The ideal number in a primary class is 30, James Baxter, president of the Educational Institute of Scotland, told a meeting in Edinburgh. Every additional pupil above that number affected standards of achievement and, if the figure rose above 35, the new teaching methods which teachers were trying to introduce would have to be abandoned.
* The final meeting of the first General Teaching Council recommended to the incoming council that it should make registration a condition of employment in the further education sector.
* In an assessment of its first four years, R.E. Bell, a lecturer in educational studies at the Open University, concludes that it has begun well but adds: “Forceful probing of issues in an expert way, even to the annoyance of Government, unions and large colleges, will win more respect than well-meaning amateur gentility which its enemies will hope for and look for but, one hopes, will continue not to find.”
* The 1970s would see a swing of the pendulum back from the progressive education policies of the 1960s, Dr Thomas Bone, principal lecturer in education at Jordanhill, said in a lecture which was attended by 300 primary teachers. He did not believe there would be a move back to the formal lesson but to “a position in which teachers more consciously planned the learning experience of children.”
* Labour amendments which would have excluded Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayrshire and Moray and Nairn from the provisions of the Education (Scotland) Bill were defeated in committee last week. The Bill allows education authorities to charge fees in some schools.
* The Scottish Typographical Association has asked students at Glasgow College of Building and Printing to boycott the classes of seven lecturers, members of the EIS, whose subscriptions to the Association have fallen into arrears.
TES Scotland, January 22, 1971
