The Curriculum - WordPress.com

time, from the Hadow Reports (1926, 1931, 1933), through the CrowtherReport (1959) and the Newsom Report (1963) to that of the PlowdenCommittee (1967).In the early years of this period, this influence had less effect at the level ofpractice. A major reason for this was the continued restrictions created by theexamination system. For, although there was now no regular testing of pupilsfor funding purposes, grammar and technical schools still had the task ofpreparing their pupils for public examinations. And in the primary sector, evenbefore the 1944 Act separated this off from the secondary, there was the everpresentresponsibility of preparing pupils for secondary school selection, thetripartite form of which was strongly endorsed by the Hadow (1926), Spens(1938) and Norwood (1943) Reports, first by way of the ‘scholarship’ and thenby the 11+ examinations. And so, although more development can be seen atthis level than in the secondary curriculum, even there progress was limited.Even so Denis Lawton (1980:22) has said that ‘from 1944 to the beginning ofthe 1960s may be seen as the Golden Age of teacher control (or non-control)of the curriculum’.Contradictory developmentsThe Politicization of the School CurriculumThe 1960s, however, saw two contradictory developments. First, it saw thecomprehenisivization of secondary education and consequently the abolition ofthe 11+, at least in its more competitive form. And, conversely, it saw thebeginning of serious questionning of the wisdom of allowing this degree of curriculumcontrol to teachers. The cynic might resolve this apparent contradictionby suggesting that teachers were permitted this degree of control, this levelof autonomy in curriculum planning just so long as they did not use it, and thatthe challenge came when, in the context of the freedom conferred by comprehensivization,some teachers did begin to effect major changes. In 1968, StuartMaclure was able to speak, as we saw, of ‘the English myth of the autonomy ofthe teacher’ (1968:10), but by 1985, Janet Maw was drawing our attention tothe fact that ‘it is inadequate to dismiss the notion of teacher autonomy assimply a myth . . . It influenced the whole style of the curriculum developmentmovement in this country, and it had a powerful (though haphazard) impact onteachers’ conceptions of their professional responsibilities and their willingnessto engage in the realities of curriculum change. In other words, the belief in theteachers’ autonomy had an impact on practice at all levels’ (1985:95).In fact, prompted by the Newsom (1963) and the Plowden (1967) Reports,spurred too by the planned raising of the school leaving age to 16+ in 1972,and taking a lead from the work of several research and development bodies(most notably the Schools Council), significant changes were occurring in thecurricula of both primary and secondary schools. At secondary level, this periodsaw the advent of new subjects on the secondary curriculum, new combinations165