Informe de Control Interno

The imperatives of social change which have been outlined in the previous section led, in the first instance, to the development of the national curriculum planning model. This was based on the work of the very early theorists such as Bobbitt (1918) (Harap 1962’). Education was then regarded as a preparation for the activities of life - activities which were the objectives for the curriculum. Many studies were carried out in an attempt to establish empirically what it was that workers and citizens actually did (see Kliebard,1971)• The uncertainty of the future soon became apparent though and between the wars the curriculum planners turned their attention to the fostering and facilitation of change, rather than the perpetuation of the 'status quo'. Thus the period of the 1930s represented a swing towards the more 'progressive' approach, inspired by the writings of Dewey (1899) (see Hadow, 1926)- The advent and aftermath of World War II, however, led the swing of fashion in the opposite direction. The search for methods of training military personnel, particularly in the U .S.A., may have induced an affinity with the more 'hardheaded'

approaches to curriculum design. The disenchantment with the 'progressive' ideal was allegedly later exacerbated in the U.S.A. by the panic over the launching of the first Soviet Satellite in 1957- The quickening of political interest in education which resulted created demands for action which led almost inevitably to a new, innovatory device: the national curriculum development project. Work in Britain was pioneered by the Nuffield Foundation and in the U.S.A. by the Physical Sciences Study Committee. Although the efforts of the Nuffield Foundation were

considerable, they were very limited in comparison with the subsequent activities of the Schools' Council, set up in 196^. For legitimation the Nuffield Foundation and the Schools' Council both drew on recommend­ ations of a range of national reports, such as the Crowther Report, the Newsom Report, the Report on the Examining in English and the reports of the Secondary Schools Examinations Council. These, together with the later Plowden Report incidentally provided a prestigious source of ideas for commissioned researches and studies, a role now being played by HMI surveys and government pronouncements.

The development work of the Nuffield Foundation, the Schools Council and a range of other national bodies spread rapidly in the 1960s and is well documented (Eggleston, 1976). The work was based firmly on the rational curriculum planning model. Objectives were agreed, appropriate methodologies and content devised and assessment procedures developed. Each project was then to be evaluated and the evaluation fed back to aid the continuing development of the programme.

What many evaluations revealed however was a remarkable discrepancy between the expectations of the curriculum developers and events in the schools (Salter, Steadman and Parsons, 1980). The evaluators of the Schools' Council projects found that even in trial schools, in which the national team were heavily committed, the use made of the materials was unpredictable. Overall the usage was far less than the team originally believed it to be. The reasons for this were complex. Before the large projects produced their materials the Council was committed to increasing the range of choices available to the teacher (Caston, 1971)» but in the early days of the Council there was little or no effort to develop any

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definitive strategy for the dissemination of materials. This may or may not have been deliberate policy. Possibly it was related to the non­ directive nature of the Council. By 1969 however worries about dis­ semination had surfaced. The Council became concerned to give as many teachers as possible the opportunity of sharing the new ideas, but at the same time realised that this could lead to ’charges of excessive pro­ motion’ (Schools' Council Newsletter, Dialogue, 1972) (Hamilton, 1976).

In spite of its efforts to produce a systematic dissemination of its products, by 1976 the Schools’ Council was again under attack for its lack of 'market penetration'. The Council was in a 'catch 22' situation. Any attempt to measure the 'take u p ’ of projects had to be retrospective. It was also almost bound to produce evidence of poor dissemination. The primary aim of the Council had been to extend the range of choice open to the teacher. In addition the style of the projects had changed to­ wards a more interactive style in which the project team worked with the teachers to develop a curriculum. It was therefore most unlikely that many projects would still exist in their original form. By establishing criteria in their investigation which depended on the identification and take up of named projects the enquiry was condemned in advance to produce poor results. Yet it had to undertake that investigation in order to justify its existence. Furthermore it was unlikely that teachers would be able to give unambiguous responses to questions centred on specific projects which had been modified or adapted or were being used only in part. Lastly the team which conducted the enquiry produced no criteria for success and no answers to questions as to what level of aware­ ness could count as success. Ambiguity of conclusion was the inevitable result.

