Plowden Report

The Council was chaired by Bridget, Lady Plowden after whom the report is named.

During the time of collating the report, the Labour Government of the day introduced circular 10/65 requesting that local education authorities submit plans to replace the tripartite system and 11-plus with comprehensive schooling.

In the years leading up to, and during the collation of the report, prevalent thinking in educational psychology was highly influenced by the work of such people as Jean Piaget who published a seminal work on the matter in 1962.

Similarly, over the 40 years, many of the recommendations which first appeared in the report, have evolved and appeared in legislation under other guises, such as the widespread introduction of state-funded nursery provision, Extended Schools, requirement for a Home School Agreement to be presented (but not signed), the ban on corporal punishment, ESOL programmes, Educational Action Zones and most of all the comprehensive system.

The system of children transferring to secondary school at the age of 12 has now been almost completely abandoned.