Earlier this year, I received an email from a researcher about the MACOS materials in the IOE Library’s Special Collections, which I have written about on Newsam News (now discontinued). The project,  Man: A Course of Study, has been receiving increasing attention from researchers, particularly from the United States where it originated. MACOS was instigated by educational psychologist Jerome Bruner at Harvard in the late 1960s. You can read more about Bruner and his aims on the IOE London Blog, but essentially, Bruner believed that it was possible to teach children to be more humane and eliminate racism and ethnocentrism by studying another culture closely. He also believed that you can teach children complicated ideas through his concept of the ‘spiral curriculum’ — a pedagogical method that introduces the same theme in increasing complexity over a period of time. At its peak in the early 1970s, the MACOS curriculum, which took a year out of the normal curriculum, was taught in 47 states in elementary and middle schools in the U.S. and reached approximately 400,000 students. However, its success made it a target, and it was eventually attacked by politicians such as Ronald Reagan, then governor of California – see more about the controversy in the National Library of Canada’s documentary film ‘Through These Eyes‘.

MACOS was also taught in some schools in the U.K. and other parts of the world, but little is known about how it was taught. This is where David Frost’s story becomes invaluable. As one of the few teachers who can offer a first-hand account of implementing MACOS in a British secondary school, his detailed recollections provide rare insights into how the curriculum actually worked in his classroom. David’s account reveals that MACOS enabled teachers to develop agency and reflexivity in collaboration with their pupils, resulting in a transformative teaching and learning experience. This should be of interest to Initial Teacher Training students, as well as to practising teachers.

One teacher’s MACOS story

David Frost, Wolfson College, Cambridge

The Special Collections Outreach Team has been fortunate to host two students on a placement from the IOE’s BA in Education Studies. As their time comes to a close with us, they’ve written a blog post about their experiences. In this post, Joann Zhang reflects on her experience.

 

As part of my placement module this term, my colleague Elena Yu and I had the opportunity to work closely with the Outreach team at UCL Special Collections. This experience not only deepened my understanding of how the collections operate behind the scenes but also gave me a new perspective on how historical resources can be used for educational purposes.

This wasn’t my first time engaging with the UCL Special Collections. In Year 1, during the module The Worlds of UCL, Professor Georgina Brewis introduced us to various selected materials from the collection as part of our classwork. As a BA Education Studies student, I also often wonder how these resources could be used in school teaching. So, I was very excited when I knew that I was allocated to the Special Collections team—and even more so when I found out we would be developing a series of GCSE History learning materials.

However, using collection items in a taught class and actually working as part of the team that selects and prepares those materials are very different experiences. In classes, items are pre-selected, but the process behind this is far more complex. First, our topic this year focused on Commonwealth immigration—something I had very little prior knowledge of. Also, I was unfamiliar with archive search engines and didn’t know how to begin locating relevant materials. In total, everything felt new to me at the beginning.

Luckily, with the support of Vicky Price and Sarah Pipkin, Elena and I were able to start with a presentation on the history of Commonwealth immigration, which gave us a basic understanding and helped us set a direction for our research. We then learned how to navigate UCL Library Services and use the archive catalogue to search for materials. Finally, we booked the Reading Room to check items in person and arrange our findings into a spreadsheet.

Throughout this process, I was impressed by the diversity of items held in the collection. Beyond published rare books, there were small press materials like magazines and newspaper clippings, as well as personal letters and ephemera. My favourite item among all my findings was a videotape called Motherland, found in the Marina Foster collection. It was a play created by a group of female students at Vauxhall Manor School, based on the real-life stories of 23 Caribbean women who migrated to the UK in the 1950s. It might be particularly inspiring for GCSE students to learn about what students of the same age were creating more than 40 years ago.

This research experience felt like a treasure hunt: starting with almost no knowledge and slowly digging deeper to uncover hidden gems with teamwork and guidance from our supervisors. There were times of disappointment, especially when items didn’t quite match what I was looking for. But there were also rewarding moments brought by unexpected findings. Over the last four months, I was glad to see my confidence grow with each visit to the Reading Room, and I have developed new research skills that I can apply in other contexts.

At the end, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Amy Howe, Becky Sims, Chelsie Mok, Colin Penman, Liz Lawes, Sarah Pipkin, and Vicky Price, who supported me throughout the placement with patience and kindness. I’m truly grateful for this opportunity and hope to see you in the future, both in and beyond the Special Collections.

Thank you so much to Joann for her hard work and her reflection on her placement!

The Outreach team in UCL Special Collections recently hosted two students from the IOE BA Education Studies course.  Tasked with creating a pitch for a new after school club, Jiayi and Yunrui spent time getting to know the collections, learning about the Outreach programme and devising an original idea to present to staff at the end of their placement.  It was a pleasure to host them, and we hope to implement their project ideas in the next academic year.  This blog is written by Jiayi and Yunrui, and shares some of their reflections and learning at the end of their time with us.

Ella Zhang

After completing our Education Placement at UCL Special Collections, Yunrui and I are thrilled to reflect on the enriching experiences we had during our time here.

Throughout the placement, we developed a general understanding of UCL Special Collections. We had the privilege of engaging with key staff members, embarking on tours to Special Collection places on UCL Bloomsbury Campus. We were also introduced to key collection items and delved into stories behind them. Under the guidance of Daniel Dickins, we honed our skills in online collection search, catalogue navigation, and item viewing, equipping ourselves with invaluable tools for future studies.

