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‘Plowden’ Twenty Years OnBridget PlowdenPublished online: 02 Jul 2007.

To cite this article: Bridget Plowden (1987) ‘Plowden’ Twenty Years On, Oxford Review ofEducation, 13:1, 119-124, DOI: 10.1080/0305498870130111

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Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1987 119

'Plowden' Twenty Years On

BRIDGET PLOWDEN

ABSTRACT The following is a short non-professional account of how it seems to me thatsome of the main 'Plowden' recommendations or comments have worked, 20 years on.

I have written of the misunderstanding and thus misuse of the 'child-centred' conceptand suggested why this happened; of the recent surveys of primary education which I feelsupport much of what we wrote; the great strides forward in the acceptance of parents aseducational partners; the increasing emphasis on the importance of the preschool yearsand in particular the work of the Preschool Playgroups Association with its work on theeducation of parents, particularly mothers.

Finally I touch on the failure of the primary schools twenty years ago to deal with thenumbers of small children from what are now inaccurately described as 'ethnic'backgrounds as they arrived in this country.

My direct connection with primary education is now only marginal and so I write fromwhat I have gleaned from my continuing interest and thus my general reading. Iremain deeply grateful for the experience I had of looking, with professionals, at theworld of this most important stage of education. I learnt then that adults, as well aschildren, learn by doing—and this has taken me into the world of adult education. I amat present also involved with those who leave school at the earliest opportunity whom Imeet in the Youth Training Scheme—this makes me question whether what I considerthe best practice in primary schools is not also applicable in appropriate terms in oursecondary schools.

Such a wide canvas was covered by 'Plowden'; I have found it impossible to write allthat I wished to say. I have therefore contented myself with writing about some of themain areas with which we dealt—the so-called 'child-centred' approach which came infor such criticism, pre-school provision, parents and schools, and what we called theEducational Priority Areas, and adding to this a few general comments.

We set out to answer some questions: 'Is there any genuine conflict betweeneducation based on children as they are and education thought of primarily as apreparation for the future'; 'Has finding out proved to be better than being told?';'Have methods been worked out through which discovery can be stimulated and guidedand children develop from it a coherent body of knowledge?'; 'Do children learn morethrough active co-operation than through passive obedience?' Some of us wereprofessionals, a few of us were not. We were guided in our enquiries by HMIs whodirected us to those parts of the country where what they considered the best practicewas taking place. To the questions we set out to answer, the answer was in theaffirmative. But it must be emphasised that as a model for others, it worked best inareas with an enlightened Chief Education Officer, supported by a similar-minded

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120 Oxford Review of Education

local inspectorate and with teachers' centres where teachers could learn, and then intheir own schools develop what they were already doing. Experienced head teacherswere crucial in this.

It must be emphasised that we did not invent anything new. We described what wehad found; we attempted to illustrate that children could be creative, could handleworthwhile books and materials, so that we might encourage teachers in a wider rangeof authorities to move towards meeting children's learning needs more effectively. Wewrote that we "endorsed the trend towards individual and active learning and 'learningby acquaintance' and that we should like many more schools to be influenced by it."Yet we gave a warning "We certainly do not deny the value of learning 'by description'or the need for the practice of skills and consolidation of knowledge"... "Even aschildren differ, so do teachers. They must select those of our suggestions which theirknowledge and skill enable them to put into practice in the circumstances of their ownschools". This was possibly not emphasised sufficiently.

The fact that there was a Report on primary education gave great encouragement tothose who worked in primary schools and particularly of course to those in theauthorities who were working as we described. The primary schools had tended to feelthat they were the forgotten sector of education, the emphasis having previously beenon the development of secondary education. It was possibly owing to the fact that nolimelight had been shone upon the primary schools that some had been able to goahead steadily and make the progress which we described.

Looking back, it seems that our Report could not have come out at a worse time.For the rapid increase in the birthrate (from an average of 767,000 per annum from1951 to 1955 to an average of 951,000 per annum in 1961-65, thereafter decreasingslowly to 761,000 between 1966 and 70) meant a vast increase in the numbers ofteachers needed. We wrote: "Since 1960 the colleges have engaged on an expansionprogramme which more than doubled the number of places. It was under 30,000 in1959 . . . This year [1964] it will be 80,000".

