SPECIAL REPORT OF H.M'S INSPECTORS
AS TO
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
IN
THE ISLE OF MAN.

Correspondance

ISLE OF MAN, Education Department, 25 October, 1880,

A.G.N

Sir,—

Adverting to your request to this Department to be furnished with a special report upon the elementary schools in the Island visited by H.M. Inspector, I have the honour to enclose to you copies of a letter from Mr. Oakeley and of a report which has been drawn up under his general directions,

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

(Signed) F. R. SANDFORD.

to Sir H. B. Loch, K.C.B., Isle of Man.

October 6, 1880.

Some months ago, you forwarded to me a letter from Sir H. Loch, K.C.B., Governor of the Isle of Man, who asked if a special report on the schools might be made this year.

I willingly agreed to do so; and my colleague, Mr. Davies, with my two assistants, Mr. Kay and Mr. Lovett, took special notes after the annual examination of each school during June and July, 1880, in order that a full report might be made. I have the honour to enclose this report, and, as it exactly corresponds with my own experience and with the report I myself made last year, I will merely forward it without further observation.

I have the honour to be, &c.,

(Signed) H. E. OAKELEY, H.M. Senior Inspector.

The Secretary, Education Department.

Report

Dear Mr Oakeley, -

In submitting to you my report on the schools in the Isle of Man inspected in the year 1880, I shall direct your attention in the first place to the Tables A, B, and C on the annexed sheet. I shall then add some remarks on the premises, discipline, registers, attainments, &c.

In Table A you will see compared the number on the books of each school and the number in average attendance for the years 1878-9 and 1879-80. You will observe that the numbers on the books have increased by 264, and the average attendance by 541.5. The additional numbers on the books are small when it is seen that 173 of the children are on the books of one school: Douglas Board School. The increase in average attendance is a better sign, though you will notice that even now only two-thirds of those on the books are in average attendance.

Table B shows side by side the numbers examined in the standards by us for the years 1878-9 and 1879 80 and numbers per cent, that passed in those years, Though the percentage of passes is not a fair ground for comparison of different schools, yet for the same school which has presumably worked under similar conditions during the two years, it forms a test of considerable value. I regret, to record that at more than half the schools the percentage of passes is smaller this year than last, while at hardly one quarter of the schools has it perceptibly improved.

Table C shows—

(a) The number of meetings of the school in the year 1879-80 ; [a meeting = a morning or an afternoon session]
(b) The number of scholars who have attended 400 and more times in that year ;
(c) The number of scholars examined (i.e., on the schedule for examination, whether present or not) who have made less than 300 attendances ; (d) The number of scholars on the schedules for examination.

This Table, then, shows regularity of attendance, Under this head, one school deserves special praise — Peel National Boys' School. Here the school has been open 435 times, and 90 boys out of 175 on the examination schedule have made at least 400 attendances. On the other hand, there are eight Schools at which more than half the children on the schedule had made less than 300 attendances.

PREMISES.

During the year, good school buildings have been erected at Sulby by the Lezayre School Committee Good ones are also in course of erection at Port St. Mary to replace the present wretched premises.

The buildings and interior of Douglas Thomas-street Wesleyan Schools have been greatly improved.

At St. Thomas's, Douglas, I found the accommodation for the infants wholly insufficient ; but the managers seemed ready and anxious to remedy this defect by building an infant school. There is certainly a want of good infant schools in Douglas, and generally jn the Island. The wretched premises in which the infants of St. Barnabas' Schools were taught have been given up, and the children dispersed. The room in which the infants at the Douglas Board School are being taught is unsuitable, and can only be temporarily recognised by the Department.

While speaking of school buildings, one cannot help noticing the unsuitable character of two important Douglas schools — Athol-street and St. Barnabas' The four departments in these two schools have not a single class-room between them. At the former school the offices [i.e. toilets] are of an exceedingly primitive character, and at the latter they are situated in such a way that, whenever they are cleaned, their contents must necessarily be carried through the schoolroom. The arrangements at both schools would not be tolerated by a sanitary inspector in England. Our frequent complaints as to the cleanliness of some of the country schools have produced a considerable improvement. At some, however (for instance, Dalby), things are still unsatisfactory.

DISCIPLINE.