We were introduced to the Outreach Programme in Special Collections under the supervision of Vicky Price, and the standout highlight in the placement for me was our participation in the after-school club Illustrate!, a part of the Outreach Programme at Special Collections. I visited Stratford School Academy, where I saw pupils enjoying perspective drawing in the workshop. Yunrui and I then visited UCL East with an authentic opportunity to observe collection items with pupils from Stratford School Academy. This firsthand experience in the after-school club, witnessing how children immersed themselves in the exploration of collection items, made me reflect on the learning process. As an education student, I was then led to the philosophical debate of the relationship between learning and fun – are the two elements separate or could they be mutual–facilitating? To me, real learning experiences are so closely intertwined with ‘fun’. The after-school club facilitated by Special Collections managed to achieve this – Illustrate! provides pupils with a well-balanced educational experience as it supports pupils’ learning with collection items while stimulating the intrinsic curiosity of pupils.

Inspired by our experiences, Yunrui and I seized the opportunity to design our own after-school club – Poetry Lab. Motivated by our fascination with the poetry store, we envisioned a space where Key Stage 3 pupils could discover poetry beyond its stereotypical image. This was inspired by Liz Lawes, when we were introduced to the small press collections. Through sessions focused on concrete, visual, object, and sound poetry, we wanted to encourage pupils to understand poetry as a way of creative expression. We also designed creative activities in each session. These activities would allow kids to construct different forms of poetry by themselves, aiming to help them develop a deeper appreciation of poetry and language. This experience gave us a real taste of programme development including collection use and resource preparation.

To sum up, Yunrui and I have both really enjoyed this placement in the lovely working environment in Special Collections. Our collaboration has been particularly rewarding, with our shared enthusiasm and teamwork spirit. Throughout our placement, we had the pleasure of meeting great people and developing new skills. We sincerely hope there will be future opportunities for us to work with Special Collections again!

Yunrui Zhang

This term, as a part of Education Placement Module, my course mate Ella and I have been assigned to have a 50-hour placement with UCL Special Collections and worked with the outreach team on the after-school workshop. The placement started at late January and mostly finished at late March. Before this placement, I knew nothing about UCL Special Collections. Through this placement, I gained some relevant knowledge. This includes what archives, rare books and manuscripts are, how to quickly search items in Special Collection’s catalogue and how to use these items in after-school workshops in the Outreach programme.

Our final task was to design an after-school workshop for the outreach programme, using collection items from UCL Special Collections. This required us to have clear knowledge and become relatively familiar with some of the collections. Initially, I thought it would be quite challenging to familiarise ourselves with the collections and develop a suitable workshop topic within the 50-hour placement. However, the supportive environment at UCL Special Collections and the guidance we received, including weekly explorations of different collections, have made the process more manageable. One particularly memorable experience was our visit to the poetry store with Liz Lawes. We were fascinated by the diverse ways in which poetry can be presented. With Liz’s guidance, we deepened our understanding of different forms of poetry and ultimately decided on the topic of our after-school workshop: “the poetry lab”.

Beyond visiting and exploring various collections, we also had the opportunity to observe after-school workshops in person. These experiences taught us a lot about the ideal format for such workshops. Unlike traditional school classes, after-school workshops should integrate fun and interactive activities into the learning process to ensure an enjoyable experience.

These insights have also inspired the design of our own after-school workshop. We’ve structured it into 5 sessions, each focusing on a different form of poetry. This allows students to learn and understand the different forms of poetic expression during the workshop. We have designed different activities for each session to encourage active participation and deeper understanding. For example, one of our sessions is focusing on object poetry. The activity we designed for this session involves students making their own object poetry and sharing their thinking with the class. This hands-on approach can facilitate their understanding on how object works as a metaphor to help people better visualize and understand the poem.

In fact, my learning journey has already begun when I started learning about the Outreach programme. Over the two months of the placement, as I gradually deepened my understanding of the Outreach programme, I gained some new insights about the role of universities in society. I realized that universities could have profound impact beyond their traditional academic roles to foster a more interconnected and supportive society. UCL Special Collections can be a good example that extends the university’s reach beyond its immediate academic community by providing assistance and resources to schools and individuals, actively contributing to broader societal well-being.

Throughout the whole placement, I also learned a lot from my course mate Ella, including her outstanding communication skills and her ability to learn new things. It was a great pleasure to work with her on our after-school workshop proposal. At the same time, I am also very grateful to Vicky Price and Daniel Dickins and everyone else in UCL Special Collections for their help and support during the placement. This experience will be a treasure for my future, and I am very lucky to be able to spend these two months with UCL Special Collections.

We have been fortunate to host two students on a 50 hour placement from the IOE’s BA in Education Studies, and as their time comes to a close with us, they have written a blog to share their experiences.  Both students spent time learning about the Special Collections department before immersing themselves in the delivery of an Outreach project at UCL Academy – an after school club called Illustrate! which explores the use of illustration in our collection of rare books, archives and manuscripts.

Eric Xu

As part of the IOE’s Education Studies Placement Module, my course mate Duke and I have been working with Vicky Price as part of UCL Special Collections’ outreach team on the after-school workshop: Illustrate. I had a keen interest not only in working with students in a visual art focused workshop, but also in the collection itself after seeing items from the Orwell Collection around UCL’s campus. Our placement began in early January when we met with Vicky for the first time online. As the weeks went by, Duke and I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with the people and places of Special collections, and learning about the processes of archiving, cataloguing, digitisation and of course the outreach of the collection.

