Catalogue description Board of Education: Elementary Education, Premises Survey Files

By counties (including Part III Authorities) and county borough order in England and Wales.

As a result of an announcement made by the President of the Board of Education in the House of Commons in December 1924 of the intention of carrying out an investigation into the condition of rural school buildings and the subsequent issue of Memorandum to Inspectors E.271 on the 16th January 1925, a list of public elementary schools with defective premises was compiled.

The 'Black List', as it became known, was the product of a survey throughout the country carried out by H.M. Inspectors. This was not the first time that attempts had been made to cause Local Education Authorities to remedy defects in public elementary schools in their areas.

In the 1925 List, schools were arranged into three categories. In Category A were placed the worst cases. It contained schools whose premises appeared to the board on the information before them unsuitable for continued recognition and prima facie, incapable of improvement.

In Category B were entered schools which ought not, in the board's view, to continue to be recognised in their existing condition but which might possibly be made suitable by considerable expenditure for the same or reduced numbers.

Category C contained schools which, though in the board's view unsuitable for their present recognised accommodation might not be unsuitable for much smaller numbers.

The lists when compiled were forwarded to Local Education Authorities, with copies for the managers of voluntary schools, where applicable, for their consideration and remedial action. Not all schools in which serious defects existed were included, only cases in which continued recognition was in doubt.

In Circular 1358 of 31 March 1925, authorities were asked to consider the more immediate needs of their areas in all grades of education and to formulate programmes of action covering a definite period. They were required to take cases of defective premises into account and confer with the Board, either directly or through H.M. Inspectors, in formulating their schemes for the gradual and systematic improvement of educational facilities in their areas. Local Education Authorities had already been asked in Circular 1325 of the 22nd February, 1924 to make a determined effort to reduce the size of very large classes.