How far did education change between 1939 and 1975?

By the end of the lesson you will:1.Describe the many developments in education2.Explain how some changes were more significant than others3.Analyse the extent of change

Timeline of education changes in the 20th Century

• 1918: Full-time education compulsory up to 14• 1944: Education Act raises leaving age to 15• 1964: Raising of school leaving age to 16 announced,

but not in place until 1972• 1988 : Introduction of the National Curriculum and

GCSEs• 2013-15: Participation in education or training raised

to 17 and then 18

https://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/classroom-resources/film-archive-resources/childhood-in-peacetime 5 mins

Education in the 1940s

What can you learn about education from these memories of the 1950s?

I was born in 1948 so my 50s memories are mainly those at junior school. I lived in Haringey, North London. Little boys wore grey school shorts and long grey socks all year round and little girls wore dresses or pinafore dresses and blouses. The school cap and beret were de rigueur. We learned to write with nib pens on wooden holders which we dipped in ink wells and learned from Janet and John books. Sheila Ferguson nee Richardson, Maidstone Kent

I was born in Brighton in 1954 and by 1958 I had started primary school. I remember a tiny school with a wood stove to heat the classroom in winter. The school had two teachers who had both taught my mother. They were kindly plump ladies who would sit a child on their laps at story time. I don't remember learning very much; we had slates to write on and naps on little beds in the afternoons. Playtimes were fairly boisterous affairs spent jumping off the old air raid shelters, I do remember noticing even at that age, that many of the children were poor, often unwashed and many had to wear plimsolls even in winter and the nit nurse was a regular visitor. However we all found a penny to buy an ice bun which was delivered with our milk each morning. Out of school, time was spent playing on the street till the stars came out, Sundays started with Sunday school, drawing pictures of miracles and parables, followed by homemade lemonade in the church hall. Hilary Petherbridge, Leyland, Lancashire, England

Yuri Gagarin, circling the world as the first astronaut, was my highlight of the 50s.I must have been seven years old. At that time the radio was running a science fiction series, featuring Jet Morgan, first citizen of Space. Everyone at school was delighted that fact had now met fiction. I can remember playing spacemen in the playground the day we heard it happen. I was in a state of sheer delight. Our futures were assured. On leaving school we would also become spacemen and fight strange and menacing aliens on Mars. I couldn't wait for the RAF to get our first spaceman up there. I'm still waiting! Anthony Thirgood, London, Middlesex

We all attended the nearby primary school. There was a concrete playground which still remains today with not a blade of grass in sight. It had no indoor toilets until about five years ago. I was hopeless at just about everything, possibly because I had bad eyesight and couldn't see what was on the blackboard. My Dad insisted on school giving me extra homework, mostly maths. He was only trying to help but the result was a horror of maths that I took with me throughout my schooling. School wasn't really a seat of learning, it was a place where you had to be very quiet and well-behaved. In 1956 when I was ten I went to senior school. It had no playing fields, just another sloping concrete playground with outside toilets, too awful to describe. For games lessons there was a corporation double-decker 'bus to take us to the local park where there were hockey and football pitches etc. We changed in the field, in the full view of people walking their dogs. Whenever possible I hid until the bus had left and preferred to do a detention instead. Our school had a boy's half and a girl's half and never the twain shall meet was the order of the day. There was a high concrete wall down the middle of the playground. Angela Southern, Street, Somerset, UK

School seemed full of new, colourful materials, books and opportunity, despite rather austere surroundings. Sunday School, by contrast, always felt earnest, but we did lots of pageants, singing, anniversary performances and shows. Of course, the Queen's Coronation stands out as a moment of sheer delight, with gifts for every child in the country and Bynge's 'Elizabethan Serenade' being played for years afterwards! M. W., Cheltenham UK

School diners were good, plus there was pudding too. School discipline was strict, but you didn't notice it very much, you were used to it, you did as you were told and didn't answer back. Nature study classes never mentioned words like environment, pollution or the greenhouse effect. In the playground you played snail racing, tag, bulldog, football and sang songs about Hitler. Ray Borge, Hereford

