not to give it, whether because they are agnostics, or because they disapprove of the type of religious instruction which they would be expected to give, or because, while they themselves are Christians, they think that religious instruction ought not to be given in primary schools or that they are not fit to give it. Such persons have the legal right to opt out, but we have reason to believe that some of them do not exercise this right because they fear that to do so would prejudice their careers. In particular it is believed, apparently with some justification, that teachers who are known not to be willing to give religious instruction are less likely to be appointed to headships, partly on the ground that they will be unfitted to conduct the morning assembly which is legally required to constitute an Act of Worship. Now it is surely wrong that teachers of this kind should be put in a position where they are either denied access to the posts to which their talents and service entitle them or forced into hypocrisy. 7. While the inference to be drawn from public opinion surveys is that most people wish the present provisions for compulsory religious instruction in schools to remain in force, there is a minority of parents who for one reason or another, but most often because of their own religious beliefs or disbeliefs, would prefer their children not to receive the kind of religious teaching which the primary schools now give. These parents have the right to withdraw their children from religious instruction, but in many cases do not exercise it either because they do not know that they possess it or because they fear that it will prejudice the children's standing in the school. Moreover the children themselves do not like to be put in a position which sets them apart from their fellows. It is, indeed, arguable that it is beneficial for the children of Mahommedan [sic], Jewish or agnostic parents to be obliged to learn something about Christianity; but again this is an argument that applies better to the stage of secondary education. For younger children, the effects of the conflict between the ostensible views of their teachers and the views of their parents may not be altogether healthy. 8. It has been suggested by one of our members that our conflicting views on the subject of religious instruction could be very largely reconciled if we adopted the proposal that parents should be given the option of enrolling their children for religious instruction or for a secular course in moral and social education. It would also be open to teachers to choose which of those forms of instruction they wished to give. We agree that if religious instruction is to remain a subject in primary schools it should be left to the parents to enrol their children for it and left also to the teachers to volunteer to give it; or, in other words, that opting in should be substituted for the present system of opting out. On the other hand, though the idea of there being a second alternative is attractive to some of us, we have yet to be convinced that it is viable. It is not easy to see what form the syllabus of moral and social [page 492] education could take. We are far from wishing to deny the importance of this branch of education but we think that it should arise out of the general life of the school. 9. (a) As we see it, the balance of argument strongly favours the conclusion that religious instruction is not a suitable subject to be taken in primary schools. We therefore wish to see legislation enacted by which it would cease to be an obligatory part of the curriculum. We are aware that public opinion may not be on our side, but in this instance, as in that of corporal punishment, we do not believe that this consideration should debar us from advocating what we think is right. 
While not dissenting from a lot of this chapter and with great respect for much of the thoughtful RE work in schools, we are concerned about the difficulty which at present faces parents who wish to exercise their right under the Act of 1944 to withdraw their children from religious education. The difficulty is that withdrawal generally means withdrawal into an empty room or corridor. No alternative programme of moral or ethical education exists for such parents to choose for their children. The admittedly difficult problem of drawing up such a programme should surely be faced. One would welcome the setting up of committees of interested teachers, lecturers (and parents) within local education authorities and institutes of education to devise an alternative 'Agreed Syllabus' of ethical teaching which does not rely on the sanction of religious belief. It is probable that as the work of devising such a syllabus progressed (and hitherto almost nothing at all has been attempted along these lines) what may now seem to be immense difficulties would come [page 493] to assume reasonable proportions. At the infant stage the programme might not be much more than a series of well considered answers to the questions children ask and the kind of learning by example that we have outlined in paragraph 568. For older children one would hope that university and college staffs and teachers, and parents, working together, would be able to isolate those strands of experience, including children's own experience, and truth that would weave into a discipline of ethics for children that some would consider a worthwhile alternative to the traditional RE lessons. Even though immensely difficult, the attempt should surely be made to determine precisely what it is that we wish our children to learn of ethics in a society which is increasingly rejecting the sanction of supernatural revelation.
I do not agree with the recommendation that corporal punishment should be abolished in primary schools. I believe that the practice is in any case dying out. While I deplore the use of corporal punishment and wish it to be strongly discouraged I believe that compulsory abolition will add to the difficulties experienced by the teachers coping with over-large classes in unsuitable buildings. In particular, teachers in difficult areas will be placed in an impossible position if they are forbidden to use a reasonable amount of force by way of correction, and if the children know that they are forbidden to do so.