The staff in the colleges, mostly secondary-orientated for they were all graduates,coped as well as they could to convey to their students the best that we had described.But the difficulties of the new, young teachers, with the high-turnover which therewas, entering possibly over-crowded infant and junior schools—some with still a fairlyformal approach—militated against an understanding of what was and what was notpossible. No wonder that there were shortcomings and misinterpretations, and methodswere tried which were entirely impracticable. There was sufficient fodder for the BlackPaper enthusiasts to make quite a convincing case, and the affair at William Tyndaleschool made its special contribution to this misunderstanding. No wonder that teacherswho were trying to see what could be done became depressed by all the criti-cism—some must have given up in despair.

I think that there is still a lack of understanding of the special characteristics ofprimary teaching: the closure of many colleges specialising in primary teachingincreases this. Primary teaching, although it must deal with matters which areimportant and necessary for a child to master, still must first of all deal with the childas a person and give each child a basic confidence in learning, in seeking excellence, incourage to move into new and unknown fields, ranging from all forms of art tocomputers. Primary teaching is as intellectually demanding as secondary teaching, andin wider fields.

I am fortunate in still having entry to one primary school in South London and thereI am regularly cheered by the industry of children working individually, by the quality

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'Plozvden' 20 Years On 121

of work they produce, by their confidence and their achievements. It is reassuring toknow that this school is much in demand for teaching practice. It is 'Plowden' as itshould be.

One of our most down-to-earth recommendations was that there should be every tenyears a survey of the state of primary education. In 1964 there was no overall pictureand the survey done had to be devised in categories suggested by the imaginative lateHMI John Blackie. In 1978 such a survey was done by HMIs of children learning atthe ages of 7, 9 and 11 in primary schools. It made qualifications about the methodsemployed in schools—for instance (para. 22): "It seems clear that individual assign-ments should not be allowed to replace all group or class work" and (para. 860): "Tolimit teaching to a form that relies on posing questions and then leaving them [thechildren] to ferret out the answers seems to be a less effective way than a morecontrolled form of teaching. But a combination of the two approaches was consistentlyassociated with slightly better scores in NFER tests and with the best match betweentasks to be done and the children's ability to do them". But there was a warning (para.823): "Effective application of skills, including their use in practical activites, isimportant. The teaching of skills in isolation, whether in language or in maths does notproduce the best results".

Progress is slow, if skills are still taught in isolation; yet from the general tenor ofthe HMI Report I felt encouraged. Yet, has there since then, been a slight regression?In Better Schools (1985) I find: "In a majority of schools, over concentration on thepractice of basic literacy and numeracy unrelated to the context in which they areneeded means that these skills are insufficiently extended or applied" and "Pupils aregiven insufficient responsibility for pursuing their own enquiries and how to tackletheir work" and "expectations of pupils are insufficiently demanding at all levels".This is not encouraging.

Criticism of mathematics still continues—but again, I think we have to look at theteachers. For they, many of them, were taught as children by teachers who had littlemathematical interest or ability. We found that a quarter of the men and two-fifths ofthe women had not even a pass in mathematics at 'O' level GCE. Complaints about theteaching of this subject have existed for nearly half a century and until we can arouseinterest in mathematics, particularly among women who still form the majority ofprimary teachers, it will continue.

We could not in our comments on science envisage the use of computers in primaryschools, although we recognised that 'television sets, railway engines and aeroplanes'were of interest to children as well as animals and plants. The Nuffield Project wasonly just then starting and had not had time to see its effect. I hope though that theshortage of mathematical understanding in primary teachers is not equalled by theirlack of excitement about computers. I have sometimes wondered seeing children inschool playing games on computers about witches and so on, whether in enoughschools teachers are sufficiently 'computerate' to take the children forward into thepossibility of computer communication in a wider field. It does happen in someschools, for example in Sheffield and also in Northern Ireland.

Where has there been active progress? Certainly in the understanding of theimportance of there being an active relationship between schools and parents. This wasrecognised in one way in the 1982 Education Bill which stated that there should beequal numbers of parents and other members of the community as teachers ongoverning bodies. We did not invent the importance of parents—it was already in theair and acknowledged, but we strongly emphasised how vital it was. This was not

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122 Oxford Review of Education

welcome to many teachers—they feared that parents would dominate the school asthey believed happened in America. I believe now that their fears have diminished. Anarticle in Education (5.10.84) said: "In the years since the publication of the [Plowden]Report, attempts to involve parents have been numerous and varied. Almost all schoolsnow have a positive home/school policy and make some effort to involve parents".There are of course outstanding efforts, both in school and out of it. To mention but afew, SCOPE in Hampshire, Home Start, a Home Link and such schools as Belfield inRochdale, which set itself out to be a school in which parents would feel that they hada part to play and which provided for them as well as for their children.

