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the existing schools in the town. Judge’s book provides much period detail to flesh
out his account of the early days of comprehensive schools. A neighbour of both
Anthony Crosland when Labour Secretary of State for Education and Angus Maude, a
prominent Conservative, Judge moved in influential circles and noted the continuing
influence on education policy of Oxford men like Crosland, Denis Healey and Tony
Benn. Yet his wide-ranging study deals with the examining system in cryptic terms.
He portrayed it as originally ensuring “doctrines of a balanced curriculum and a
broad, general education. It has, of course [1984], long ceased to do so" (Judge
1984:102). No explanation is offered as to the reasons for the last statement.
The 1944 Education Act as a seminal period in English secondary education has
continued for half a century to intrigue historians. Gary McCulloch has suggested that
comparing the work of four fellow writers on the 1944 Education Act could serve as
an object lesson in differing approaches to the same issue. Doing so proved to be an
illuminating exercise in viewing the period from the differing standpoints of
McCulloch himself (McCulloch 1994), Michael Barber (Barber 1994), Kevin Jeffreys
(Jeffreys 1986), Brian Simon (Simon 1991) and Peter Gosden (Gosden 1983). Each
writer constructs his own valid analysis of the influence on and effects of this critical
development in English secondary education. However - although certainly providing
an invaluable model for the student researcher - the exercise revealed that none of
these analysts had dealt with the post-1944 complete restructuring of the examinations
system in anything more than a fleeting manner.
Despite the absence of the Boards from these accounts, it is of course through
overlaying the approach of different writers on this post-war period that one builds the
necessary multi-faceted understanding of the people and issues that shaped