The Elementary Education: The 1944 Butler Education Act 1870

Prior to the 1944 Butler Education Act, to which this essay discusses, there are many other crucial Acts to briefly mention so as to show the development of education over time. One being The Elementary Education Act 1870, which is deemed the most important stage in the development of the national system of elementary education as it mapped out the country into schooling districts. Then The Mundella Act 1880 made Elementary education compulsory, but not free, for all children between the ages of 5-10. The Bryce Report of 1895 looked into the 'system' and found it was 'ill-arranged' and 'ill-connected' as there was no distinction between primary and secondary education for most children and it recommended a central authority to supervise schools
Then there was the First World War from 1914 to 1918 and despite the devastation, there was a general agreement among politicians that conditions for the working class people needed to improve, and so the 1918 Fisher Education Act was created. The 1918 Act made secondary education compulsory up to the age of 14 and gave responsibility for secondary schools to the state. Prime Minister Lloyd George's coalition government was however persuaded by textile manufacturers to delay implementation of the Act till 1921 as they used children as cheap labour back then. That then concludes to 1937 where President of the Board of Education identified three big changes in education since 1870, the first being that there was a shift of emphasis from the subject to the child, second being the teachers role changing from 'trainer' to 'helper' to foster development and growth and lastly, attitudes changing from thinking the educational environment was unimportant to using it as an aid for mental and physical
The Act created three types of secondary school called the Tripartite System, Grammar schools for the 'academic' where emphasis was on traditional subjects i.e. Latin, Greek. Technical/Trade schools for the 'practical' and those who could learn a trade through an apprenticeship after school. Secondary Moderns for those who didn’t fit into either category, meaning most people, their education was to prepare them for future lives as citizens and as unskilled workers. Children would be allocated based on their results from the new '11 plus' examination that the children would take at the age of 11. The intention was to provide equal opportunities for children of all backgrounds and both Labour and Conservatives presented themselves as totally committed to the new Act. The 1944 Act did, to some extent, try to improve educational inequalities as it gave children the opportunity to go to school for free. However, in reality, the Act appeared to simply perpetuate class differences as although Labour had wanted the new system to enable children to succeed based on merit and not their