In schools there are numerous examples of parents coming into school and helpingwith a variety of activities, depending on their skills. Possibly, however, one schemewhich shows the importance of parents in the education scene has been the HaringeyReading scheme, in which parents committed themselves to listening to their childrenreading for a short time at home every day. The encouraging result was that with acontrol group of children being taught by a qualified teacher, the group who werereading at home improved more than the control group and that this improvement wasstill showing a year later. Of interest was that those in the parental group improvedeven though their parents were poor readers or had little knowledge of English. Thiswas an imaginative scheme done with the complete support of the school. Obviouslythere is room for further initiative in this home/school relationship.

We know that it is the quality of the interest in the home taken in the education ofthe child or children of the family which lays the foundation for educational success.Unless the teachers in the schools can value the parents and give them confidence intheir relationship with the school progress will be slow. It still remains hard forteachers to treat parents as their equals.

Parents though are gaining confidence. They have made their voices heard over theclosure of some village schools which breaks the home/school contact and harms thecommunity. It is encouraging that the DES has made grants available to improve thequality and range of subjects in small country primary schools and that these grants arebeing imaginatively used by the schools and the responsible authorities.

The importance of pre-school provision for all children now seems to have beenaccepted—there have been sufficient models researched, both in this country and inAmerica for Martin Woodhead to write {Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 11, No. 2)that the studies he has seen "lend some support for the idea that the most disadvan-taged have most to gain", but with a qualification that this may not apply to theseverely disadvantaged. It has been a long time since Margaret Macmillan's vision ofwhat could be done.

We passed through the days in the late sixties when nursery classes could only beprovided if teachers' children were to be the beneficiaries so that more teachers couldbe brought back into the schools. It is worth remembering that at least one largeorganisation suggested in its evidence to 'Plowden' that the age of entry to schoolshould be raised. New nursery classes have been started in some authorities to caterparticularly for inner-city children. (But it is sad that in some schools with falling rollsthe four year olds are accepted into the reception classes which often lack the specialfacilities which the under-fives need.) Yet nursery classes do not necessarily give allthat is required, for too often the parents have little part to play in them. And 'parents'most often means mothers. Looking back at the Report I found the Note ofReservation on the proposed nursery expansion by Mrs Bannister. A mother of youngchildren herself, it was she who emphasised in her solitary note that the proposed

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'Plowden'20 Years On 123

nursery expansion "does little to enable mothers to participate actively in the earlyexperiences of their children. The mothers' loneliness and boredom are also majorsocial problems which play centres and groups might help to solve". The 'lonelinessand boredom' are now recognised and many efforts are being made to provide drop-incentres, community centres and groups for mothers and toddlers. Particularly I wouldlike to mention the outstanding work of the late Brian Jackson in this field.

The largest number of children, however, attend groups run by the Pre-schoolPlaygroups Association. Perhaps their recognition was not only due to their ownefforts but to our recommendation that "until enough maintained places are available,local authorities should be given power and encouraged to give financial and otherassistance to nursery groups run by non-profit-making organisations". This enabledthe PPA, I believe, started only in 1961 because of the dearth of nursery provision, togrow into an organisation in its own right, being involved with playgroups, mother andtoddler groups, opportunity groups for children with handicaps and other groups forunder-fives. Save the Children has also developed its work with the under-fives;particularly interesting is their work with those we described as the most severelydeprived in the country—the gypsies. One important aspect of PPA work is that it hasdeveloped into providing adult education for mothers, through courses at all levels,from entirely informal meetings to Open University Courses. Adults, as well aschildren, can learn to learn and they gain confidence in their capacity to learn if theycan start on matters of interest to them. This is one step towards mitigating the'loneliness and boredom' described by Mrs Bannister.

