Spring 1975 Volume 17 Number 2 50p FOR THE DISCUSSION OF NEW TRENDS IN EDUCATION New directions Comprehensive Education and the Reconstruction of Going Comprehensive Knowledge Patrick Bailey MACOS at one school The Reform of Secondary Education in France Doug Fanthorpe and Dennis Longstaff G«y Neave _ . - . - , Family Support and the Young Reader Towards Independent Learning D fas „^ w and John Peter Game Cartoon Comics Reconstructing knowledge: an example p0b Dixon Michael Armstrong Reviews Discussion Andrew Finch, Margaret Miles, Douglas Holly, Peter Dormer Joan Simon, Maggie Grade CONFERENCE Editorial run jointly by Board FORUM and the Campaign for Michael Armstrong Countesthorpe Upper School, COMPREHENSIVE Leicestershire. Clyde Chitty Deputy Head, Roger Manwood School, EDUCATION London. Kenneth Coram Headmaster, Bandley Hill Junior Non-Streamed Mixed School, Stevenage. Annabelle Dixon International School, Geneva, Teaching in the Switzerland. Comprehensive G C Freeland Ex-Headmaster, Alderman Richard Hallam Junior School, Leicester. School David Grugeon Assistant Director of Studies, Open Saturday 7 June 1975 University. 10.30 am to 4.30 pm H Raymond King Ex-Headmaster, Wandsworth FRIENDS' MEETING HOUSE School, London. Euston Road, London NW1 Eric Linfield Senior Lecturer, Newton Park College The annual CCE/FORUM conference will of Education, Bath. focus this year on the key issue of unstreamed Roger Seckington Principal, Heathfield High School teaching in the comprehensive school. and Community College, Earl Shilton, Leicestershire. The morning session will concentrate on Peter Thomson Myatt Garden Primary School, the 11 to 14 age-range. The afternoon London. session on the 13 to 16 age range. Jack Walton Senior Staff Tutor, University of Exeter Problems of teaching mathematics and Institute of Education. modern languages will be discussed by teachers with experience. The teaching Roy Waters District Inspector ILEA. of science, of the humanities, and the Editors Brian Simon Professor of Education, School provision of a common course taught in of Education, University of Leicester. unstreamed classes throughout the 11 to 16 age range will be the subjects of opening Nanette Whitbread Principal Lecturer, City of Leicester College of Education. speakers (limited to 15 minutes each). There will be plenty of time for discussion. Editorial Communications. MSS and contributions to All opening talks will be given by teachers discussion (800 words maximum) should be addressed with practical experience of non-streamed to the Editor, 11 Pendene Road, Leicester, LE2 3DQ. Tel: Leicester 705176. teaching. BOOK THIS DATE NOW Business information Conference fee: £1.20 Correspondence relating to subscriptions etc, should Space will be limited be addressed to The Manager, 11 Beacon Street, Send cheque or postal order NOW to: Lichfield. Tel. Lichfield 51159. Conference Organiser, 1 Milland House, Alton Estate, London N.W.5 Forum is published three times a year, in September, January and May. £1.50 a year or 50p an issue. New directions When this journal was founded a decade and a Here they are following trends already well estab­ half ago, most urban primary schools were streamed, lished in primary schools but which have to be eleven-plus selection was almost universal and much more fully developed in terms of adolescent secondary children were generally further segre­ development and the adult constructs of human gated in so-called ability streams and/or sets within knowledge which the traditional curriculum seeks those schools to which they were allocated. Forum to impart ready made. therefore campaigned initially for unstreaming at Teachers committed to nonstreaming in primary and the primary stage, abolition of eleven-plus selection secondary schools have found that their objectives and reorganisation of the secondary stage along differ from the attainment-oriented objectives of comprehensive lines. We presented the educational streamed schools, while they by no means discount and social arguments in support of these policies achievement—their spectrum is wider. Failure to and published articles from pioneering nonstreamed recognise this has bedevilled the few attempts that primary schools to show how it was both possible have been made to evaluate the effects of non- and beneficial to unstream. As secondary modern streaming. Recognition has often led nonstreamed and the early comprehensive schools began to ex­ schools to devise Mode 3 GCE and CSE courses. periment with nonstreamed teaching in the first Thus the discussion perforce shifts from methodo­ years of secondary education, we were able to pro­ logical questions about how to teach nonstreamed mote discussion based on experience of the ways classes to more fundamental