TEACHERS LEARNING IN A LONDON SCHOOL: AUTONOMY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1950S

In the first two decades after the war L1 teachers in an ‘experimental’ London ‘comprehensive’ school (11-18) devised a common English curriculum and pedagogy for the entire ability range of students. In the absence of official support the teachers acted as a self-constituted professional learning community, engaged equally in developing school practice and participating in the optimistic politics and culture of post-war Britain. The article describes both the innovatory work in classrooms and the teachers’ learn-ing experiences and offers an argument of potential relevance today, drawing on a research project gathering a rich range of data that include oral history interviews with former teachers and students and documentary evidence.The account focuses on one aspect of English: the relationship between spoken and written language. It follows a succession of teachers who discovered new ways of exploiting that relationship in the class-room while collaborating in a new professional association not only with other teachers but with univer-sity colleagues involved in theoretical work on language development and students' learning. I argue that what powered the teachers’ innovatory energy was their belief in education as a political project and their commitment to collaboration and professional autonomy.