Our work on Illustrate began promptly in the first weeks, reviewing the past workshop deliveries, and taking inspiration from curated catalogues of the collection. Trying to come up with original ideas of how to integrate collection items into fun and fruitful activities for the students was definitely a challenge, but Duke and I were able to come up with and produce resources for sessions which we were keen to deliver ourselves. Creating these lesson plans and resources was a much more multifaceted task than I had anticipated, the considerations of how students react to your information and questions greatly influences and informs the direction of the class, and having Vicky help us with leading the direction of these disseminations was very helpful and eye-opening. Similarly with the resources and activities, I found that oftentimes I had to give the activity a go myself to determine the difficulty and viability of it for the class, which meant a lot of the times that I had to adjust or even change the resource entirely. Ultimately, the final product of the workshops we delivered were much different and more refined than the initial plans that Duke and I had drawn up.

Working with the students at UCL Academy was also an experience that has reshaped my perspective on professionalism in schools. There were many hurdles we had to hop, both expected and unexpected, including uncertainty with the number of students coming into the workshop. The students that did consistently come every week were lovely to work with, not only were they respectful and interested to learn, but they were also amazing at drawing. Trying to keep every student up to pace with one another and engaging all of them in the content was another struggle that Duke and I faced, and we realised that sometimes it’s impossible to have everyone interested or fully committed in participating, but again with Vicky’s assistance, the workshops still ran successfully.

Overall, the experience for me was an amazing and insightful experience into the organisational operation of UCL Special Collections, the preparation of workshops and resources as well as the teaching of students. I would highly recommend anyone interested to get involved, and I’m very grateful to have worked with Vicky and UCL Special Collections as part of my placement.

 

Duke Li

This term, the placement module from BA Education Studies offered us an opportunity to be involved in the outreach team of UCL Special Collections and the project “Illustrate”. To be specific, the aim of the project was to give the knowledge of special collections items to an audience with a non-academic background. It was really great to bring out activities to the after-school club and have interactions with students on the topic of special collections.

Our experiences started with the introduction of the UCL Special Collections team. Before that, I didn’t know that the UCL Special Collection team involved so many departments. For instance, we took several visits to the UCL Science Library and “hidden rooms” in the IOE building in order to see parts of the collection. It is always exciting to see those rare collection items – archives, rare books, and manuscripts – especially in a storage space that adds a mystery to it. As the placement went by, we got to know how to search items in the Special Collections catalogue, learn about the digitalization of the special collections items, and the process of getting access to items in the reading room. We also had a chance to take a look at an exhibition of the collection. From my perspective, those activities helped me to get a better idea of how the UCL Special Collections team work and cooperates with each other, and the experiences that I got turned out to be helpful when conducting the “Illustrate” project in the later weeks.

As well as intaking this knowledge, we also managed to bring out two sessions to the students on topics related to the collection items. The “Illustrate” project was an after-school class for the students, but the participants all engaged and learned from the discussion and the drawing activities in their own ways. Most of them were really active and willing to interact with us. It’s really delightful when giving out sessions and making students involved in the class. Though the teaching experience was wonderful, we do have several aspects to reflect on.

1. The teaching experiences
In the first session, we designed the whole activity on the work of Escher and his impossible world. We also set questions to ask the students. However, since we didn’t notice the difficulty and the linkage between questions, some of the students may have felt it hard to follow these ideas. From this, we concluded that the questions should be more carefully designed to express less in-depth, but easy-to-follow ideas, or else the knowledge of the collection items can not be promoted. Luckily, the final outcomes of the drawing activities turned out to be a big success, due to the creativity of the students. They have their own designs and thoughts.

2. The external factors
We also encounter some problems with the project as a whole. Since the project was an afterschool class in the school, schools may pay less attention to our project than the school’s wider teaching and learning activity. This may be the reason that most of the time, we did not have a lot of participants for our sessions. Also, we experienced once that the school was closed due to a problem with their water supply, but we only find out that when we arrived there, so these factors may have affected the teaching quality as well as the experience of teaching and learning.

To conclude, the whole placement experience is really great, we got the chance to know the UCL Special Collection team and how a team like this operates. The teaching experience with students was always nice since they were all really engaged. Also, we were really interested by the idea of the outreach team’s work when we were trying to make linkage between the non-academic audience and the special collection items that deserve to be noticed by more people. It was a really nice experience and I learned and reflected a lot.

Hidden in the Institute of Education’s Baines Archives is a small book entitled Gavin’s book of witches (BA/1/9/78).

The Baines Archives includes items related to the work of George and Judith Baines, who pioneered new teaching methods in the 1960s-1980s. The archive includes examples of student work from Eynsham County Primary School where George Baines worked as the headteacher. There are a number of small books written, illustrated, and bound by the students. One former pupil described the process:

‘A prominent memory that I have is of the book binding which not only completed a study but also became a feature. The technique is a cherished memory: the meticulous scraping of the lino block, the roller thick with sticky paint, the binding and the glue oozing out in all the wrong places, the pride of producing a book contained within a hardback.’

Gavin’s book of witches is one such example of student work. It was produced by a young pupil, probably named Gavin, who was probably still learning to write. The teacher has written the text for Gavin to copy underneath. It was then illustrated with original drawings.

The book is very short – just six pages in total. A transcription of it follows:

 

 

 

My witch is flying. She is going to the witches party.