questions about the and means, problems and solutions, and the impli­ purposes of secondary education for all as they pass cations for the curriculum and teaching methods. through adolescence—questions that cannot be posed Because many primary schools, especially those in the context of bipartite organisation. Content, in rural areas, have always been too small to stream, methods and class organisation follow from the and often too small to form classes homogeneous reappraisal of aims. by chronological age, there has been more experience In this number of Forum the first article juxta­ of teaching children under eleven in classes that are poses two apparently conflicting approaches to heterogeneous in both intellectual performance and these fundamental issues, and the next three focus maturity. Moreover, primary schools inherit a 'pro­ on humanities as a key area of the curriculum where gressive' child-centred tradition that has been de­ the trend towards interdisciplinary and integrated veloping for nearly fifty years through the example courses reflects both these very different approaches. of pioneer schools and teachers. Abolition of Patrick Bailey's discussion paper on the role of sub­ eleven-plus releases primary teachers from con­ ject specialists when a school goes comprehensive straints that are alien to this tradition and enables is, of course, relevant to these issues. them to forge ahead in developing new approaches The thoughtful reconstruction of the curriculum in line with more recent research on children's for nonstreamed, fully comprehensive education learning and general development. Nonstreaming from primary through secondary requires new re­ has been an inevitable concomitant. sources for learning, replacement and adaptation of At the secondary stage nonstreaming was the old school buildings and a teaching force large logical structural move following comprehensivisa- enough both to permit teachers to meet together for tion, or the secondary modern school's attempt to intensive course planning and to ensure satisfactory mitigate the effects of rejection at eleven. It soon arrangements for the promised extension of in- became increasingly evident that nonstreaming must service education. Reg Prentices's dire warnings of lead secondary teachers to reconsider not only their austerity for the education service, including a cut­ teaching methods but also their educational aims back on the 1981 target figure of 510,000 teachers, and the traditional organisation of the curriculum pose a grave threat to such developments, just when a in separate subject compartments of knowledge. reduced school population could facilitate them. 39 Comprehensive Education and the Reconstruction of Knowledge The Editorial Board held a discussion on new directions for Forum in the context of nonstreaming and comprehensive secondary schools for which it has always campaigned. The discussion focused on a paper by Michael Armstrong in which he tried to make explicit the implications of a number of recent contributions to Forum. The following article is a revised version of that paper and is intended to carry argument about curri­ culum content and methods in secondary education onto new ground. Contributions in response will be welcome. Comprehensive reorganisation has never been more than American educators—Jerome Bruner and David Haw­ a precondition of secondary school reform. Occasionally, kins. Reviewing the latest collection of Bruner's educa­ forced into co-existence with grammar schools or persuaded tional writings, Brian Simon cited Bruner's conviction to conform to their tradition, the comprehensive school that 'the pedagogical problem is how to represent know­ has signified little more than a name. More often, though, ledge, how to sequence it, how to embody it in a form reorganisation has marked the beginning of a search for appropriate to young learners'. Bruner goes on to acknow­ a new tradition which might eventually transform second­ ledge, according to the review, that 'how one manages to ary education from an exclusive pastime into a common time the steps in pedagogy to match unfolding capacities, pursuit. This search has led first to the abolition of how one manages to instruct without making the learner streaming, next to the development of techniques of dependent, and how one manages to do both these while individualised learning, and finally towards the adaptation, keeping alive zest for further learning—these are very in secondary school conditions, of the slowly emerging complicated questions that do not yield easy answers'. primary school tradition with its emphasis on self- In the same number, David Hawkins, in an essay entitled direction and the experience of the individual child. 'Two Sources