Yesterday found me reading about the Hadow report after a goodly few years. I remember it was an important part of my teacher training in the heady early 1970s, and then had a prominent mention in the PGCE programme I contributed to at Bath a decade later. I wonder how many trainee teachers will have ever heard of it, let alone know of its significance. For an overview, look at Derek Gillard's very clear guide to the report and what it proposed which was never quite fulfilled. Hard to disagree with Gillard here:
The Hadow committees demonstrated some surprisingly progressive attitudes in relation to the curriculum. There was no perfect curriculum, they argued. The job of teachers and educationists was constantly to ask questions and seek to find better answers. 'The problems of curriculum, by their nature, do not admit of any final solution; each generation has to think them over again for itself' (Hadow 1923:ii).
The curriculum 'should be planned as a whole in order to avoid overcrowding; it should arouse interest while ensuring 'a proper degree of accuracy'; and it should be planned 'with a due regard to local conditions, and to the desirability of stimulating the pupils' capacities through a liberal provision of opportunities for practical work' (Hadow 1926:104).
Those were the days, when teachers were to be encouraged to think about curriculum and act on their thoughts.
Hadow's plea that teachers should have freedom in planning and arranging their work so as to avoid 'the ever present danger [of] a lapse into a mechanical routine' (Hadow 1933:146) was rejected.
And I remember then from my own school teaching days in the mid-70s with their wonderful professional freedoms and responsibilities: such a golden age.
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