 

 

 

 

 

She gets there first then all these come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The witches are singing and eating at their party.

 

 

 

 

 

Gavin’s book of witches is the perfect Halloween story.

If you’d like to see more examples of workbooks from the Baines collection, ‘A Book of Bones’ and ‘My Book about the Potato’ are both featured in our online exhibition ‘Word as Art: Beauty in the Archives.’

The IOE holds the archive of the British Forces Education Service/Service Children’s Education Association. The BFES/SCE provided education for the children of British Forces personnel initially in Germany, but later worldwide. The Association was established to enable BFES/SCE teachers to keep in touch. The collection contains papers from countries all over the world including Germany, Belize and Hong Kong. With the withdrawal of British troops from Germany over the past few years we have received many new items for the archive. I recently created an exhibition on the history of the organisation for the Assocation’s reunion dinner and thought it would be good to share a short version of it here.

Beginnings
On 9 February 1946 a meeting was called at the War Office where a working party was established to investigate the how to create a Central Education Authority to work under the Control Commission for Germany and Austria. At this point, the question of whether the families of British Service personnel serving in Germany should join them, had not been decided upon. A survey was undertaken by the Chairman of the Working Party, Lieutenant Colonel F J Downs and Mr W A B Hamilton, Assistant Secretary at the Ministry of Education.

The results showed that the total number of children aged between 0 and 15 in these families would be about 6000. The greatest requirement would be for primary education. In June 1946 the Cabinet agreed that families should join serving personnel as long as the education the children received was ‘at least equal to’ that they would have received in the UK. At this point the British Families Education Service was established by the Foreign Office.

Local Education Authorities were asked to co-operate to help recruit teachers to work in the schools in the British Zone of Germany. It was estimated that the number needed would be 200. Two thousand applied and the first teachers arrived in Germany in November 1946. British families started arriving from August 1946 onwards and small informal schools were set up in some areas before official BFES schools opened. The first official BFES schools opened in early 1947.

Expansion
Although the BFES originally provided education for the children of British Forces families in Germany, in the following years BFES/SCE schools were opened in countries across the world including Hong Kong, Cyprus, Malaysia and Mauritius.

A change of hands
In the winter of 1951-1952 the Service was taken over by the Army and became Service Childrens’ Education Authority (SCEA). In around 1989 a new administration was introduced and in the short-term the organisation was named Service Children’s Schools (SCS) before adopting its current name Service Children Education (SCE).

The Association
The BFES Association was founded in 1967 to enable BFES teachers to keep in touch. In the 1980s it merged with the Service Childrens’ Education Association (SCEA), which had changed its name to SCE, to become the BFES/SCE Association.

 

The Archive at the UCL Institute of Education
While the collection documents the history of the organisation very effectively, its richness comes from it being mostly collected by teachers who worked for the BFES/SCE. This aspect of the archive gives researchers an insight into the lives of those who were part of an incredible organisation.

The collection comprises:

• Administrative papers of the BFES/SCE Association including minutes of meetings, papers regarding events and publications;
• Recollections, diaries, photographs and school publications of former BFES/SCE teachers working in Belgium, Cyprus, Germany (West Berlin and West Germany), Egypt, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka and Yemen;
• Records of the BFES/SCE itself including teaching resources, information for staff and families living abroad, and publications. Most of these papers have been donated by members of the BFES/SCE Association but relate more generally to the work of the BFES/SCE rather than the work of individual schools.
• A small number of publications issued by the British Forces and community

Researchers can arrange to access the collection at our reading room at the UCL IOE.
ioe.arch-enquiries@ucl.ac.uk

In my research on teacher training at the London Day Training College (LDTC), which became the Institute of Education (IOE) in 1932, I have found the relatively unknown Clotilde von Wyss to be one of the most intriguing female teacher trainers.[1]  Von Wyss taught at the LDTC and IOE from 1903 to 1936. This post provides a brief overview of her contributions to teacher training in the interwar era.

As was typical in the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, most women became qualified teachers to have professional careers, and many women remained unmarried to retain their independence.  Some women teachers progressed in their careers by taking up headships and others, mainly the ‘intellectually gifted women’ from the middle classes, went into teaching in higher education.[2] Von Wyss followed this latter path and trained as a teacher at Maria Grey College, Brondesbury and gained a distinction in her Cambridge Teachers’ Certificate. Before her appointment at the London Day Training College (LDTC), von Wyss taught at various schools including St. George’s High School in Edinburgh from 1894 to 1897.  During this time, she was also an external student at the Heriot-Watt College where she took classes with the distinguished naturalist Sir Arthur Thomson.

From 1897 to 1900 she taught biology at her old school, North London Collegiate, after which she took up a lectureship at the Cambridge Training College.  In 1903, she began to work on a part-time basis at the London Day Training College (LDTC) where she taught biology, hygiene, nature study, art and handicraft. Von Wyss was soon appointed as a full-time member of staff supporting the Mistress of Method and Vice-Principal, Margaret Punnett (another eminent female academic), with the welfare of the women students.[3]

Von Wyss’s pedagogical contributions are significant.  The 1929 issue of the student magazine, The Londinian, reviews the annual biological exhibition which von Wyss organised and provides evidence of novel teaching methods including the use of visual illustrations, objects, story-telling and peer-learning to communicate complex concepts. Her students presented these concepts to other students using the items on display, which included a dissected cat, the digestive organs of a rabbit, and a frog which was used to detect a heartbeat. There was also a section where the students learnt about amoeba and another which focused on genetics or the ‘principles of heredity’ and the role played by chromosomes:

Miss Gascoyne … was demonstrating the principles of heredity by means of charts…[and the] story of the black gentleman cat who married a sandy lady cat was touching in the extreme. How he longed for his little boys to be tortoiseshell, something like him and his dear wife!  But they never could. That distinction was confined to the girls of the family. And all because of a wretched chromosome with a hook in it![4]

She was a progressive educationalist and expected trainee teachers to demonstrate aspects of child-centred learning in their teaching practice. Her written comments on her observations of student teachers’ classroom teaching practice are held in the IOE’s archive. They describe her child-centred approach and what she believed to be the essential qualities of a teacher and ‘good’ teaching. Of utmost importance, for her, was that teachers understand the world of the child so that they could see things from the child’s perspective.  Teaching children to observe would, she emphasised, enable the child to ‘come alive’.[5] She was critical of students who simply derived teaching material from textbooks and imparted it mechanically.

Von Wyss was known outside of the LDTC and IOE. Her lessons for the BBC’s Broadcasts to Schools in the late 1920s made a profound influence on science teachers throughout the country. In the 1930s, ‘her ants’, which she had nurtured for the students to observe, were featured in the documentary film ‘Wood Ant’ as two letters from the mid-1930s confirm. She made arrangements to show the documentary at the Autumn meeting of the School Nature Study Union at County Hall and later to the students at the LDTC.[6]

Von Wyss had also established herself as a formidable naturalist. This was recognised by teachers and by the officials at the London County Council. Many teachers used her biology and nature studies textbooks which contain her own illustrations, and as a member of the textbook selection Committee at the London County Council Committee, she assessed nature study and hygiene courses at other teaching colleges.[7] As editor of the School Nature Study Journal, she was known for highlighting the educational benefits of nature study, providing a course outline for the subject, and sharing the most effective teaching methods. In this, she had the backing of such influential people as L.C. Miall who was a Professor of biology at a Yorkshire College (later part of the University of Leeds), J. Arthur Thompson, the renowned naturalist under whom von Wyss studied in Edinburgh, the writer H. G. Wells, C. W. Kimmins who was the Chief Inspector of the London County Council, and Sir Percy Nunn who was director of the LDTC and IOE during von Wyss’s tenure. (Nunn was also involved in the Nature Study movement for he chaired the Union from 1905 to 1910).[8] They were all eugenicists, as was von Wyss.

Her contributions to the study of science were acknowledged publicly when, in 1914, she was appointed Fellow of the prestigious Linnean Society. [9] Her obituary in Nature describes her as a ‘brilliant and inspiring teacher’ whose students ‘went out to teach with a feeling of power and confidence’ and ‘teachers of many years standing still remember her with affection and gratitude’.  She ‘never lost sight of the interdependences of theory and practice’ and ‘like all true teachers, she was also continually a learner’. [10]

REFERENCES

[1] Apart from E. W. Jenkins’ work on The Nature Study Movement(1981) in which he introduces von Wyss’ contributions to nature study and  Richard Aldrich’s biographical introduction to her in the Centenary History of the Institute of Education(2002), there is little on von Wyss’ pedagogical innovations.

[2] Fernanda Perrone, ‘Women Academics in England, 1870–1930’, History of Universities12 (1993): 339, 347.

[3] Richard Aldrich, ‘The Training of Teachers and Educational Studies: The London Day Training College, 1902–1932’, Paedagogica Historica40, no. 5–6 (October 2004): 624.

[4] ‘Harold’, ‘The Biological Exhibition’, The Londinian, no. Summer (1929): 15.

[5] Correspondence with Gaumont-British Instructional Ltd dated 20th March (1935?) and 7th October 1935. ‘Von Wyss Staff Records (1909-1949)’.

[6] Diploma Report dated 29/05/22. In: Clotilde von Wyss, ‘Diploma Reports 1922 Women Students’ (London Day Training College, 1922), IE/STU/A/7, UCL Institute of Education Archives.

[7] British Broadcasting Corporation, ‘Notes on the Courses: Nature Study with Clotilde von Wyss’, in Broadcast to Schools (January to June 1929)(London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1929), 17.

[8] E. W. Jenkins, ‘Science, Sentimentalism or Social Control? The Nature Study Movement in England and Wales, 1899‐1914’, History of Education10, no. 1 (March 1981): 39.

[9] ‘Societies’, The Athenaeum, no. 4542 (14 November 1914): 512.

[10] R. F. S., ‘Obituary: Miss Clotilde von Wyss’, Nature142 (26 November 1938): 944–45.

This is a guest blog post by one of our archive volunteers, Sara Abou El Ella, who was working in the IOE UCL Archive department with items from the collection of David and Mary Medd.

 

The Tiny Furniture Project

blog post by Sara Abou El Ella.

For a few weeks now, I have been busy cataloguing and sorting scale models of school furniture used by David and Mary Medd in 1976. They were at the forefront of public architecture and design and created an inextricable bond between architecture and social progress.

This archive project required particular attention and care since many of the furniture pieces were detaching from their main bodies. Despite this, I enjoyed unpacking all the objects and grouping them together, since many of them were spread in different boxes and they had never all been itemised. I would say that a particular challenge involving this project was comparing all objects to the furniture handbook. Some of them presented very similar characteristics and appearance making them hard to locate in the handbook and some of the objects were not listed therefore I had to catalogue them separately.

