In Retirement

Mary left the Ministry of Education in 1972 after a disagreement that had developed over plans for a new primary school. Ex-colleagues recall that Mary started to work on a sketch design for the new school while two other architects in the A&BB also began work on the project in the same room. There was some basic disagreement about the projected educational groupings. Mary who had always regarded educational planning as her forte asked one of the HMIs for advice, but the others continued unabated. After taking her scheme to the LEA involved, it was the others’ sketch plan, not Mary’s that was agreed. On returning to the office later, Mary found that the architects had taken their scheme to another room. Shortly after, Mary left the MoE.¹

This episode illustrates some tensions that surrounded school planning at this time, generated by a significant critical dismissal of progressivism in general and child-centered planning in particular from a right-wing oriented press. This period is sometimes referred to as the end of the post-war consensus.² Two years earlier, The Black Papers had been published and their views which presented child centered teaching techniques as betraying the potential of children were publicized via the popular press and were widely discussed. According to these critics the abandonment of selection by examination at the end of the primary stage had been destructive; discipline in schools had been eroded; and new teaching methods had failed.³ In contrast, the views of HMI were more telling. They argued that Comprehensives had yet failed to establish a unique and fitting identity and had imitated grammar schools instead of developing their own kind of curriculum; examinations dominated the curriculum unreasonably; and virtually all schools let down the less able pupils. Both Mary’s and HMI points of view which had developed steadily over decades since the war were shouted down by the shrill and powerful voices calling for a return to traditional values. This was to herald a change in this direction under successive Education secretaries of state beginning with Margaret Thatcher, from 1970 to 1974.

Mary was nevertheless wedded to a belief that the principles and values of primary education could be usefully applied in adapted form elsewhere in the system, be it in the nursery or secondary school. Others disagreed and sought to distance their designs from this approach which was by now coming to be seen as dated. Given the circumstances of her retirement, it is perhaps not so surprising that Mary’s next tasks were to help to plan primary schools in Wales, to develop primary bases for teacher training and to advise on the planning of pre-school environments. In all of these she remained committed to her ingredients of design in what she saw as the best interests of children and their teachers.

DESIGNING FOR THE UNDER-FIVES

The provision of appropriate high quality environments for pre-school children has been struggled for over the course of the twentieth century in Britain and continues to be a vulnerable area of public service. As we have seen, Mary Crowley worked on nursery environments early in her career and returned to the issue in her retirement at what was an interesting moment in the development of ideas about the development of infants and appropriate early years education. In part this was due to changes in the Higher Education sector that helped to promote the impact of educational psychology. During the early 1970s, through the work of leading sociologists and psychologists, interest in pre-school age children shifted its focus fundamentally. Prioritizing the material provision of care and welfare through attention to light and air now appeared to be less important than understanding differences in cognitive development. Preparation for school now called for more attention to the individual mind and less to exercising body and mind together in an atmosphere of freedom and security.

There was an international context to this trend as nations attempted to get ahead of one another at what was the start of an era of comparative educational rankings.⁴ In 1965, the Head Start programme was launched in the USA and was visited two years later by English HMI.⁵ Meanwhile in Europe, the pre-school projects in Reggio Emilia were pioneering a significant new approach to pre-school education with a clear emphasis on the material environment. But Britain appeared to be following the American model which placed more emphasis on the science of child development than the art of designing cultural and material structures to support and enhance well-being. One could argue that in this climate Ralph Crowley’s notion of ‘the whole child’ was becoming harder to fight for.

In England, sociologists and psychologists began studying this age group closely and their work began to have impact under the Conservative political administrations that dominated the period. In 1974, Barbara Tizard at the Thomas Coram Research Unit in London, produced a research review surveying pre-school provision in the UK concluding that more formal pre-school programmes had measurable impact on later educational outcomes.⁶ The sociologist and linguist, Basil Bernstein (1924–2000) was conducting research at the Institute of Education at this time and his work was beginning to emphasize the significance of language development in educational achievement especially in relation to social class.⁷ These research initiatives pointed more to the role of formal pedagogy in improving children’s level of achievement in basic academic subjects which teachers, parents and government were united in wishing to improve. Together with the impact of cuts in expenditure on capital projects in education, the climate was not good for educators or architects of Mary’s persuasion.

