Records of the Schools Council for Curriculum and Examinations

Large series of registered files of the Council, c.1964-1980, including signed minutes of committees, papers relating to particular programmes and projects, administrative, subject and policy files

The Schools Council was established in 1964 by the Secretary of State for Education. It took over responsibility for curriculum and examinations previously undertaken by the Secondary Schools Examination Council and the Curriculum Study Group. In 1969, with a revised constitution, it became a registered charity and, in 1970, an independent body financed in equal parts by government and local education authorities. A wide range of educational bodies, including teachers' organisations, were represented on the Council. In 1983-1984 its work was taken over by the Schools Curriculum Development Committee and the Secondary Schools Examination Council. In 1984 it went into voluntary liquidation. It was a non-directive body intended to provide leadership in curriculum, examination and assessment development. Its work was undertaken by committees and working parties responsible for different programmes. It commissioned much research into these areas and published a large quantity of reports.

The referencing system devised by the creator is fairly complex, and owing to the size of the collection, it proved simpler to retain the original order of the material. The system of arrangement is uniform throughout, with a few anomalies. The following series are affected;

128, 150, 175, 229, 327, 329, 330, 337, 338, 351, 352, 413 and 1001.

How their arrangement differs from the prevailing system is described at lower levels in the catalogue entries. Where possible, these anomalies have been altered to fit the prevailing sequence. 8 separate sequences, ranging from AE-SE, appear in file level entries at the end of the catalogue entries. The reason for this different referencing was not discovered, and so has been kept in the original system assigned by the creator

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Catalogued on CALM

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