‘That great educational experiment’: the City of London Vacation Course in Education 1922–1938: a forgotten story in the history of teacher professional development

Each summer between 1922 and 1938, up to 500 elementary school teachers from across Britain, and some from overseas, joined together in London for a two-week residential vacation course. Organised by Evans’ Brothers Publishers and patronised by leading educationists, politicians and policy-makers, the City of London Vacation Course came to be regarded as an important annual educational institution and a cutting-edge exemplar of teacher professional development. In spite of this apparent fame, it appears to have been entirely overlooked in the history of teacher education. This paper seeks to recover the lost story of the City of London Vacation Course and documents its educational and professional focus and its social and cultural function. Locating it within a wider educational, economic and political climate, the paper also examines how the City of London Vacation Course somehow captured and embodied the promise of an emergent new professionalism for elementary teachers during that period.     

Are Pupils Equipped for Group Work without Training or Instruction?

This account of teacher practical research examines the question of whether pupils need instruction about how to operate effectively in groups. It is taken for granted that pupils ‘know’ how to ‘work’ in groups and that teachers need only set it up and give directions to groups for successful outcomes. The author organises ‘work’ in groups and observes and evaluates the outcomes. Her conclusions are that many factors impinge on the success of groupwork as outlined in the paper and indicate the importance of teachers taking time to discover inter-relationships and other factors in the social framework of teaching that can overcome barriers to successful teaching. The account is self-challenging and reflective.     

Normative Growth Expectations Must Be Realistic: A Response to Phillips and Clarizio

Phillips and Clarizio (1988) make a serious error In concluding that developmental standard score scales produce unrealistic expectations for growth of low-achieving students. The nature of their error is described in this response to their paper.     

Academic Subject Specialist and Special Librarians: Exploring a Shared Interest in Developing Information Literacy Skills

Academic librarians who work as subject specialists within a discipline and special librarians have a shared interest in information literacy instruction, despite differences in their library settings and culture. Collaboration between these parties would decrease the gap between information literacy skills developed in the classroom and in the workplace. Practical issues relating to collaboration, as well as a reviewed case study engage the dialogue surrounding this kind of partnership.