Circular 849 Examinations in Secondary Schools (1914)

A Circular setting out the Board's proposals for school examinations at 16 and 18.

The text of Circular 849 Examinations in Secondary Schools was prepared by Derek Gillard and uploaded on 8 December 2025.

I am grateful to Paul Newton, who found this Circular and sent photographs of the pages from which this text was created.

London: His Majesty's Stationery Office 1914
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Circular 849.

Circular to Local Education Authorities
and Secondary Schools.

Letters should be addressed -
  "The Secretary,
    Board of Education,
      Whitehall,
        London, S.W."

and should show the complete postal
address and designation of the writer.

BOARD OF EDUCATION,    
WHITEHALL, LONDON, S.W.  
July 1914

In December 1911 the Board published the Report of their Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools, and in 1912 they addressed to each of the English Universities a letter in which they invited those Bodies, in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee, to confer with them on the subject. This letter contained the outline of a scheme prepared by the Board as a basis for discussion and in its main features framed upon the principles laid down in the Committee's Report.

The invitation was cordially accepted, and during the year 1913 the Board have conferred on the subject with all the English Universities or the Examining Bodies representing them. They have, further, explained the general nature of their proposals to representatives of Associations representing the Local Education Authorities and Secondary School Teachers.

These conferences have resulted in an amount of agreement sufficient to satisfy the Board that the time has now come to give publicity to their proposals and to invite criticism and suggestions upon them from Local Education Authorities and other bodies and persons responsible for the management of Secondary Schools, or interested from various points of view in the question of School examinations. It is the desire of the Board to give full opportunity for the consideration and discussion of these proposals before any step is taken to bring them into operation in those Schools over which the Board exercise control by their grants or otherwise; but, in view of the time required to work out the details of so large a scheme, they will be glad to receive suggestions at an early date.

The proposals of the Board are as follows:-

(i) After 1st August 19__ the Governing Body of every School recognised for grants under the Secondary School Regulations will be required to submit for the approval of the Board proposals for the annual examination of the School by one of the University Examining Bodies recognised by the Board for the purpose. It is not necessary that all the Schools on one foundation or under one Authority should have the same Examining Body, and in some Schools it may even be desirable to have different Examining Bodies for different "sides" or portions of the School.

The examinations to be taken by the Schools recognised for grants will be open on the same terms and conditions to all those Schools which, after inspection, are placed on the Board's list of Efficient Secondary Schools. The conditions on which pupils not in any recognised Efficient Secondary School will be admitted to the examinations are explained below (sections viii. and xiv.).

(ii) The examinations to be conducted by the recognised University Examining Bodies with the approval of the Board will be of two grades. The first will be suitable for Forms in which the average age of the pupils ranges from about 16 years to, say, 16 years 8 months. This will be a Fifth Form examination. The second will be a Sixth Form examination, designed for those who have continued their studies for about two years after the stage marked by the first examination. In the case of girls, the age limit may be liberally extended, but in all other respects the Board's proposals for the examinations apply to girls and boys equally.

[page 2]

(iii) The first examination will be designed to test the results of the course of general education before the pupil begins such a degree of specialisation as is suitable for Secondary Schools. It will correspond very closely in its scope to the present School Certificate examinations of the English Universities, and will be based on the general conception of the Secondary School course up to this stage which underlies the Board's regulations and is set out in their recent Memorandum on Curricula of Secondary Schools. That is to say, the subjects for examination will be treated as falling into three main groups, (i) English subjects, (ii) languages, (iii) science and mathematics; and the candidate will be expected to show a reasonable amount of attainment in each of these groups, and will be judged by this test rather than by his power to pass in a prescribed number of specified subjects.

(iv) The standard for a pass will be such as may be expected of pupils of reasonable industry and ordinary intelligence in an efficient Secondary School. The Form and not the pupil will be the unit for examination, and it is contemplated that a large proportion of the pupils in the Form should be able to satisfy the test. It is therefore proposed that, as is the case in most of the existing examinations, the conditions for attaining a simple pass shall be somewhat easier than those required of candidates in order that the certificate shall be accepted for the purpose of matriculation.

(v) If the examination is conducted on the principle of easy papers and a high standard of marking, the difference between the standard for a simple pass and that required for matriculation purposes will not be so great as to prevent the same examination being made to serve, as the present School examinations do, both purposes; and with this object a mark of credit will be assigned to those candidates who, in any specific subject or subjects, attain a standard which would be appreciably higher than that required for a simple pass. The Board hope that the re-organisation of the School examinations will facilitate the organisation of the conditions of admission to the Universities and the Professions. But it is no part of their plan to lay down conditions of such admission, and it will be for the Universities and the Professions, on a consideration of the new examination, to say on what terms they will accept the passing of the examination as exempting the pupils from their ordinary tests for admission.

(vi) In addition to the three main groups of subjects which form the general course in Secondary Schools, there is a fourth group, including Music, Drawing, Manual Work, and Housecraft. These subjects are not, in the same way as the others, capable of being tested by a written examination. It is not, therefore, proposed to require that candidates shall be tested in this group, but every facility will be given to Examining Bodies to offer examination in any subject in this category, and it is contemplated that special Examining Bodies may be approved for the purpose. Success in any such examinations might be endorsed on any certificate awarded to those who are successful in the main examination. These subjects in all Schools connected with the board are receiving an increasing amount of attention by means of inspection, and as several of them have only recently been taken up seriously in Secondary Schools it seems undesirable to make any more definite provision for examination in them until more experience has been gained.

