their community. These were supplemented with
other schools funded by the local education
authority, sometimes called ‘county schools’ and
these had a more varied curriculum, including
secretarial skills, or woodworking and
Children were generally taught in classes of 40 or metalworking.
so and the process could be well described as
‘chalk and talk’. The classroom landscape consisted The curriculum of a grammar school might be very
of simple wooden desks, usually shared, with a traditional and most lessons would be delivered
sloped lid for books and papers, and an inkwell at from a text book or from the board. Some
the centre. Wall posters were widely used
_
maps grammar schools would have specialist science
of the British Isles or the Empire were a common teachers who might carry out experiments and
feature, as were illustrated alphabets, or the have laboratory facilities, but this was not a
numbers to 10 or 20. For the younger children, universal option. For girls, housewifery or domestic
reading books were often compilations of stories science might also be added.
and poems with a few token illustrations. They
were usually read together around the class, with There were a number of reports commissioned
each child reading in turn. Text books were between 1923 and 1933 and chaired by Sir Henry
generally shared, and were designed to give Hadow reviewing the curriculum and models for
information and sets of exercises and questions to teaching. They also explored the ways in which
work through. The blackboard was a consistent schools should be organised, the curriculum
way in which teachers would both set activities for delivered and the materials used. Hadow’s 1926
the children and demonstrate their teaching. The recommendation for transfer at age 11 led to the
teaching would be driven at a single pace for the creation of primary schools (sometimes referred to
whole class. Some schools were using radio as junior schools) for children aged 5
_
11, which
broadcasts specifically designed for schools. Music became government policy from 1928, though
and Movement began its first broadcast in 1934. they were only formally established in the 1944
Education Act. These schools were to be different
For those 20% of pupils who went on to a new from the existing elementary schools as they were
school at 11, the type of school they attended to explore new methods of teaching. The
would very much depend on their locality. curriculum of the primary school was ‘to be
Grammar schools were a common feature of many thought of in terms of activity and experience
towns, some of which had a very long tradition of rather than knowledge to be acquired and facts to
independent or charity foundations supporting be stored’.
7
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