During the 1970s, with the decline of the national curriculum development project, the provision of resources which schools could draw on for their own use became increasingly important. Schools built up their own collec­ tions of books, maps, magazines, and course handouts. The Schools' Council and the Nuffield Foundation issued material as 'packs'; slides, charts, video-tapes and films were produced. Although many schools held their own stocks, resource centres were established at both national and local levels. The Schools Council established the Resource Centre Project at the University of London Institute of Education and the Nuffield Found­ ation set up its own Resources for Learning Project, with a number of associated Development Units scattered over the country. At a local level a number of LEAs also set up their own resource centres and, notably, teachers' centres.

In the area LEA fourteen such teachers centres were opened, mostly in disused primary schools closed as the numbers of pupils contracted. Some were devoted to specialist areas, but others were designed to be used for general purposes. They had libraries, stocked periodicals, held resources for loan and provided venues for INSET courses and other meetings. Their establishment reflected the increasing disenchantment with innovation at the national level and an increasing interest in developments at the local level. They also, it should be noted,increased the opportunity for the LEAs to influence the style of curriculum development within their schools. Such opportunities, of course, already existed. Advisory staff were directly involved in appointing new staff in their schools; they were responsible for the reallocation and changes in arrangements brought about by the reorganisation of secondary education; in many subject areas regular quarterly or monthly meetings were instituted gathering together the Heads

of Department in the schools with specialist subject advisers. The advisers were becoming, in effect, the agents of change.

The problems advisers faced in adopting this role have been explored else­ where (Bolam et al, 1976). Briefly, advisers have to accept responsibil­ ity both for the maintenance of standards in schools in the LEA and for the help and support needed by teachers in those schools. They have to be ready to offer advice to both teachers and Hoads in the schools and to the policy makers and administrators at County Hall. At the same time they are required to evaluate and in some cases inspect the schools to ensure that county policies are being carried out. The origins of the advisors role may have been inspectoral and, although retained as such in some LEAs, it has over the years been largely replaced by the advisory approach. The reasons may bo complex. The shortage of teachers and grow­ ing union power may have weakened the influence of advisers while, at the same time, the traditional autonomy of heads and teachers had to be res­ pected. The more recent rise in accountability already referred to may, on the other hand, be responsible for reversing this trend.

Because of these problems inherent in the advisors’ role, the nature of their involvement in the curriculum reappraisal project studied here has been extensively documented. As we shall see it was not so much the question of their role which caused problems for the advisers but rather the extent of their responsibilities and the multiplicity of demands up­ on their time. Nor did the teachers in the schools seem to be disturbed by having advisers involved in the projectj on the contrary they were much more concerned at the lack of time the advisers were able to spare to work with them and the infrequency of their visits to the schools (Lee Chapter I V ).

How then can the role of the advisers, and for that matter HMI, involved in the process of curriculum reappraisal best be described? In I969, Havelock (Havelock,1969) reported an analysis of the literature on planned change and innovation, and identified three predominant strategic models. These were confirmed later in a report of an extensive investigation of

35^ school districts in the U.S.A. Later in 1977 Havelock and Huberman (Havelock and Huberman, 1977) reported an extension of their work to a study of innovation world wide, and extended the number of models to five, namely

Participative problem solving Open input

Power Diffusion Planned linkage

The study by Bolam et al. (1978) had located the role of the advisory service in the planned linkage model. However Bolam et al.pointed out that a

linkage agent was likely to play several different roles, either simul­ taneously or sequentially. The priorities advisers appeared to asign to these different roles is interesting. The one they gave as the most accurate description of their role in bringing about change in schools and colleges was ’providing specialist information/advice via inservice training courses with a view to promoting change' . This was closely followed by 'visiting schools/colleges to diagnose their problems and needs and indicate solutions and developments which you see necessary' . The advisers clearly saw their role as a knowledge - linkage agent. An­

other interesting feature of Bolam's results is the low rating given to linkage work with outside agencies such as the Schools' Council, and other research and development organisations. It is also noteworthy that a

high rating was not given to strategies which would enable schools est­ ablish their own problem-solving decision-making procedures. This is significant in the light of the curriculum reappraisal effort reported here for, as we shall see, one of the most important aims of that exer­ cise was to enable schools to reach their own decisions on their curri­ culum from an analysis, primarly, of their curriculum intentions. If advisers are unfamiliar with procedures which may enable them to help schools achieve this aim, one has to ask whether they are the most appro­ priate change agents for this purpose?