All Schools which claim to be recognised as efficient Secondary Schools should be able to present a whole Form for the first examination.

(vii) The second examination will be based on the view that the School course should, in these two years, provide for more concentrated study of a connected group of subjects combined with the study of one or more subsidiary subjects from outside the group. The main groups, as

[page 3]

suggested in the Board's recent Memorandum on Curricula of Secondary Schools, will probably be -

(a) Classics and Ancient History.
(b) Modern Humanistic Studies.
(c) Science and Mathematics.

Only those Schools will be able to take the second examination which retain some of their pupils long enough to take an organised course extending over about two years beyond the stage marked by the first examination.

(viii) The two examinations referred to are designed for the use of Schools which reach the standard of efficiency required by the Board for admission to their list of Efficient Secondary Schools, but they will be accessible to all candidates under 19 years of age, whatever their previous education may have been.

(ix) It is proposed to bring Teachers into touch with the Examining Bodies in the following ways:-

(a) Either by representation on the Examining Body, or by some regular system of consultation.

(b) By giving them the right to submit their own syllabuses for examination. This provision is suggested mainly for the benefit of Schools with rather special aims or doing work of an experimental character; but it should also be useful when the syllabus of examination includes special books or periods.

(c) By requiring Headmasters and Headmistresses to submit, together with the list of candidates from their School, an estimate of the relative merits of those candidates in each of the subjects offered by them for examination. The estimate will be taken into account by the Examining Body in doubtful cases for the purpose of the award of certificates.

(x) The large number of the proposed Examining Bodies makes it necessary to provide a co-ordinating authority to determine the minimum standard for a "pass" in each examination, and to secure that the standards adopted by the various Examining Bodies are substantially equivalent. The Board's plan, as has already been stated, does not interfere with the power of the Universities or Professions to prescribe their own conditions for admission; but it is essential that these Bodies, if they are willing to adopt the scheme at all, should agree to accept as final the verdict of any approved Examining Body that a definite standard has been attained. Among its further functions, the coordinating authority will see that the charges for examination are kept fairly even; it will discuss special difficulties with particular Examining Bodies, and promote conferences of the Examining Bodies as occasion arises; it will hear complaints with regard to the standards of examination; and it will negotiate with Universities and Professional Bodies with regard to the conditions on which certificates can be accepted for various purposes.

(xi) It is proposed that the Board of Education shall undertake these functions and responsibilities after report from, and with the assistance of, an advisory Committee composed of a representative of each approved Examining Body and of Local Education Authorities and the Teachers' Registration Council.

[page 4]

(xii) A successful candidate, who (a) is a pupil of a School on the Board's list of Efficient Secondary Schools, and (b) has, either before or after the examination, completed a course of three years in one of the Schools (or the equivalent in more than one such School), and (c) has remained at School up to the age of 16 at least, will receive a certificate stating that he has satisfied the examiners, and naming the subjects in which he has passed with credit. The certificate will also show the name of the School from which the candidate was presented, the length of his School life, and the general character of the course he has followed, and, further, that he was submitted for examination from a School found to be efficient on an inspection by the Board embracing all its activities, and that the examination taken was specially approved by the Board as suitable for that particular School. The Examining Body may also arrange to include in this certificate evidence of proficiency in parts of the School course not submitted for examination, e.g., Music, Manual work.

(xiii) A successful candidate who is a pupil of a School on the Board's list of Efficient Secondary Schools, but has not completed a course of three years in one of the Schools or the equivalent in more than one School, or has not remained at School up to the age of 16 at least, will receive a certificate stating that he has satisfied the examiners, and naming the subjects in which he has passed with credit.

(xiv) A successful candidate who is not a pupil of a School on the Board's list of Efficient Secondary Schools will receive a certificate stating that he has satisfied the examiners, and naming the subjects in which he has passed with credit.

(xv) A certificate of success in the examinations will not be issued in any case before the candidate attains the age of 16 years. In the case of a pupil of a School on the Board's list of Efficient Secondary Schools, moreover, the certificate will not be issued until the pupil leaves School.

(xvi) After 1st August 19__ no School recognised for grants under the Board's Regulations for Secondary Schools will be allowed to take the Preliminary Examination of the Oxford Local Examination Delegacy and Cambridge Local Examination Syndicate. From the same date the Board will reserve the right to prohibit any such School from taking the Junior Examination of those Bodies or the Junior Certificate Examination of any other University Examining Body.

(xvii) Subject as above, no School recognised for grants will be allowed to modify its organisation or curriculum, or that of any particular Form, for the purpose of preparing any pupils or Form for any examination which is not approved by the Board.

(xviii) Arrangements will he made for the closest co-operation between H.M. Inspectors and both the Examining Bodies and the Advisory Committee for Co-Ordination. The reports of inspection will always be available for the information of the Committee, and each Examining Body will receive as a matter of course the inspection reports of the Schools for which its examination has been approved.

The requirement that a School recognised for grants under the Regulations for Secondary Schools shall arrange for the annual examination of a portion of its pupils involves additional expenditure, and this aspect of the Board's proposals is receiving consideration. If these proposals are agreed to in their main features, financial aid will be forthcoming, but the exact extent of the aid and the conditions on which it will be given cannot be determined until the scheme has been more fully matured.