The Plowden Report and Its Impact on School Curriculum

The [best] school lays special stress on individual discovery, on first hand experience and on opportunities for creative work. It insists that knowledge does not fall into neatly separated compartments and that work and play are not opposite but complementary.' This except from the Plowden Report, Children and their Primary Schools, (1967) was perhaps destined to have the greatest impact on education in the latter 20^th century, but in its time was labeled as trendy and left wing, of no used to the practical problems faced by education in the 1960s. But this simple statement laid forth the foundations for an educational system that would focus on the needs of the student, as opposed to the needs of the educational system that had held fast for many years.

When this report was published, it was the first large scale report on British primary schools since the Hadow Report on Primary education in 1931 and on nursery and infants schools in 1933. The Plowden report was maligned by the government as being detrimental to society and an undermining of the foundation of education as a whole. Rather the report highlighted the problems facing the educational sector that were draining not only financial and human resources, but were turning out under-educated and unprepared young people.

The Plowden Report recommended certain points that could enhance the education given to pupils and take some of the pressures off the educational system as a whole. Among the recommendations that the report emphasized were:

Reducing the size of classes to a comfortable level, not to exceed a given maximum

That lessons be structured to individual, group and class work, but to place a greater emphasis on individual learning

To recruit more teachers helpers/aide

To study the needs/achievements of gifted children to structure educational programs for this group

Flexibility in the school day and year

Teachers trained in and able to use technological advances

Making the child the center of the educational process, not the outer edge of it

To give teachers more say in what is taught

Bring educational and society together, rather than placing them at oddsSome of these points were implemented in a piecemeal fashion, with varying degrees of success. Others have been ignored entirely. Since 1967, the dogma by which the various Tory and Labour governments have chosen to refine the educational system has disassembled and reassembled so many times. It has left the very elements of the system tattered and tarnished, and this has reflected in the aptitudes and abilities of the pupils which have passed though the system.

Education can be likened to the axiom which characterizes how government is supposed to be: by, of and for the people. The Plowden report offered up many concepts and ideas based upon that very axiom; to give education back to the schools and classrooms, to let teachers teach to the needs of their pupils, and to bring the schools and the communities they serve back together for the greater good of the pupils they are meant to teach, and to turn out into the world young people ready to face and deal with the complex issues facing local, regional, national and global concerns.

Instead, the various governments over the years have played a harmful and dangerous game with education. The outcome of a pupil's education can be reckoned with a game of pickle. The government can give and take away at will, tossing money toward the school for one thing, but then forcing the school to take away or give something back to the government in another way. All the while, pupils are forced to try and grab something for themselves, and very often they come away with nothing. For the pupil who can conform to the system criteria, there is a chance of a decent education, and therefore a good showing for the school in league tables. But for the student who fails to conform, there are far less opportunities beyond even a basic education. There is only the prospect of low pay, a dead-end job, or the society scrapheap.

While many of the aforementioned points are bandied to and fro, the one thing that remains constant is the teaching curriculum and the standard to which they are to be taught. Since the beginning of the 20^th century, the basic subject material has not changed too drastically. Some subjects, such as Religious Education, History and Geography have remained part of the standard curriculum. Other things, such as technology, have been added and/or updated to meet with the changing needs of the world. This has been highlighted by the Hadow and Plowden reports, as well as by the Education Reform Act of 1988. While the curriculum has seemingly kept pace with the times, other aspects of the educational landscape how been allowed to deteriorate at an alarming pace.

We need only look to our children to see where the educational system the Plowden Report (and to a lesser degree the Hadow report and the ERA of 1988) envisaged has fallen short. The Plowden report gave a vision of a learning environment that encompassed not only textbooks and memorization, but one in which various types of play and self expression were not only encouraged but applauded. This was cast upon as a detriment, almost blasphemous, notion. To a system that prided itself on pupils recitation of fact and figures, this idea was preposterous.

Yet, any parent will watch their child role play in such activities as keeping a house, teaching school or managing a shop. They imitate what they have seen their parents or siblings do. They often sing or read with parents, and most likely by the time they reach reception classes, they are competent in their alphabet, numbers, colours and the like. While this method of learning has served them well in their first years of life, it would theoretically serve them well throughout their school life. The Plowden report has suggested that this very ideal become an integral part of education. To make the education tailored to the child, instead of the child to the education. We do not force our children to learn in a way we see fit when they are babies and toddlers, so why are certain learning parameters forced upon them when they enter the educational system?

The Plowden report tried to broaden a child's learning horizons with new and innovative concepts. And for the better part of 30 years, the report has been somewhat ignored, or labelled as fanciful and something of a fantasy. While education has made gains with the advent of the computer and internet, the basic building blocks of learning have become lost in the mass confusion that we call the educational system.

Schools today are forced to deal with league tables and performance related pay, and this has put off many teachers. Others are given curriculums and told to tell it to the letter, with little or no creative input. Mountains of paperwork, issues of school safety and administration, and a myriad of other details now consume a teacher's day. Where is the time to plan and execute creative lesson plans factor into this panacea of paper?

Our schools are turning out under-educated and illiterate masses. Moral and ethics are lain waste to the cookie cutter precision of turning out students every year, no matter how ill prepared the pupil is. Our schools have been a repository for children from the age of 4-16, a place to put them until they are of age, a babysitting facility of sorts. Schools have turned into factories, competing to see who can turn out the best product every year to up their league standing. The trouble with this is the very students who need the educational system the most, the pupils who can't conform to the standards set, are left in the cold and barren wasteland of mediocrity and plainness, unable to compete in a marketplace which thrives on diversity and complexity.

Yet, beyond the gloom and doom, there is hope. The government has begun to recognise fractures in the façade of education, and is not simply plastering over the fractures, but doing some heavy duty reconstruction on the entire structure. The Plowden report, along with other reforms, is beginning to come back into vogue and many of the ideas highlighted in these reports and reforms are beginning to be implemented and take shape. Emphasis is starting to be placed more on the pupil perspective as opposed to that of the educational facility. Perhaps, in future years, this shift from focus on the needs of the schools to that of the pupils will turn the tide of unproductive and under-prepared automatons that has been the hallmarks of education in the past, to that of unique and creative individuals who will be ready to face the world as a proud testament to a sound and solid educational system.