A short history of school boards in English education

A recent article in The Guardian by Graham Clayton suggested that a return to the school board system would bring about more democratic control of education. But would it?

In this film, John Abbott provides a short history of the school board system. It is a colourful history that makes mention of William Shakespeare and the origins of the word hooligan. From the 1870s the boards provided a way for local communities to take greater ownership of local schools. They were a remarkable success.

This picture from the 1890s is of the school John’s grandfather attended. The Devon school was built by the the local school board and the entire village turned out for its opening.

Not only did local schools built by boards get more children into schools they also started to provide interesting courses that challenged what grammar and public schools were offering.

In the end they were a victim of their own success. In 1902 the government abolished the school boards and brought in a centralised approach to education. As John says, this had a devastating effect on local communities.

Bringing the discussion up to the present day, could such a model for managing education in England once again work for our schools? john thinks so . . .

“When people say bring back the school boards because that introduces the idea of local democracy that is absolutely spot on. The only people who would make the decisions about how the school was going to work would be the local people. And if things went wrong they couldn’t appeal to somebody else to sort it out – they would have to sort it out for themselves.”