Catalogue description Records of the Secondary Branch and predecessors

In 1895 the Bryce Commission on Secondary Education recommended the establishment of a single central authority to deal with all aspects of education, as such control as the state exercised over non-elementary education was shared between the Charity Commissioners (in respect of endowed schools), the Education Department (which gave aid to the higher elementary schools and also supported some evening classes and day continuation schools), and the Science and Art Department (which administered grants to science and technical schools and various types of art classes). It was not until the turn of the century that any action was taken on this recommendation. In 1901 the legality of School Board (and by implication Education Department) support for non-technical instruction was disallowed by the Court of Appeal in the Cockerton Judgement which made some form of amending legislation a pressing necessity. An Act was duly passed to regularise the position of school boards pending a thorough reorganisation of the educational system. The 1902 Education Act required the newly formed local education authorities to "consider the educational needs of their area and to take such steps as seem to them desirable to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary."

The Secondary Branch was set up in 1903, taking over responsibility for secondary education (being all education given in secondary schools as defined by the 1904 code of regulations for secondary schools) from the Technical Branch.

The 1902 Act did not make the provision of secondary education compulsory. However, the introduction of the 'free place' system in 1907, coupled with increased powers enabling local education authorities to buy land for school building encouraged the growth of secondary education in the years before the First World War. Selection on merit, already established in certain grammar schools, became more widespread. On the initiative of certain local authorities, central schools were established in some urban areas before the First World War. These absorbed the existing higher elementary schools, catering largely for those pupils considered below the standard for grammar school entry. Later they became known as senior schools.

The 1918 Education Act made the provision of secondary education mandatory upon local education authorities and recognised senior schools as serving this purpose. The requirements of the 1918 Act were supplemented by the recommendations of the Committee on the Education of the Adolescent in its report of 1926 (the Hadow Report). This recommended the division of education at the age of eleven between primary and secondary schools, the latter being sub-divided into 'grammar' and 'modern' schools. On this basis universal secondary education was to be provided according to each child's ability and requirements.

Progress in implementing both the 1918 Act and the recommendations of the Hadow Report was severely curtailed by restrictions in public expenditure during the 1920s and 1930s, but in 1925 local authorities were asked to submit development schemes to the Board of Education for the three year period beginning in April 1927. In 1929 a special 50% grant was introduced to speed up implementation of the Hadow Report by encouraging new building. In the same year a decision was taken to implement another Hadow recommendation, that the minimum school leaving age be raised to 15 years, but the renewed financial crisis in 1931 forced the Board to withdraw financial assistance and postpone its plans. The 1936 Education Act reintroduced financial assistance and planned to raise the leaving age to 15 years in 1939, but the outbreak of war prevented the carrying out of this provision.

Under the reorganisation which followed the 1944 Education Act, the Secondary Branch's functions passed to the newly formed Schools Branch.