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From International Socialism (1st series), No.20, Spring 1965, p.30.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Streaming: An Education System in Miniature
Brian Jackson
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 10s paperback.
Everybody knows about the evils of selection at 11 plus, fewer know that many children have already been streamed by ability and their 11 plus chances decided before they are 11, often at 7. Only 10 per cent of Junior schools are large enough to have more than one class of each age, so it is only in these schools that complete streaming is possible. This book surveys a sample of these larger schools, using a method which combines a large scale questionnaire with revealing descriptions of the schools Jackson has taught in and visited. This method is not likely to appeal to those who believe that the truth resides only in much analysed statistics, but it provides a staggering picture of the extent and nature of streaming and its effects on children under 11.
96 per cent of the schools in the survey streamed their children, 74 per cent from the age of 7; and the vast majority of teachers were in favour of the practice, the C-stream teachers even more than those teaching A-streams. Supporters of streaming argue that it is better for less able children to be in a small class of their own than in a large one of mixed ability. Although C-stream classes were mostly very small, and the A-classes large, the C-streams often had the least attractive classrooms and on average younger and less experienced teachers. Children in the lower streams came more often from the unskilled working class or had been handicapped by poor or deprived home backgrounds, by ill health or by being born during the second half of the school year so that they had only had two years in the Infant school in which to become accustomed to learning and the routine of school and in which to learn to read. Where previously streamed schools had been unstreamed, the academic achievement of all the children had improved, that of the children who had been in the lowest streams had improved most. Jackson also found differences of atmosphere and the attitude of the teachers in streamed and unstreamed schools. Unstreamed schools were more informal in their teaching methods, and gave more time and importance to music, an and drama. Streamed schools used old-fashioned methods of class teaching and had a more formal and competitive atmosphere. This book displays very clearly that class discrimination in education does not begin at 11 plus; we must fight for the comprehensive primary class as well as the comprehensive secondary school.
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Last updated on 14 April 2010