“The school career of the child as a unity”: John Newsom’s involvement with the BBC, 1934–1971

Abstract

This article examines John Newsom’s contributions to non-fiction BBC radio and television coverage of education, poverty, and social disadvantage from 1934 to 1971. The correspondence and scripts concerning his BBC broadcasts for a domestic UK-based audience and an overseas audience are used as source material. Newsom is well known among educational historians as Chief Education Officer for Hertfordshire (1940−1957) and the chair of the Central Advisory Council for Education, which compiled the Newsom Report in 1963. He is associated with the aesthetic and cultural experience of pupils in the physical environment of their schools, rather than with the use of words and sound broadcast to encourage reflection amongst adult listeners on the experience of an educated nation. Newsom’s role in shaping the discussion of education on the airwaves and on screen has been excluded as a significant sphere for researchers. Broadcasting was the space in which Newsom and many other education officers and head teachers spoke most directly to the public and beyond their local realms of responsibility. This article argues that in some of his forays into broadcasting, Newsom was introduced as a stabilising influence on programmes with a subject matter, which it was feared, may have the potential to become too radical. From World War II onwards he acted as an advisor, an editor, and author of scripts and sometimes a chair or a participant in broadcast discussion on the subjects of education, democracy, and the unfolding of the 1944 Education Act. The article explores how despite many colleagues at the BBC being unimpressed with Newsom as a broadcaster, he maintained a sustained involvement in programmes for more than 30 years. The article identifies sensitive issues where Newsom’s choices were occasionally curtailed.