Using the case study of Anglesey and its pioneering comprehensive scheme, this paper aims to re-examine education reforms and interventions by central government c.1918-1950. This is undertaken in a bid to reveal the significance of such reforms for the way in which comprehensive secondary education was able to evolve at the local level.…

Fifty years after the production of Circular 10/65, which confirmed comprehensive education as the national policy for secondary education in England and Wales, it is possible to trace the idea of comprehensive education from the 1940s to the 1960s, to understand the position of the Labour Party in its development, and to assess the nature of the…

British secondary schools moved from a system of extensive and early selection and tracking in secondary schools to one with comprehensive schools during the 1960s and 70s. Before the reform, students would take an exam at age eleven, which determined whether they would attend an academically oriented grammar school or a lower level secondary…

Two views of the introduction of comprehensive secondary education into England and Wales are examined: that it is an episode connected directly to postwar building of the welfare state, and destined to fail; and represents a fundamental and permanent shift in the perception of what secondary education should attempt. (MSE)

Examines how much progress has been made in England and Wales towards meeting the needs of disadvantaged preschool children and to what extent the policies adopted so far may be considered to amount to a comprehensive strategy. (Author/MP)

Attributes the relatively high dropout rate among Welsh secondary school students to the educational processes within the comprehensive schools. Advocates extensive research into the nature of Welsh education and problems stemming from historical, socioeconomic, and political factors. Encourages policy formation that reflects Welsh rather than…