ABSTRACT
The innovative counties Leicestershire and the West Riding of Yorkshire are provided important models of reorganisation that permitted the introduction of comprehensive schools within the limitations set by school buildings designed for the selective system. A sense of frustration also characterised the West Riding Chief Education Officer, where the impediment of insufficient financial resources had served to heighten tensions between Alec Clegg and his political masters. One characteristic that emerges from studying the reorganisation process in both the West Riding and Leicestershire is that political arguments were less in evidence than debates about what was best for children. A 1947 survey of 54 Local Education Authority development plans revealed that more than half were seeking at least a measure of organisational flexibility through the establishment of at least one multilateral or bilateral school. A petition from the Ashby Boys' School governors clearly illustrated the extent to which grammar school attachments remained stronger than any desire to participate in educational innovation.
