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Abstract
Secondary modern schools form the focus for this paper, which explores an aspect of this topic that has received comparatively little attention: the role of external examinations in determining the character and fate of these schools during the 20‐year period when they educated the ‘large majority’Footnote 1 of pupils in the 11 to 15 age range. Particular attention is paid to the pivotal role played by external examinations in secondary modern schools’ quest for parity of esteem with grammar schools. Various functions performed by external examinations are considered and it is shown that, while some worked against the interests of secondary modern schools, individual schools were able to turn others to their own advantage. The paper ends by considering a darker side to examining, which was asserting itself as this brief period of history drew to a close.
1 McCulloch, G. Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working‐class Secondary Education. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998: 6.
Notes
1 McCulloch, G. Failing the Ordinary Child? The Theory and Practice of Working‐class Secondary Education. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1998: 6.
2 Norwood, C. The English Tradition of Education. London: John Murray, 1929: 208–209.
3 Lawn, M., and J. Ozga. “Unequal Partners: Teachers under Indirect Rule.” British Journal of Sociology of Education 7, no. 2 (1986): 225–238.
4 Ibid.
5 McCulloch, G. Failing the Ordinary Child?, 56.
6 Ministry of Education. The New Secondary Education. Ministry of Education Pamphlet 9 London: HMSO, 1947: 3.
7 McCulloch, Failing the Ordinary Child?, 60.
8 Kneebone, R. M. T. I Work in a Secondary Modern School. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1957: xiv.
9 Notable exceptions that have examined SMSs as a social phenomenon include Taylor, W. The Secondary Modern School. London: Faber & Faber, 1963; Hargreaves, D. Social Relations in a Secondary School. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967; McCulloch, Failing the Ordinary Child?; McCulloch, G. & Sobell, L. “Towards a Social History of the Secondary Modern Schools.” History of Education 23, no. 3 (1994): 275–286; and Spencer, S. “Reflections on the ‘site of struggle’: Girls’Experience of Secondary Education in the late 1950s.” History of Education 33, no. 4 (2004): 437–449.
10 Recent examples from this extensive body of research include Atkinson, A., and P. Gregg. Selective Education: Who Benefits from Grammar Schools? Market and Public Organisation 11. Bristol: University of Bristol, Leverhulme Centre for Market and Public Organisation, 2004; Crook, D., S. Power, and G. Whitty. The Grammar School Question: a Review of Research on Comprehensive and Selective Education. London: University of London, Institute of Education, 1999; Schagen, I., and S. Schagen. “Analysis of National Value‐added Datasets to Assess the Impact of Selection on Pupil Performance.” British Educational Research Journal 29, no. 4 (2003): 561–582.
11 See note 10.
12 McCulloch, G. Educational Reconstruction: the 1944 Education Act and the Twenty‐first Century. Ilford: Woburn Press, 1994: 134.
13 Ibid., 134–135.
14 Gardner, P. “The Early History of School‐based Teacher Training.” In Mentoring: Perspectives on School‐based Teacher Education, edited by D. McIntyre, H. Hagger and M. Wilkin. London: Kogan Page, 1994: 22.
15 Gardner. P. “Oral History in Education: Teacher’s Memory and Teachers’ History.” History of Education 32, no. 2 (2003): 187.
16 Spencer, “Reflections on the ‘site of struggle’”, 440–441.
17 Davis noted that less than a fifth of modern school teachers were graduates whereas almost four‐fifths of grammar school teachers enjoyed graduate status; in Davis, J. A. M. “Examinations in Secondary Modern Schools—and who is to Control them.” Forum 4, no. 2 (1962): 64.
18 Ebel, R. L. Essentials of Educational Measurement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice‐Hall, 1972: 27.
19 Quoted in Roach, J. Public Examinations in England 1850–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971: 22.
20 Ibid., 4.
21 See Judges, A. V. “The Evolution of Examinations.” In The World Year Book of Education 1969: Examinations, edited by J. A. Lauwerys and D. G. Scanlon. London: Evans, 1969; and Roach, Public Examinations in England.
22 For instance, the Oxford Delegacy ‘locals’ (1858), Cambridge Syndicate ‘locals’ (1858) and examinations introduced by the University of London (1858).
23 These included examinations of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich (1853), the Home Civil Service (1855) and the Indian Civil Service (1855).
24 Board of Education. Examinations in Secondary Schools: Report of the Consultative Committee. Cmnd. 6004, London: HMSO, 1911: 1.
25 Board of Education. Secondary Education with Special Reference to Grammar Schools and Technical High Schools: Report of the Consultative Committee on Secondary Education. London: HMSO, 1939, (The Spens Report): 254.
