Board of Education and successors: HM Inspectorate: Reports on Secondary Institutions

ED 109

1900-1993

Reports by Board of Education and successors HM Inspectors on secondary institutions which made application to be recognised as efficient under various Education Acts and regulations.

The series includes reports by specialist inspectors on particular subjects, replies to a memorandum issued to inspectors in 1932 on the health of school children, and notes of conferences held between the governing body and the panel of inspectors at the time of inspection.

HM Inspectors' reports vary in frequency, scope and content in order to meet the board's particular administrative requirements. A full inspection was conducted by a panel of inspectors; occasionally an interim report resulted from a full inspection and subsequent reports are described as 'supplementary', 'follow-up' or subsidiary'.

Some files relate to Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.

Welsh reports show the extent to which the recommendations of the 1927 Departmental Committee on Welsh in Education and Life, regarding the teaching of Welsh in the Schools, were implemented.

By local education authorities, which mainly reflect the old administrative counties that were in existence when the reports where written. They do not reflect the current county boundary lines.

The item numbers have been generated automatically for system reasons and do not appear on the files.

Later reports produced by HM Inspectorate on secondary institutions in Wales are in BD 16

Secondary schools digest files are in ED 162

Public Record(s)

English

• Board of Education, HM Inspectors of Schools, 1899-1923
• Board of Education, Inspectorate (England), 1923-1944
• Board of Education, Inspectorate (Wales), 1923-1944
• Department of Education and Science, HM Inspectorate (England), 1964-1973
• Department of Education and Science, HM Inspectorate (Wales), 1964-1973
• Department of Education and Science, HM Inspectorate of Schools (England), 1973-1992
• Department of Education and Science, HM Inspectorate of Schools (Wales), 1973-1992
• Ministry of Education, Inspectorate (England), 1944-1964
• Ministry of Education, Inspectorate (Wales), 1944-1964
• Office for Standards in Education, 1992-1992

9809 files and volumes

Subject to 30 year closure unless otherwise stated

Topics

Children

Education

The Regulations for Secondary Schools 1906 introduced rules under which secondary schools not eligible for, or not applying for, grant could apply to be recognised as efficient, no charge being made for the resultant inspection. This measure was designed to encourage more schools to raise their standards to those of grant-aided schools.

The regulations also provided for the establishment of a periodic list of efficient secondary schools which was first published in 1908. This list included, together with schools on the grant list, schools recognised as efficient either by virtue of an inspection in the exercise of the Board of Education's jurisdiction under the Charitable Trusts Acts or on application as provided by the regulations.

Full inspections of secondary institutions were required to show that they had an adequate staff, provided a suitable curriculum and efficient instruction, as well as possessing suitable premises and equipment.

Schools in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, public schools and other secondary institutions such as the Royal Military College, although not subject to the jurisdiction of the Board of Education, also applied for inspection by the board.

Secondary education in Wales, originating mainly from the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, was the subject of separate inspections by both the Board of Education and the Central Welsh Board; the latter's administration produced many short subsidiary reports on a school at almost annual intervals.