Board of Education and successors: Elementary Education, Local Education Authority...

ED 60

1922-1970

Board of Education and successors' Local Education Authority staffing files relating to a system of approved establishments of teachers ('staffing quotas') introduced in 1927. The records in this series consist of files for the counties, for county boroughs, and for boroughs and urban districts 'excepted' under part III of the Education Act 1902.

Files in this series dating from before 1935 contain annual returns submitted by Local Education Authorities of teaching staff and numbers of children on the roll. Still earlier papers in the series contain material relating to the recognition, under the code of Grant Regulations, of unqualified and supplementary teachers employed by Local Education Authorities with urban areas, and questions of staffing arrangements arising from proposed changes in the conditions for the staffing of public elementary schools set out in the Board of Education's circulars 1325 (1924) and 1360 (1925).

In addition this series contains special wartime staffing and attendance returns, papers concerned with the problems of staffing arising from the evacuation of schools, and also with the special measures taken by the board, as set out in their circular 1591 (1942), to allocate the output of teachers leaving training colleges.

Files beyond 1944 cover the staffing of both primary and secondary schools. Two sample files have been preserved from the period 1945-1955, covering the Middlesex and Surrey areas. Three sample files have been preserved from the period 1962-1970: these concern one (rural) county, Dorset; one London borough, Ealing, the file for which makes reference to immigrant pupils; and one county borough, Bradford.

By counties of England and Wales.

Public Record(s)

English

• Board of Education, 1899-1944
• Department of Education and Science, 1964-1992
• Ministry of Education, 1944-1964

635 file(s)

Subject to 30 year closure

Topics

Children

Education

With the issue of the Board of Education circular 1427 in 1933, Local Education Authority staffing estimates became subject to critical examination. Hitherto the board had examined the establishments of teachers proposed by the authorities on the basis of HM Inspectors' general impressions without any attempt to scrutinise the staffs of individual schools. Now, the desire to achieve parity in the staffing complements of schools of comparable size and organisation, combined with the knowledge that the 'national staffing quota' agreed by the Board of Education in the previous years had corresponded less and less with the actual number of teachers in post, and combined also with the anticipated fall in the number of pupils in the schools, underlined the need for a stricter control over the number of teachers to be employed by each authority.

The more detailed system of examination introduced at this time had, however, to be abandoned in 1939, when local education authorities were asked to discuss their staff proposals with HM Inspectors.

'Elementary' education ceased to exist as such following the Education Act 1944.