1. A group of us feel that, despite the value of, and the need for, a three year training course as a preparation for teaching, consideration should be given to making some adjustment in the training which could, we believe, make a very substantial contribution to improving staffing standards in the primary schools and thus to improving the quality of primary education. We put forward our suggestions with some reluctance, because the majority of the Council strongly disagree with them. We are also conscious that we have not made a full study of the system of teacher training, and we know that similar proposals have been considered before and rejected. 2. Nevertheless, we are concerned with the effect on the size of primary school classes, particularly infants classes, of the rapid and increasing wastage of young women teachers. We can expect that of every 100 women who enter the training colleges, only 47 will be in the schools after three years service and after six years only 30.* 3. During the first half of the sixties staffing standards in the primary schools scarcely improved despite an increase in the number of unqualified teachers. This lack of improvement was associated with the lengthening of the training *National Advisory Council for the Supply and Training of Teachers, 9th Report 1965. [page 494] college course. We think it of great importance that staffing standards should be rapidly improved. But we are bound to ask whether it is justifiable to expand the colleges of education even faster than is planned only to achieve a diminishing return in women teachers staying on in the schools. We also believe that with the changing pattern of the lives of women - their early marriage and child-bearing, their subsequent length of life and increasing tendency to want to work - there is a need to look critically at the most effective way of giving them professional training so that they may be enabled to use it most productively. 4. For these reasons we suggest that the three years of teacher training, might, for some students, be divided into a basic two years with a third year further training to be taken after a few years in the schools. Thus the third year would only be taken by those who intended to stay in teaching, and the spaces released in the training colleges could be used to increase the number of teachers entering the schools or eventually for in-service training. The present courses of advanced study for teachers with at least five years experience might be the foundation for the third year's course, but there is a variety of patterns it could take. It would rarely be residential. 5. To show the effect of such a scheme we have estimated the extra teachers who might be in service if it were started in 1968 as an alternative to the present three year scheme. It provides a 'short service commission' of five years for those with only two years training. We assume for purposes of calculation that two thirds of the women opt for it. We then assume that half of these opt for a third year's training and the rest leave the schools. All re-entrants with only two years basic training would take the third year. All the men and one third of the women opt for three years initial training. What all these proportions would be in practice would depend on the details of particular schemes and particularly on any changes in salary structure as a consequence of adopting any of them. 6. The scheme would provide ten thousand more teachers in the schools during the first half of the seventies. It would provide help at a time when the staffing situation will be difficult with rising numbers of children and advances the elimination of classes over 40 by three years. The additional numbers might be rather less in the second half of the seventies, but would continue to make a significant contribution to staffing standards. 7. We are confident that these extra numbers can be recruited without risking any significant deterioration in the standards of students entering the colleges of education. As the scheme would be using existing capacity we are not suggesting any addition to training costs. The present expansion of the colleges of education has created problems for the grammar schools as a significant number of their teachers have left to become training college lecturers. To take teachers from hard pressed schools in order to train students who will not make careers in teaching raises questions about the economy of the operation. 8. Many will feel that the educational disadvantages of such a scheme outweigh the benefits of more teachers. We do not agree. Indeed there are educational arguments in its favour. The two years basic course would provide a sound basis for work in the schools. Those who found, after being in the schools, that they wanted to work towards a BEd would return to a third [page 495] and fourth year. They, and the other third year returners, would be able go back to theoretical study after five years experience; they would be able to reflect on and analyse their experience in school and bring mature understanding to developments in the curriculum and in teaching methods. Because of the opportunity to experience a long period of teaching and then go back to theoretical work the 'sandwich' three year trained teacher might well be a better one than the continuous three year trained teacher. The two year trained teachers would only be in the schools for up to five years - which is as long as most of them would stay in any case. Especially with the greater flexibility in classroom organisation suggested in Chapter 20, they would have a valuable contribution to make in that time. 9. It is relevant to point out that nearly all the teachers whose work we commend in this report have had only two years training. 10. This note contains only suggestions; we know that there are a number of practical problems which would have to be solved before definite proposals could be made. There would be problems of salary differentials, the question of whether the third year should be at full rates of pay or on a student's grant and the question as to whether teachers would be seconded for a third year or whether they would be obliged to resign. Nevertheless we think that such a scheme deserves serious consideration by the teachers, the colleges of education, and the Secretary of State. 
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