The British government was coming under pressure to provide statutory services for the under fives. The response came in 1972 when the education secretary Margaret Thatcher produced the White Paper, ‘Education – a Framework for Expansion’ which included in its provisions, a recognition of the need to expand nursery places. While there was a general acceptance that funds should be made available for buildings, less demanding on the exchequer was to accept the new orthodoxies around growth and development. As Dr E. M. Parry, an expert in pre-school provision explained,

there used to be a lot of talk about ’withdrawal’ and need for cosy corners and screens to go behind … now we are talking more about cognitive growth and language.⁸

The Medds met with Dr Parry shortly after the publication of the government’s White Paper to discuss pre-school design for education. Parry was at the time involved with the Schools Council Pre-School Education Project which was investigating in detail the state of provision. In the research carried out, 17 films were made documenting practice across the country. At their meeting they talked about the importance of providing means to develop sensory discrimination through smells, touch, taste, sights and sounds but also about the necessity in the present climate to present the case for pre-school specialist provision at all. It was, they agreed, often depicted as being too expensive, too isolated or as being an ‘artificial life’, neither home nor school. Mary’s remarks appear to suggest that she saw the nursery as having a specific and particular role to play and that therefore the design of such should be afforded especial care. But as ever, Mary and David stressed the primacy of ‘the people and the work, not necessarily the building’ as they decided, in discussion with Parry, particular sites to visit and observe ‘remarkable’ work carried out by inspiring teachers.⁹

The contents of a special issue of The Architects’ Journal, ‘A Fair Deal for the Under 5s’, suggest that architects were becoming aware of changing attitudes to the provision of nursery education.¹⁰ The journal presented images of pre-school children in environments that mirrored that of Eveline Lowe, especially in the kiva. ‘The nursery areas are usefully split to accommodate the noisy and quiet, tidy and messy activities, with a step up into the quiet area to punctuate the demarcation.’ A new emphasis on the rights of the child to determine their own activities is evident. With reference to the built in bunks, the journal stated, ‘children are no longer put to bed at set times during the day but can go and lie down at any time if they feel tired.’¹¹ Although the words describing this environment are not Mary’s, they very easily could have been and she would have agreed with them.

Mary had developed her notion of the ‘ingredients’ required in good educational planning of learning environments and extended these to pre-school (Fig. 8.1). We can see her ideas made plain in a detailed sketch plan entitled ‘some planning ingredients’ which she completed in March 1972. Here the ingredients of planning were set out as HQGPVM or ‘home group’, ‘enclosed (quiet or noisy)’, ‘general and flexible’, ‘particular (equipment, services)’, ‘covered work area’, ‘constructions, acting, music etc (small groups)’.

8.1 Mary’s plan of an infants school environment ‘300 children: 3½ to 7 years’ illustrating her planning ingredients, 1972. IOE Archives, Plan ‘300 children: 3½ to 7 years.’ Photograph João Monteiro

As in environments for slightly older children attending primary schools, according to this planning template there should be provided a variety of sized rooms to serve different functions. Mary was aware that designing for the under-fives meant providing for the whole community. There should be larger meeting rooms to hold sales of work, concerts, assemblies, exhibitions, films, acting and movement; small ‘workshops’ for repairs, making things and storage; a small pantry for drinks and snacks; ‘medium’ rooms for social events, committees, old people, students, staff and gatherings; small rooms for secretarial work, committees, interviews, doctor, welfare worker and related staff. Spaces would provide opportunities for shared small group activities to support ‘dressing up, puppets, music making, transport, jumping, climbing, rolling, building and constructions’.

The outdoors was of course not to be neglected where Mary suggested a range of simple devices to support active and imaginative play. There should be

grassy mounds and hollows … enough for a child to fit and have the ‘illusion of aloneness’ with grass near by above eye level. There should also be a hard surface area for the oldest to cycle, sandpits – preferably two, side by side with a hard surface in between. A garden court was generally included in plans for ‘animals, fish, water and plants’.¹²