After this very rough introduction, I would like to give the readers a taste of a typical day volunteering at the UCL Archives. I arrive around 1.30pm and stay until 3.30pm or 4pm. This project required more attention and time to be dedicated to it. The first task is to gather the special conservation paper sheets to protect the objects. On my first day, I read a book written by Catherine Burke to become more acquainted with the project and with the architects. Secondly, I carefully read the index and catalogue in the handbook to compare the numbers, characteristics and type of every object which should be contained in the collection. The third task, the most crucial and important of the project, is to open all paper wrappings in the different boxes, group together all items of the same nature and write their number, short description and wrap them all individually for better conservation purposes. One of my favourite objects was the reproduction of a small piano and wardrobes which had little hangers attached to them. For this blog I tried to recreate a small classroom and include some of the most iconic pieces of furniture present in the collection.

Because of the small damage and the rust which accumulated on the objects I hope to volunteer with the UCL Special Collections Senior Conservator to clean and conserve this collection. This is a very exciting opportunity to improve the access to this archival material and be able to present it to different researchers and for object handling sessions in schools.

The definition of ‘Christmas Box’ from the 19^th century dictionaries is ‘a box for collecting Christmas presents; a Christmas present’ (1885). Christmas as we celebrate it today has its origins in the Victorian period, thanks to Prince Albert bringing to England the German tradition of a Christmas tree lit with candles. By the end of the 19^th century, the Christmas tree was a familiar sight in the homes of many well-to-do families and the joy of opening a Christmas box part of the excitement of the festivities.

One of the children’s books in the Baines Collection held in the UCL Institute of Education’s Special Collection is an annual (the first for children published in England) with the title The Christmas Box. As the title is so relevant to this time of the year I would like to share the delight of this little book as a Christmas treat for everyone. The book, edited by T. Crofton Croker, is small in format as was typical of children’s books at the time so that they could fit in a child’s hands.  It is only 16.2 x 10.2 cm in size and was published between 1828 and 1829.  It has lovely wood cut prints  and includes short stories, verses, plays and articles and even a brief history of the Napoleonic wars.

The stories include ‘Battle of Frogs and Mice’, a short animal epic ascribed to Homer in the ancient world and ‘The Three Caskets’ which was used in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. The book also contains a couple of firsts: the first appearance of a Norwegian folk tale ‘The History of Asim and Asgard’ and the first publication of Scott’s poem ‘The Bonnets of Bonny Dundee’ (Hahn, 2015, p. 127). In addition, there are writings by the prolific author of adult and children’s stories Maria Edgeworth (1768 – 1849) who also wrote the well-known education treatise Practical Education (1801) (also in the IOE’s Special Collections) in which she and her father Richard Lovell Edgeworth combine ideas of different philosophers including John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The book concludes with a collection of carols and a message for the reader which seems very appropriate for both the book and this blog post:

And now, little dears, we have only to wish you all good wishes,
and to thank you for your patience in perusing our small present.
May you all spend your Christmas holidays pleasantly, with every enjoyment and entertainment,
and be ready, when we meet again, to glance over our pages with the same good humour and glee as we trust you have done.
And so GOOD BYE.

Have a lovely Christmas and Best wishes for the New Year!

The Newsam Library at the Institute of Education has a large collection of  education institutional histories. These form a discrete collection and provide a rich source of information on individual schools, colleges and universities and their communities across Britain. The books and pamphlets mainly date from the early twentieth century up to the present day. Older materials, dating mainly from the nineteenth century, are held in the History of Education Collection in the closed stacks. This post focuses on the school histories which make up a significant part of the collection.

In anticipation of the half-day symposium on writing institutional histories, jointly organised by ICHRE (International Centre for Historical Research in Education) and FNLA (Friends of the Newsam Library and Archives), we present a guest blog by Dr. Barry Blades on his use of the IOE’s School Histories Collection to write his book, Roll of Honour.

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The School Histories Collection  consists of hundreds of monographs of individual British schools, covering a range of institutions spanning the educational spectrum. The voluminous histories of elite public schools stand next to brief studies of charity schools for waifs and strays. Publications marking the centenaries of ancient grammar schools are shelved next to accounts of elementary schools which no longer exist or have been absorbed into other institutions. A school’s place in the hierarchy of schooling is generally mirrored by the status of the publishing house which was commissioned to tell its story. Many of these histories – the vast majority relating to English, Welsh and Scottish institutions – were written by alumni: former pupils, teachers (especially retired Deputy Headteachers) and governors determined to place on record the distinctive development and particular achievements of their alma mater.

 

It is easy for the outsider to criticise the esoteric, celebratory and partisan nature of these histories. The great majority were intended primarily for the school community itself. Few beyond the immediate community would identify the school in question from headline titles such as Where the Fat Black Canons Dined, Further Up Stephen’s Brae, or Hyacinths and Haricot Beans. Subtitles were generally more informative. These histories were aimed predominantly at a readership already familiar with the institution, namely the ‘Old Boys’ or the ‘Old Girls’. An institutional history might cover hundreds of years, but in most there will be at least one section for the alumnus which refers to their particular period of attendance and school life as they experienced it. Headteachers inevitably dominate the story. The tenures of these deified – and very occasionally demonised – individuals commonly provide a chronological structure to a story of growth and development. Teachers, and especially those with nicknames deriving from their idiosyncratic mannerisms or behaviour, are fondly remembered. Heroic deeds on the playing field and battlefield are fixed in print and validate memories of achievement and loss. Narrative triumphs over analysis.

