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Waddell Report In 1970, the Schools Council recommended a single system of examining at 16 plus and, after some experimenting, repeated its belief in such a system in 1976. The then Secretary of State for Education, Shirley Williams, agreed that a Steering Committee should be formed to make an intensive study of ‘outstanding problems’. The Committee, under the chairmanship of Sir James Waddell, reported in July 1978. Entitled School Examinations, the Report concluded that a common examination was educationally feasible and could be introduced without causing major difficulties. It recommended a seven-point grading system, with the first three grades representing the General Certificate of Education (GCE) O Level pass grades of A, B, and C and the other four representing Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) grades 2, 3, 4 and 5. An ungraded category was to be included for those who did not gain a certificate. An important organisational change was that GCE and CSE boards were to be regionally grouped, four in England and one in Wales. Schools were not to be limited in their choice of examining board by regional considerations. General Certificate of Secondary Education courses began in 1986 with the first examinations taken in 1988. (See also examination boards, national criteria, sixteen plus examination)

Warnock Report The Committee of Enquiry into the education of handicapped children and young people, chaired by Mary Warnock, was set up in 1973 and reported in 1978. It recommended that the Department of Education and Science’s statutory categories should be abolished, that services should be planned on the assumption that one in six children at any time attending schools would need help, and that intellectually impaired children and children with remedial problems should be referred to as children with learning difficulties. Attention was drawn to the need for more parental involvement in children’s education and for greater opportunities for young people aged between 16 and 19 years. Special educational needs were an essential element in initial teacher training and in-service training

courses. Although the issue of integration of children with special needs into ordinary schools was fundamental to the work of the Warnock Committee, the Report did not make specific proposals as to how this should be achieved. A Government White Paper, Special Needs in Education (1980), accepted the proposal to abolish categories of handicap as a basis for planning services. This was implemented in the 1981 Education Act, but no concessions were made on the running down of special schools or the redistribution of resources to help develop ordinary school-based provision. Special schools were to remain. (See also integration, remedial education)

Weaver Report A Study Group, headed by T.R.Weaver, Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education and Science, published its Report, The Government of Colleges of Education, in 1966. One of its major recommendations was that each college of education should have an academic board, responsible for academic work, the selection of students, and other college business. The Board was to be responsible for electing members of the teaching staff, other than the Principal, who would serve on the governing body. Legislation was also introduced, requiring local education authorities to make instruments of government for the constitution of college governing bodies. Up to this time, many had been sub-committees of local education authorities.