The Inner London Education Authority and the William Tyndale Junior School Affair, 1974-1976

Abstract

The William Tyndale Junior School affair marked a turning point in modern educational history. The affair, in which one north London primary school was paralysed by internal arguments over teaching method, is here analysed as a product of the pressures prevalent in Inner London education, and the article assesses the attempts of the Inner London Education Authority to contain those pressures. A necessary deference to the autonomy of teachers led to the adoption in the school of adventurous didactic methods which proved unacceptable to many parents. The unfolding of the affair widened divisions within the authority, between the authority and the teachers, between radical and traditional teachers, between teachers and managers, between teachers and parents, between different groups of parents and between the ILEA and the Borough of Islington. The Tyndale controversy was thus very complex, but its outcome is relatively straightforward: the apparent failure of 'progressive' methods in one London school prompted the adoption nationally of a more interventionist approach to methods and standards by central government and, in the process, a diminution of the autonomy of LEAs.