Catalogue description Ministry of Education: HM Inspectorate: Central Panel Minutes and Papers

Chronological.

The panel system as reconstituted in 1945 comprised about 80 panels and sub-panels on individual subjects of the curriculum and various phases and aspects of the education system.

Broadly, the purpose of the panels was to collect and focus the opinion and experience of inspectors and to consider and initiate methods of securing future progress and development in the various fields of education.

The panel system was headed by a Central Panel comprising the Senior Chief Inspector and the Chief Inspectors, together with two senior ministry representatives; an additional inspector was appointed as secretary. It was charged with the duty of co-ordinating and stimulating the activities of the subject panels and for maintaining a close link with the Information and External Relations Branch.

Panels (including sub-panels, as necessary) were of two types; those representing phases of aspects of education and those representing subjects of the curriculum, identified as A and B panels respectively. Membership generally was of the order of 8-10 members, all of whom had a special interest in the subject dealt with.

• The main functions of the panels were:
• to study and initiate new thinking, practical educational developments and research;
• to collect, evaluate and distribute relevant information, both inside and outside the Inspectorate;
• to organise in-service training programmes for teachers and to produce pamphlets and other publications; and
• to advise the Ministry as necessary.

Most panel met three times per year, except for a period between 1951 and 1954 when, for reasons of economy, one meeting annually was the norm.

By 1947 the panels' functions had broadened to include, inter alia, matters connected with book reviews, BBC and UNESCO activities and visual aids in education.

By 1967 changes in the organisation of both the ministry and the Inspectorate had left the panel exercising little more than the functions of a publications committee. The panel was therefore discontinued and its residual functions taken over by a new Publications Committee.