ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Alec Clegg himself was an educational amalgam of creativity and social critique. He wanted these children to thrive, working to encourage these at all levels of primary and secondary, but he also wanted the unfair and obstructive practices of a class-based society to be revealed and attacked. The chapter is concerned with Clegg’s perspective on education and schooling: how it emerged and became strengthened over time. The combination of a powerful Education Authority, good management, a clear educational sense practice, and a select team of people, allowed Clegg to lead ‘the way in a focus on primary education and the arts’. Education Authorities had the wind of change behind them and could innovate if they had the will, the budget, the leadership and the expertise. Clegg’s ideas about teachers and schools might have been radical but later they have become a means of describing and explaining the politics of education in the post-war decades.