Yet, what may at first appear to be the greatest weaknesses of published school histories is, for the historian investigating the history of education more generally, their greatest strength. The rich detail, the human stories and the relatively obscure anecdotage contained therein tell us so much about the ethos, culture and formative traditions of individual institutions. These ‘secondary’ sources thus become a form of ‘primary’ material when the researcher asks questions relating to continuity and change and similarity and difference in any given period or aspect of schooling. Many of the histories were, of course, constructed using primary sources, their authors making full use of the archive material still retained by many institutions. School logbooks, magazines, headteachers’ annual reports, governors’ minutes, the records of alumni organisations, and ephemera including school photographs and fixture lists are the real archival treasures upon which these broader accounts are based.

Roll of Honour, the first book in the Schooling and the Great War trilogy, includes material from over one hundred such histories and drew ideas and inspiration from many more. Wherever possible I used extracts which were evidently drawn directly from the institutional archives. Other material was subjected to the usual tests of authenticity, accuracy and reliability. School histories vary considerably in their coverage of national events. This was particularly noticeable when searching for references to the Great War of 1914 to 1919. A few histories cover the wartime years in detail. In others, there is little or no reference at all to the impact of the war on the daily life of the school or even to the conflict in general. In many, the wartime experiences of alumni take centre stage. Taken collectively, however, these histories formed a major component of my research; an evidence base which could be cross-referenced and triangulated with material from other archival collections, official publications, newspapers, contemporary autobiographies, printed secondary works and digital resources.

For the researcher who wants to find out more about how different institutions created, developed and maintained their distinct cultures and particular identities, then dig deep into the School Histories Collection. For the researcher who wants to discover how institutional imperatives tempered directives from national and local authorities, or how schools responded to national and local economic and social circumstances, then test your hypotheses in the School Histories Collection. For those of you who are historians of the school curriculum, or teachers and teaching methods, or pupil origins and destinations – or indeed any given period or particular aspect of British schooling – I can assure you that delving into the School Histories Collection will be most rewarding.

Barry Blades

It might be a repeat from my last post but I don’t think I can emphasise enough how much added value our volunteers bring to our archive collections and how much we enjoy having them working with us. We have been very lucky to have a volunteer, Sara Abou El Ella, working on a catalogue enhancement project with the Nicholas Hans Papers at UCL Institute of Education Archives. The Nicholas Hans Papers have been catalogued since 1999 but there were two boxes of additional papers that had been added at a later date.  These boxes included correspondence, photographs, postcards and some very special magazines written in Russian by Nicholas Hans.  I catalogued what I could and with some help from one of our researchers was able to write a brief overview for the Russian magazines but could not describe the content of them.   Luckily for us, and future researchers, Sara is fluent in Russian! Sara has written up her experience of translating and cataloguing these magazines.

 

Many days in the Life of Nicholas Hans

post written by Sara Abou El Ella

This title is very similar to a famous Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. For me my Wednesdays were absorbed in the reading of Nicholas Hans magazines.
I started cataloguing a small part of the Nicholas Hans Collection in the Institute of Education at UCL. As a volunteer my task consisted in reading and then summarising the contents of five magazines written and hand drawn by Nicholas Hans ‘in 1920 while interned on the island of Principo in 1920 with other refugees leaving from Russia’ (quote from a note written by Grace Hans & included with the magazines).

All his magazines follow the same structure. Nicholas Hans rarely included articles or pieces from other authors. Hans hand-drew every single issue focusing on the front and back covers as well as adding decorations and other drawings inside the magazines. The issues would start with a letter from the editorial staff followed by a brief introduction of the issue’s topic. The main article would follow the topic of the introduction and discuss it in depth. In the final pages of the issue Hans would draw and write rebuses and charades. Moreover, in a couple of issues he also included fairy-tales or poems, for example: Cinderella.
Typically, I would start my work on the collection by reading the different articles and simultaneously translate and summarise them. Each section was divided according to its title. One of the biggest challenges was to decipher Nicholas Hans’ handwriting. Besides, the magazines required careful handling since they are very fragile. In some cases they were stained and the colours of the drawing faded, but it was still possible to discern both the words and the drawings.

It was extremely fascinating to be able to handle and work on such a fine archival specimen. I believe I was particularly stricken by the profound longing that Hans had for his country. This feeling was partially suppressed by the awareness that it was impossible for him to go back to Russia. In my opinion the ability to transpose these feeling through satirical articles and aggravating drawings was very enriching and interesting to analyse.

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The catalogue records for these magazines are now online and there is more information about the collection on our libguide.

Volunteers’ week may be long over but that doesn’t mean we can’t say thank you to our volunteers throughout the rest of the year!  This time I would like to introduce some of the work done by one of our volunteers, Ashley Zuelke, who you may have come across before in one of the Volunteer Week posts. As well as volunteering in Special Collections we have been lucky enough to have Ashley volunteering with us in UCL IOE Archives.  Ashley has worked on catalogue enhancement of Minute Books of the London branch of the National Union of Women Teachers (NUWT).  The account which follows is a fascinating analysis of what she uncovered and gives an insight into the interesting stories that can be found in these unassuming looking volumes.