Education in the 1960sIn the 1960s there were no state pre-schools or nurseries, so for most children just turning 5 years old, their first day at school was the first time they had been on their own, away from home. Most mothers did not work outside the home, so for many children this was also the first time they had been apart from their mothers. Consequently the first day of school was a very tearful event for both child and parent! Having got over the first pangs of separation, school life soon fell into a predictable routine. School milk was part of this routine, uniformly detested by all children. In Post War Britain school milk, a third of a pint per child, was introduced in schools to supplement the child’s diet. During the harsh winter of 1962-3, or the big freeze of 1963 as it became known, it was a common sight to see the small crates of milk outside the school gates with the shiny bottle tops standing proud above the bottles on a column of frozen milk. Of course the only way to defrost the school milk was to place it by the radiator, and then the poor children were forced to consume watery, lukewarm milk. And forced they were – “milk is good for you child, you WILL drink it all up!”

The School Broadcasting Council for the United Kingdom had been set up in 1947 and the wireless or radio played a great part in the education of school children in the 1960s. ‘Music and Movement’ was one such program and all over the country in school halls, children could be found leaping and stretching to the commands on the radio. ‘Now children we are going to sway like trees in the wind’ would be the instruction on the radio and all the children, boys and girls, would begin to sway with their arms in the air. There was no ‘gym kit’ in primary schools so the children just removed their outer clothes and did P.E. in their vests, knickers or underpants and bare feet or pumps (usually purchased from Woolworths).

Another such program was ‘Singing Together’ where the class would gather to sing traditional folk songs and sea shanties such as ‘Oh soldier, soldier, won’t you marry me’, ‘A-Roving’ (see below), ‘Michael Finnegan’, ‘The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies’ and ‘Oh No John’. However, when as an adult you examine the content and meaning of some of these old folk songs, whether they were indeed suitable for the under 11s is another question!

Education in the 1960’s continuedVisits from the school nurse would break up the daily routine. The nit nurse used to make regular visits to check for headlice and all the children in each class would line up to be examined in turn, their hair being combed carefully with a nit comb to see if there was any infestation. There were also routine eye and hearing tests, and visits from the school dentist.

Class sizes in the 1950s and early 1960s were large, often over 30 children to a class, as these were the ‘baby boomers’, children born after the Second World War. There were no classroom assistants, just the class teacher and so discipline was strict. It was quite common for a disruptive child to be rapped over the knuckles, on the buttocks or on the palm of the hand with a ruler.

In the 1960s this was very much ‘talk and chalk’ education, with the teacher at the front of the class and the children sitting at desks facing the board. Reading, writing and arithmetic (the Three ‘R’s) were very important, as was learning by rote. Times tables were learnt by chanting aloud in class and poetry such as Wordworths’ I wandered lonely as a cloud’ would be learnt by heart for homework. Neat hand writing was seen as very important and practised daily. Nature study was popular and often the only science taught at primary school, with children being asked to bring in things such as leaves and seeds for the teacher to identify and then to use later in art and craft work.

Of course this was also the age of the 11-plus, a series of tests and exams that the children in the top (oldest) class at junior school would take before moving on to secondary school. Pupils would practise previous papers in school in order to prepare for these tests, which included writing an essay, a maths paper and both verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers. The verbal reasoning would test a child’s command and use of English, whereas the non-verbal reasoning paper was designed to test a child’s IQ with a puzzles and problem-solving questions.

Education in the 1970sStaying on The decision to raise the leaving age had been planned in 1964, but it was not implemented until September 1972.

Staying on for another year saw more people getting O-level qualifications - and fewer leaving with no qualifications.

This was followed by an improvement in their children's achievement - with consistent improvements continuing from primary school tests through to exams at the age of 16.

• How did education types change between the 1940’s and 1975?

• Use pages 494 – 495 to make notes

• How was student life edgier in the 60’s and 70’s?

• Use pages 496-7

• Also use Pages 494 – 497 of Walsh and make notes.

• Then explain how far education changed between 1939 and 1975.

• Remember the structure• Where there was big change• Where there was no / limited change• Conclusion