Embedded Files
Sybil had worked as an unqualified teacher for about 9 years before she was appointed as an unqualified head teacher to Kingston Primary School near Cambridge in 1942 - a post she sought because with it came 'living accommodation'.
The schoolroom at Ramsey Rural Museum
At that time, the English Education system was in a post war period with large classes of ' baby boomers'. Primary School education in post war 1940's, 50's and 60's was still to some extent tied to its Victorian roots and was seen as preparing children for the eleven plus exam and secondary school education. There were no classroom assistants, just the class teacher. Discipline was strict and the approach was very much ‘talk and chalk’ education, with the teacher at the front of the class and the children sitting at desks facing the board. Classes were large (40+) and taught 'en masse'. Reading, writing and arithmetic (the Three ‘R’s) were dominant, as was learning by rote.
As Sybil describes at the beginning of the book, the house was falling down, the stove rusted, the floors uneven, the bus service non-existent except on Saturdays, there was no gas or electricity and water was collected from the village pump. But Sybil knew that this is what she wanted to do and she was only seven miles from Cambridge and 'breathed the same air as those who had managed to enter university' .
She worked on her own in one room with 26 pupils aged between 4 and 11.
It was here that she developed a teaching method based on integrating subjects and encouraging children's creativity.
With hard work, careful planning and a new approach to teaching and learning - the 'symphonic method' as it came to be known, enthused and engaged the children in wanting to learn.
The results speak for themselves and her book documents the journey, the children, the work and the results.
Eighteen years later, on one of the saddest days of her life, the school was deemed too small, and was forced to close.
29.7.60 The school closes to-day for the summer holiday, and forever'.
But it is the final entry in the headteachers log exposes Sybil's feelings- the log book meant to record facts about the school shows her true feelings, and Sybil wasn't going to leave without making these known…..
'The school has, in the past, been the social and cultural centre of a tiny community, about to die by having it's heart torn from it's body by the wolves of educational economy and expediency, which belong to the Giant Progress.
It has been a happy place, and deserves a better fate than to be torn asunder that it should close without a visit from any representative of the L.E.A, I find rather hard:- as if it were an old dustbin, which, having served it's purpose, is kicked aside'.
YET, this 'forced exit' gave Sybil the opportunity she needed, because then, at the age of 48, she fulfilled an ambition and was accepted at New Hall College, Cambridge University to read English. That was in 1960.
By 1963 when An Experiment in Education was published, more 'progressive methods' in education as promoted by the Plowden Committee were becoming accepted practice in primary schools. Sybil's experiment in education had a great influence on this report and the need to change practice. Her book was a 'bible' for teacher training establishments for years to come.
She soon became a lecturer in Primary Education at Sheffield University. From 1965 onwards, she worked as an Educational Adviser at Granada Television. Here she instigated the celebrated TV series Picture Box, which ran for 23 years.
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