Since 1900, there have been a number of attempts to improve children's education the main acts were:
1902 Balfour's Act,
1906 Provisions of Meals Act,
1907 Health Inspections Act,
1918 Fisher's Act, raising school leaving age,
1926 The Hadow Report,
1938 The Spens Report.
All of these attempted to solve different social and educational problems that were critical at the time, however, by the end of the 1930's, the schools generally were seen as not being good enough.
Balfour's Act abolished the school boards, which had been created by Forster's Act of 1870. In its place, there were created a total of 315 Local Education Authorities (LEA's), which took over the running of the existing Board Schools, and the running costs of the Church and Voluntary Schools. The LEA's turned the better higher grade schools into Grammar Schools, which were fee-paying. The idea was to help brighter children, mainly from better off families.
The next two acts were social measures and were not specifically aimed at improving education. The 1906 Act gave LEA's the power to provide meals for the children of very poor families, while the 1907 Act introduce health inspections for all children in school. The educational benefits were that they enabled children to be healthier and less likely to miss school through illness. In 1918 the age at which children could leave school was raised from thirteen to fourteen, which meant that children could be given a better education and started working later in their life.
The next major development was the publication of the Hadow Report in 1926. The proposals in this report were that there should be a break in children's education at the age of eleven. Up to this age everyone should have the same education in a Primary School. When children reached eleven years old, they would take an examination , and those that passed, would receive a free place at a Grammar School. Other children would go to a "Modern" school, where they would sit another exam, at the age of thirteen and either continue in a "Technical" or "Central" school. These aims were not properly implemented and not much progress was made. Those children who did not pass the exam still received a very poor education.
By 1939, the situation had deteriorated and some church schools were completely decrepit, with poor quality lighting, heating and furnishing. There was a new Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, who wanted to improve the quality of church school generally. Also, at that time, only just over 60% of pupils over the age of eleven were in separate secondary schools, the remainder were in elementary schools. The Spens Report of 1938, was critical of education in general, and in particular of the fact that the chance of passing a scholarship at the age of eleven, varied greatly throughout the country.
Before any changes could be made, then Second World War broke out, and it was not until the war was ending that the government were able to introduce any further changes. Many children had not been properly educated during the war. As a result of this juvenile crime had increased by over a third on its pre-war levels. It was also realised that the rest of Europe and America had better education systems and that Britain needed to improve to compete with these countries in the future.
The 1944 Education Act, known after its creator 'Rab' Butler, was a major change in education. The Act introduced the three types of school proposed by the Spens Report, an "eleven-plus" examination, and raised the school leaving age again to fifteen. Fees for secondary education were abolished and secondary education became free for everybody. People could still pay for their children to be educated privately at Public Schools.
Grammar Schools were intended to be academically based so that children could continue their education up to University. These were for the brightest children and were not intended to be restricted to children from better class backgrounds. Technical Schools were intended to provide an education based on technical subjects and applied sciences. Not many of these schools were built by LEA's and most children who did not go to Grammar School went to a Modern School. Secondary Modern's, as they came to be known, taught a curriculum which included many practical subjects. The government's intentions were that all types of school were supposed to be of equal importance. Children were supposed to be chosen on the basis of age, ability and aptitude.
It was obvious to the government that changes to the education system made between 1900 and the Second World War had not solved the problem that children were generally too poorly educated. The system needed major changes, as Spens Report had proposed, but it was not until 1944 that the changes could be put into place. The aim was then to ensure that, after the end of the War, every child would receive the best possible education, and that it would be free to everybody. It was Butler's Education Act that made the changes possible.
