The 1944 Education Act famously created three types of schools: academically selective grammars, selective technical schools, and secondary moderns for the hoi polloi.
Grammars and secondary moderns charged ahead. But what happened to the selective technical schools? Few opened and of those that did, several became mainstream grammars before the end of the 1960s. The others quickly became comprehensive after Labour started moves to get rid of selection.
So what went wrong? An interesting place to start is the Norwood report of 1943. Commissioned in 1941, famous educationists of the period spent two years considering how secondary education ought to work in England. Grammars provided a passage to university, but it was increasingly obvious the country needed to replace the engineers and scientists who had died in the Second World War. Buildings and machinery also had to be replenished. Hence, a route was needed to get smart people into science.
The Norwood report recommended the three school types – grammar, moderns and technical – but also, importantly, that children in all three schools should study the same curriculum until 13, that transfer between schools should keep happening and that entry into schools should be on the basis of teacher judgment and parents’ and pupils’ wishes, with tests only a “supplement if desired”.
There was a problem, however. School stock was depleted and most local authorities didn’t have the money to build a school with the equipment or classroom types for a technical education. Meanwhile, local authorities didn’t have to pay to build most grammars. Many were private schools that converted to become state-funded as long as they could maintain a selective intake which, previously, had been done on entrance tests. And so the trend was continued.
Of the few selective technical schools that did open, there were some quirks that made them a target for redevelopment in the 1960s. In Bournville for example, a girls’ grammar was accompanied by the opening of a boys’ technical school, where pupils had links to industry and were given skills to become foremen. (Presumably the girls were taught how to make tea for the foremen.)
The increasingly awkward single-sex separation, plus the growing trend for comprehensivisation, meant that by the late 1960s the schools merged and abandoned their specialism.
In Kent, Dartford technical college increasingly swapped its technical specialism for a straightforward grammar approach. Having started with a focus on agriculture – much in vogue, post-war – the need for farmers was reducing by the 1960s and so was swapped in favour of a more traditional academic curriculum. A trend echoed today in the university technical colleges with science specialisms that have swapped to become mainstream schools over the past year or so.
A third problem plagued the technical schools. Although they were seen as selective, children who did well at the 11-plus tended to pick grammars first. In any particular area there are usually only a small number of pupils whose achievement is very high; once they are taken out, the next layer of “selectives” are largely going to take in quite average pupils. Hence, the technical schools did not have as prestigious intakes as expected.
It will be interesting to see if the government takes note of these historical issues when it releases its expected white paper on new forms of selective schools. It would be nice to make some new mistakes, at least, rather than simply repeating the old ones.
Janet Downs
February 15, 2017 at 3:53 pm
I failed to gain sufficient marks in the 11+ to attend the girls’ grammar but I did score sufficiently highly to be given a place at a new technical school. The girls’ technical school shared a site with the boys’ technical school but we didn’t mix although the appearance of boys on our playing field caused a huge amount of excitement.
Our curriculum covered the usual stuff (English, Maths, Science, French, creative subjects etc) plus ‘Hygiene’ which equipped us to be future housewives (we learnt how to ball socks, scrub pine tables, polish shoes and other domestic tasks). And, yes, our first lesson in DS (Domestic Science) was to make a pot of tea and toast bread.
After two years, the schools dropped their ‘technical’ status and became ‘bilateral’ with a grammar stream and a secondary modern stream. Girls in the grammar stream did O levels and could enter the 6th form; girls in the secondary modern stream were steered towards shorthand/typing and left at 15.
Roger Titcombe
February 19, 2017 at 3:24 pm
“Of the few selective technical schools that did open, there were some quirks that made them a target for redevelopment in the 1960s. In Bournville for example, a girls’ grammar was accompanied by the opening of a boys’ technical school, where pupils had links to industry and were given skills to become foremen. (Presumably the girls were taught how to make tea for the foremen.)”
This is wide of the mark. I was one the first intake to Bournville Boys Technical School in 1958. The completely separate girl’s school sharing the site was Bournville Girl’s Technical School, not a grammar school. Dad’s Army actor Ian Lavender was also one of the first intake. He starred in the school production of, ‘She stoops to conquer’ (all male cast’), in which I also had a minor part.
From the very start, even though the new school did have good science and technology provision, the school culture from the very start was to ‘out-grammar’ the grammar schools. All the standard ‘grammar’ social indicators were adopted with knobs on. Staff wore gowns, prefects had ‘stripes’ on the sleeves of the uniform and ludicrous tassels on the compulsory school cap including for sixth formers. Corporal punishment, formal and informal, was widespread and brutal. There were no links with industry and pupils were certainly not expected to become ‘foremen’. The curriculum was that of a standard grammar school. I obtained C+ GCE grades in English, English Literature, maths, physics, chemistry, art, technical drawing, geography, French, art and woodwork.
School sport was mainly Rugby, with football discouraged even in the playground and absolutely forbidden in PE and games lessons. All team competitions were exclusively with grammar schools. We had no contact with secondary modern schools whatever.
At a later stage, after I left it became Bournville Grammar-Technical School for Boys.
When the 11 plus results came out I got Bournville Tech as my second choice. Kings Norton Grammar was my first. Later I was offered a place in my first choice grammar school when a place presumably came available, but by then my parents had attended the open day at the new school and my working class, Labour voting parents opted to keep the Technical School place, impressed by the new schools and excellent provision for science and technology.