26 Stobart, G. and C. Gipps. Assessment: a Teacher’s Guide to the Issues. 3rd ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997: 5–6.
27 Board of Education, Secondary Education, 142.
28 Valentine, C. W. The Reliability of Examinations: an Enquiry. London: University of London Press, 1932: 16.
29 The Schools Certificate Examination, being the Report of the Panel of Investigators appointed by the Secondary School Examinations Council to Enquire into the Eight Approved School Certificate Examinations held in the Summer of 1931. London: HMSO, 1932: 47.
30 McCarthy, E. F. in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 7 October 1960: 445.
31 Taylor, Secondary Modern School, 188.
32 Schools Inquiry Commission. Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission. London: Eyre & Spottiswood for HMSO, 1868 (Taunton Report) Vol. 1: 330–331.
33 Board of Education, Examinations in Secondary Schools.
34 Board of Education. Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools: Report of the Committee of the Secondary School Examinations Council. London: HMSO, 1943 (The Norwood Report): 31.
35 Ministry of Education, New Secondary Education, 4.
36 Ibid., 30.
37 Ibid., 46.
38 Board of Education, Curriculum and Examinations in Secondary Schools, 32.
39 Broadfoot, P. Assessment, Schools and Society. London: Methuen, 1979: 17.
40 Figures taken from Montgomery, R. J. Examinations: an Account of their Evolution as Administrative Devices in England. London: Longmans, 1965.
41 Taylor, Secondary Modern School, 118.
42 Montgomery, Examinations: an Account, 15.
43 For a description of one such federation, see Burdett, T. H. “Examinations in the Secondary Modern School.” University of Nottingham Institute of Education Bulletin 33 (January 1960).
44 Now described as Years 10 and 11.
45 Morris, R. N. “The Cult of Examinations.” Education (6 May 1960): 1035.
46 Ministry of Education. Secondary School Examinations Other than the GCE: Report of a Committee Appointed by the Secondary School Examinations Council in July 1958 (Beloe Report). London: HMSO, 1960.
47 Taylor, W. “Changing Concepts of the Modern School—1944 and 1959.” Forum 2, no. 2 (Spring 1960): 63.
48 Ministry of Education, Examinations Other than the GCE.
49 Black, P. Testing: Friend or Foe? The Theory and Practice of Assessment and Testing. London: Falmer Press, 1998: 144.
50 Quoted in Lawn and Ozga, “Unequal Partners”, 234.
51 Ministry of Education, New Secondary Education, 7.
52 Simon, B. Education and the Social Order 1940–1990. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1991: 115–116.
53 Dent, H. C. Secondary Modern Schools: an Interim Report. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958: 23.
54 Correspondent. “New Growth in an Old School: Challenge and Response.” Times Educational Supplement, 26 August 1960: 239.
55 Correspondent. “Old Habits in a New Town: First Impressions of Secondary Modern Life.” Times Educational Supplement, 29 January 1960: 160.
56 Montgomery, Examinations: an Account, 254.
57 Dent, Secondary Modern Schools, 142.
58 Simon, Education and the Social Order, 291.
59 Ibid., 290.
60 Ministry of Education. Examinations in Secondary Schools: Report of the Secondary School Examinations Council. London: HMSO, 1947.
61 Board of Education, Curriculum and Examinations.
62 See, for example, Brereton, J. L. The Case for Examinations: an Account of their Place in Education with Some Proposals for their Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944.
63 “Secondary School Examinations Other than the GCE—the Beloe Report.” Journal of the Association of Assistant Mistresses 12, no. 1 (Spring 1961): 58.
64 Ministry of Education, Examinations in Secondary Schools, 5.
65 Ibid., 7.
66 For instance, see Bourdieu, P., and J. C. Passeron. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage, 1976. Musgrave’s case study of an examination board in Victoria, Australia (in Musgrave, P. W. Whose Knowledge? A Case Study of the Victorian Universities Schools Examinations Board. London: Falmer, 1988) also shows how different interest groups jostle, deploying power in pursuit of their own ends.
67 Lawn, M. Modern Times? Work, Professionalism and Citizenship in Teaching. London: Falmer Press, 1996: 86.
68 Judges, “Evolution of Examinations”, 31.
69 Ministry of Education, Examinations Other than the GCE, 9.
70 Heaton, P. R. “External Examinations in the Secondary Modern School.” In External Examinations in Secondary Schools: their Place and Function, edited by G. B. Jeffery. London: Harrap, 1958: 93–94.
71 This service is acknowledged by successive official publications including Board of Education, Examinations in Secondary Schools; Board of Education, Curriculum and Examinations; and Ministry of Education, Examinations Other than the GCE.