During the 1970s interest in school-based curriculum development deepened. Initially in-service courses were organised to enable teachers to develop not only their curricula but also the school organisation, their pastor­ al care system and other features of school life. It is a well known fact however that little gained on external courses actually feeds back into organisations and it soon became clear that in-service training would be better placed in the school itself. Such developments were legitimized by the James Report (James, 1968) which advocated a consider­ able expansion of in-service teacher training. What was also needed,it was said,was a body of highly competent professional teachers, or 'tutors', capable of undertaking diagnosis or prescription themselves. Such tea­ chers could be the link between schools and other agencies and it was they who were recommended should be the first to be admitted to in-service courses so that they could be trained for their new task.

'With moves such as these the emphasis moved to the school itself, to curriculum development based in the school, largely dependant on school staff and resources (McMullen, 1973)« Activities such as these became

known as school-based curriculum development (SBCD). Advocates for SBCD presented the following arguments (OECD, 1979)«

a) There was an increasingly strong demand for greater autonomy at local and school levels.

b) Centrally developed curriculum projects had not had the success ex­ pected of them. It was often only a partial or modified version of them which was finally implemented in the schools.

c) Centrally developed curriculum projects failed to consider the speci­ fic situation of each school and many schools therefore found them difficult to put into practice.

d) There had been many setbacks in implementing centrally developed curriculum projects due to misunderstanding, poor communications and/or lack of motivation of the teaching staff.

■'BCD was felt to provide the answer through increased participation and it was hoped it would lead to better implementation.

In the event, the moves to encourage SBCD were overtaken by external events. Firstly public concern over the standards of education achieved in Com­ prehensive schools and the publication of the Black Papers (Boyson et al, 197*0 triggered a number of political and other moves. At the same time as James Callaghan was initiating the Great Debate in the country, a new group of HMI was set up with the task of writing a set of discussion papers on the curriculum. In this we have the genesis of the Curriculum Reappraisal Project which is the subject of this research, for these papers were discussed by representatives of certain LEAs and the ideas eventually taken back for a number of them to follow up later.

At the same time the recession hit the schools and the LEAs. As the

money became more scarce, so resources became less readily available. Ultimately all but one of the teachers' centres in the area LEA were closed. The number of advisory staff in the LEA was also cut by l_5?t>. The period of the 70s became a period of retrenchment. Even the Schools' Council itself was eventually to terminate its existence in I983. But that was a long time ahead. The curriculum reappraisal project must be viewed in its context, however, for the threat of the recession and the possible loss of jobs was uppermost in peoples' minds at the time. In that situation how feasible was it to expect teachers to look upwards and outwards, to extend their professionality, to risk appearing incom­ petent as they struggled to cope with abstract theory? Yet how important was it to them to appear to succeed when their professionality capacity was being challenged? In the words of one Head

"It would be a brave teacher who would say no". (BO, Interview Transcript, pi)

The interventionist strategy may therefore be a direct result of the recession, leading to a shift in the location of influence away from the periphery and towards the centre. The autonomy of the schools hai become eroded as the control of funds moved the power base towards the DES and ultimately the treasury. In times of plenty it is likely to reverse; the purse strings do not then need to be so tightly tied. This may ex­ plain the shift of emphasis towards a centralist interventionist policy in the financially stringent 1970s and early 1980s.

The educational system, as always, has adapted to this new state of affairs and projects are already being set up to provide guidelines for teachers who may wish to take the initiative of reviewing and developing the curriculum and the organisation of their school themselves (GRIDb, 198*0»

The GRIDS (Guidelines for Review and Internal Development in Schools) are intended to be used as a do-it-yourself kit that any school can use on its own. It has been a Schools' Council Programme I activity based at the University of Bristol since September, 1981. The purpose is to promote internal development, rather than to demonstrate accountability to external agencies. Since 1981» the materials have been used in thirty- one primary and secondary schools in five LEAs, none of which was involved in the CRAG programme, and the project is just about to enter its second phase. Two handbooks, one for primary and one for secondary schools are being published by Longmans in 1984.

It has already been noted how the focus of curriculum development even­ tually moved to the schools themselves. This has now been paralled by the move to school-based curriculum review. It would suggest that, as with curriculum development, substantial progress is likely to be achieved only when the user takes the initiative. Externally initiated develop­ ments are at best only partially accepted and implemented. The evidence on this point is examined in the chapters that follow.

2.4 The Processes of Change and Innovation - an overview.

The I96O3 curriculum development movement in Britain w i t h its rationale