Minute Books Offer Glimpses into the Organisation of Women Teachers at the Turn of the 20th Century

By Ashley Zuelke
Summer Volunteer with Special Collections, Archives and Exhibitions studying for an MSc in Business Analytics and Management

In the early 1900s, British women teachers formed their own associations, branching out from the primary teaching organizations of the time to advocate for emerging issues including equal pay, pensions, and the management of “combined” boys and girls school departments. Reading the first minute books kept by the London Branch of the National Union of Women Teachers – then known as the National Federation of Women Teachers – is like sifting through snapshots of history taken every few months.

Entries from 1908 to 1922 reveal glimpses of the expansion of women’s rights and education in the U.K. before, during and after World War I. Discussions on proposed resolutions for national meetings reveal issues on which broad consensus prevailed, such as supporting aging women teachers, as well as points of disagreement, which included Parliament extending the vote to women. In history books, women’s suffrage seems like a natural course within a history punctuated with equal rights victories. The minute books, however, present a more nuanced picture with a spectrum of views and no certain results.

The year 1918 marked a watershed moment for the organisation: Parliament passed landmark education reform legislation and the group merged with the Women Teachers Franchise Union to create the London Unit of the National Federation of Women Teachers. The Franchise Union at the time was a politicised organisation, which prompted some members to urge that the group not advocate for political issues. The group did not accept those proposals, though the organisation unanimously postponed advocacy on political issues during the war. With the merger, the group codified its practices into a constitution and began to persistently advocate for equal rights and the implementation of the Education Act of 1918, which was designed to improve school conditions and to study the UK educational system – objectives for which public support increased dramatically after the war.

Within 10 years, the group grew from a handful of regular members to more than 50 subscribers in attendance at annual meetings representing nearly all parts of greater London. The organisation’s behaviour evolved as well. Initial notes that focused mostly on social gatherings and group administration became disciplined accounts of proposed resolutions and active correspondence. Early schisms dissolved as rules and procedures were finalised. By 1916, the group even published meeting minutes in newspapers as public record.  Members, some of whom participated in the group for more than a decade, built seniority. The group developed a clear, ringing voice on important issues. The women’s dedication is evident, with many lines commemorating achievements of group presidents and expressing condolences for members with illness or those who passed away.

The minute-book entries represent many hours of work for members outside the classroom, often on weekends. They offer readers a new perspective on events in the first two decades of the 20th Century. The books show how one organisation developed, enduring setbacks and victories on a path that many organisations today would likely recognise. And the books open windows into time as a group made changes and won rights for women and children that today many of us could not imagine doing without.

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Thanks so much Ashley for writing up such an interesting account of the early minute books of the NUWT and for all your work in expanding and enhancing the catalogue description for these.

For more information on the National Union of Women Teachers please refer to our libguide or our online catalogue.

 

All images ©UCL Institute of Education Archives

 

A few months ago a group of students from the MA Archives and Records Management course used the Isabel Fry collection at the IOE archives to create an online exhibition. The exhibition, which is a fantastic resource on Fry, can be found here.

Isabel Fry (1869-1958) was an educationist and social activist. She founded, and was headmistress of, two experimental schools: The Farmhouse School, Mayortorne Manor, Wendover, and later, Church Farm, Buckland, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. She came from a famous reforming Quaker background and was the daughter of Sir Edward Fry (1827-1918), jurist, and sister of (Sara) Margery Fry (1874-1958), penal reformer, and Roger Eliot Fry (1866-1934), artist and critic.

I hope this sensitive interpretation of Fry’s archive continues to be available so people can enjoy a snapshot of the collection.

 

The next time you visit the UCL Institute of Education Reading Room you may notice it’s looking a little roomier than usual. As part of our commitment to meeting the changing needs of our users, the IOE archives team have moved into an office of their own, allowing the Reading Room to accommodate more visitors.

As well as continuing to welcome individual researchers into the Reading Room, more space means that we will more easily be able to support students using archives and special collections for group projects. Having a little more elbow room also gives the Special Collections, Archives and Records team more opportunities for teaching and community education work.

The IOE Reading Room continues to be open from 9.30am-5pm weekdays – appointments to view material can be made by contacting the team at IOE Archives Enquiries for archives and IOE Library Enquiries for special collections, although you can always drop by if you have any questions.

UCL Libraries is lucky to have not one, but two, reading rooms for our rare and unique materials – if you’re consulting items from our centrally held Special Collections and Archives, you’ll get to use our South Junction Reading Room, which opened late last year. Appointments to view these materials can be made by emailing UCL Special Collections – or check out our website for more information.

This post originally appeared at Newsam News, and is reproduced here courtesy of Sally Perry.

What: A London-themed celebration of reading aloud, and being read to, for World Book Night

Where: UCL IOE Library

When: Monday 24 April 2017 5.30-7.00pm

To celebrate World Book Night 2017 and to coincide with UCL Libraries’ East Side Stories: Londoners in Transition exhibition we are holding our third read aloud event on Monday 24 April. Come and listen to fellow audience members read poems, stories or passages from their favourite books. Readings will include extracts from George Orwell’s Down and out in Paris and London which is included in the exhibition. If you would like to read aloud yourself in any language (for approximately 5 mins) you would be very welcome. A London theme for your reading is optional!

Sam Duncan (IOE Dept of Education, Practice and Society) and Rebecca Webster (Head of Archives, UCL Library Services) will introduce the session.

If you would like to come along (to read or to be read to) please use the link below to book a place. If you would like to read please email Sam Duncan (sam.duncan@ucl.ac.uk).