72 Harold Loukes quoted in Lawn, Modern Times?, 78.
73 Editorial Comment. Times Educational Supplement, 4 November 1960: 611.
74 “Secondary School Examinations.” Journal of the Association of Assistant Mistresses, 61.
75 Dent, Secondary Modern Schools, 146–47.
76 Waldron, W. J. in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 5 February 1960: 220.
77 Murray, A. in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 8 July 1960: 59.
78 Kirkpatrick, W. in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 22 July 1960: 120.
79 Dent, Secondary Modern Schools, 147.
80 Ministry of Education, Examinations Other than the GCE, 23.
83 Ibid., 95–98.
81 Higginson, J. H. in the Foreword to Kneebone, I Work in a Secondary Modern School, x.
82 Heaton, “External Examinations”, 96.
85 Dellan, G. J. “Examinations by the Sea: a Success at Hove.” Times Educational Supplement, 10 June 1960: 1194.
84 Taylor, “Changing Concepts of the Modern School”, 63.
86 Ibid.
87 Morris, R. N. “Fifth‐Year Courses in Birmingham’s Modern Schools.” Educational Review 12, no. 1 (November 1959): 35.
88 Murray, in Letters to the Editor, 59.
89 Banks, O. Parity and Prestige in English Secondary Education: A Study in Educational Sociology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955.
90 Blishen, E. “The Future of the Secondary Modern School.” Forum 4, no. 2 (Spring 1962): 47.
91 Dent, Secondary Modern Schools, 158.
92 Heaton, “External Examinations”, 101.
93 Crofts, F. A. “Developing Advanced Courses in the Modern Secondary Schools.” Forum 1, no. 1 (Autumn 1958): 22.
95 Heaton, “External Examinations”, 101–102.
94 Dellan, “Examinations by the Sea”, 1194.
96 Rapstoff, C. “Bi‐Polarity in the Secondary Modern School.” Forum 2, no. 3 (Summer 1960): 98.
97 Taylor, “Changing Concepts of the Modern School”, 63.
98 See quotation, note 32.
99 Crofts, “Developing Advanced Courses”, 24.
100 Heaton, “External Examinations”, 104 and 109.
101 Smedley, W. R. “GCE in the Secondary Modern School: a Progress Report on Bournemouth.” Education 15 (May 1959): 1037. Other examples of systematic research reporting similar findings include Kirkpatrick, R. V. “An Enquiry into the Effects of Leaving Certificate Examinations upon Pupils’ Attitudes.” Educational Review 17, no. 2 (February 1965) and Morris, “Fifth‐Year Courses”, 35.
102 Taylor, Secondary Modern School, 149.
103 Blishen, “The Future”, 43.
104 Adsum in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 22 April 1960: 810.
105 Taylor, Secondary Modern School, 150.
106 “Cui Bono?” Times Educational Supplement, 12 February 1960: 279.
107 Leader. Times Educational Supplement, 12 September 1958: 407.
108 Morris, “Fifth‐Year Courses”, 41.
109 Ministry of Education, Examinations Other than the GCE, 19–20.
111 Correspondent, “Old Habits in a New Town”, 160.
112 Adsum, Times Educational Supplement, 810.
113 Headmistress in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 5 August 1960: 178.
110 Schools Inquiry Commission, Report of the Commission, 322.
114 Pinkus, I. J. in Letters to the Editor. Times Educational Supplement, 11 March 1960: 490.
115 Holmes, M. “Examinations in the Comprehensive School.” Forum 3, no. 2 (1961): 51.
116 Department of Education and Science. The Organisation of Secondary Education. (Circular 10/65) 12 July 1965.
117 McCulloch, Failing the Ordinary Child?, 112–113.
118 Davis, “Examinations in Secondary Modern Schools”, 60.
119 Judges, Evolution of Examinations, 19.
120 Gipps, C., and G. Stobart. Assessment: a Teachers’ Guide to the Issues. 2nd ed. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993: 9.
121 The General Certificate of Secondary Education, introduced in 1986, replaced GCE and CSE with a unitary examination and attempted to replace the ‘pass/fail’ notion of examining with the concept of a ‘graded’ examination composed of seven grades (A–G) and an ‘Ungraded’ classification.
122 Iven, H. “Testamania: the Proposed Key Stage 3 Pilot Tests.” Education 3–13, no. 3 (1992): 30.
123 See, for example, James, M. “Measured Lives: the Rise of Assessment as the Engine of Change in English Schools.” Curriculum Journal 11, no. 3 (2000): 343–364.