I see no indication that the problems of inner city schools, in what we calledEducational Priority Areas, have diminished. When we were writing, as well as thedifficulties of many who lived in those areas, they suffered particularly from a highturnover of teachers. In addition, in some areas such as Liverpool and Birmingham andmany others, communities which had survived the bombing were being bulldozed awayand rehoused in the vast blocks of flats which have proved such a disaster. Thereseems to have been so little understanding then of the value of a community andcommunity support. Efforts are being made now, in particular by NACRO (theNational Association for the Care & Resettlement of Offenders) to mitigate theisolation and helplessness of those who live in such places and to raise morale.

We made many recommendations to give special help in these Educational PriorityAreas—money for building, special allowances for teachers and so on. Some moneywas provided, but the special allowance for teachers proved difficult to administer andI think faded away. Professor Halsey's Action Research projects in the early seventiesgave an incentive and a great deal of valuable information. Many efforts were made bydevoted teachers, but the problems still remain. The Centre for Educational Disadvan-tage was set up after a lengthy gestation, and had only a short life. I fear that thesituation to-day cannot have changed very much. Does Professor Halsey's research stillgive stimulus and help to those working in these areas? The special concern to-day isabout those areas where there are large concentrations of people from Afro-Caribbeanand Asian families. It is obvious that people from abroad come and live near theirfriends and compatriots—this seems to have been the pattern in the past. But the greatinflux in the late sixties and seventies has produced a new situation, with schoolsdominated by one ethnic group, with demands from some groups for separate schoolswith separate codes of behaviour and religion. This presents a new dimension. I amuneasily aware that the generation of little Afro-Caribbean children who came into theschools have grown into a generation three times as likely to be unemployed as the

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124 Oxford Review of Education

indigenous population. Was the gulf between home and school and different codes ofbehaviour too difficult to bridge? There were certainly no special books for theseyoung people and I recall with sorrow these little children studying from books aboutEnglish farms and wondering then what they were making of it. We wrote "there willhave to be constant communication between parents and schools if the aims of theschools are to be fully understood". But did this happen? Possibly the primary schoolsas well as the secondary schools must bear some responsibility for the present position.

I am concerned to find an article in The Times Educational Supplement referring toa suggestion that there should be 'direct grant primary schools', 'vouchers' and 'crownplaces' in inner city areas. This would seem, however, to refer only to the most ablechildren in these areas. They have their needs, but it is also the schools for all thechildren which matter and their quality.

What of the teachers themselves—those whose predecessors made the progresswhich we described? The past months of bitterness in the teaching world haveproduced a situation which in the days of 'Plowden' we could not have imagined. Ihope that once this is past history young men and women will feel again that theprimary world is a vital one and that they will find colleges staffed by specialists inprimary education who will stimulate them to further learning once they are in schools.I hope that they will avoid being drawn into political matters and that they may find intheir teaching guidance and encouragement from those who are educational enthusi-asts.

I should like to finish by comparing some of the questions we set out to answer withsome of the problems to-day, 20 years later. We wrote in our aims of primaryeducation: "one obvious purpose is to fit the children for the society into which theywill grow u p . . . it will certainly be marked by rapid and far-reaching economicchange". There was likely to be more leisure and "more people will be called upon tochange their jobs". "For such a society children and the adults they will become willneed above all to be adaptable and capable of adjusting to their changing environ-ment . . . they will need throughout their adult life to be capable of being taught and oflearning the new skills called for by the changing economic scene". We were moreright than we knew. But it is not only primary schools who can lay the rightfoundation. I must add another quotation: "Projects are also introducing changes inteaching styles. Increasingly these are geared towards providing students with theopportunity to develop initiative, motivation, problem-solving skills and other personalqualities... Central to this approach is the transfer to students themselves of moreresponsibility for managing their own learning and applying their own knowledge".This comes not from 'Plowden' but from the TVEI Review of 1985. Is this so verydifferent from the successful application of the philosophy we found in the bestprimary schools?

Finally, ours was the last Report done by a Central Advisory Council. Were we soineffective that it was right to abolish the creation of Councils such as those whichproduced Hadow, Crowther and Newsom? Is there not a place for knowledgeablepeople, not only politicians and those from the educational world, to look at intervalsat what the educational world and the politicians are doing for the nation's children,who belong to all of us?

Correspondence: Lady Plowden, 11 Abingdon Gardens, Abingdon Villas, LondonW8 6BY, England.

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