The children in the Manx Schools well behaved, and, as a rule, under good discipline. The Douglas schools and children are the least satisfactory in these respects.

REGISTERS.

With few exceptions we found the registers of thee past year duly kept, as far as one could judge of them at the end of the year. How important this last qualification is may be judged from the following facts. Two schools were visited by Mr. Kay in July (two or three weeks after their examination) for the purpose of getting some statistics. In one (Douglas St. George's Infant School), the class registers had not been closed during the new year, then about six weeks old. In the other (Douglas St. Barnabas' Boy's School), some of the class registers had not been closed for two days. Here he found that some of the class registers showed a holiday on a certain Tuesday, while the rest showed the school had been open on this day, but closed on the Monday of the same week.

A candidate or monitor had charge of at least one Class register, and was allowed to mark it, although regulations of the Education Department forbid this. It will be interesting to see next year how these two teachers answer, in Form IX., the question "Have the class registers been invariably marked and closed,&c., &c.

Some visits without notice would do much good, and there ought to be no difficulty in frequently visiting at least the Douglas schools; and, as Douglas contains more than one-fourth of the population of the Island, there would thus be a check over the register of attendances of a considerable portion of the children.

ATTAINMENTS.

I am sorry to say that I cannot report any great improvement under this head; and in this opinion both the assistants agree with me. In primary subjects the weakest point, as heretofore, is arithmetic, and next to it reading. The reading in a large number of the schools is but indifferently taught. The children are not taught to read clearly and distinctly. They are naturally shy and reserved, and hence this is the one point to which the teachers should particularly attend; but, as a rule, I find the reading lessons in the lower standards largely left to young pupil-teachers, and hence the poor results. Grammar and geography were taken as additional subjects at almost all the schools; but of the 28 departments which I myself examined this year only five passed well in grammar and only three in geography.

Specific subjects were taken in very few departments, not counting those where only two or three scholars were presented in them. I only inspected one school this year at which I thought the more elementary subjects good enough to warrant the teaching of specific subjects — namely, Peel National School. Even in this good school, the children in Standard IV. did very little good in the subjects attempted.

In attempting to account for the unsatisfactory state of the attainments in the Manx schools, the first guestion which suggests is, "Are the masters and mistresses, as a body, in fault?" No doubt there are in the Island, as everywhere else, a few unsatisfactory teachers ; but not more, I think, than in any other part of our district. Nor do I think that the Manx children are naturally inferior in power and intelligence to English children. Mr. Kay reminds me that two of the best girls' schools in our district (Greenheys Ch. Ch. Board School, and St. Margaret's, Whalley Range) are now taught by mistresses who were Scholars and afterwards pupil-teachers in Man. A very good boys' school also (St. George's, Hulme) is under an old Manx scholar.

Three causes have, in my opinion, produced the present unsatisfactory state of things :—

1. Irregular attendance ;
2. Weakness of teaching staff
3. Want of good infant training.

1 Irregular Attendance.— Ample evidence of this will be found in Tables A and C, subjoined, for this evil the local School Committees are to blame. On all hands we heard the same complaint about these Committees — that they are doing little, or more often nothing, to secure attendance at schools. I will quote an instance of the working of one of the Committees. At Kirk German (St.Johns), the schoolmaster stated that his registers of the past year had never once been examined by the school Committee or their clerk; that not a single inquiry had been made by them during the year to the attendance of children at school, and that the clerk had signed the examination schedules without examining the registers to verify a single return. This is gross case; but I fear there are many of these bodies who are doing very little more. After your report for 1878-9 became known in the Island, the Rushen School Committee drove into Rushen Boys' School some 50 children who had not previously been at school; but when the discussion in Tynwald Court showed no immediate action was likely to take place on your recomendations, the attendance soon settled down to its old level, and the Committee to its old ways. The only remedy that I can see for this state of things is that put forward in your report above mentioned. I need not say how entirely I agree with you on every point advanced there; but it will interest you to know that I talked the matter over with very many teachers and several school managers, and one and all were agreed that it was the best and only thing to be done In speaking of the School Committees thus strongly, I must not omit to mention in exception the energetic action of Mr. Christopher, until recently the clerk, rate collector, and enforcing officer to the School Committee of Douglas. At all the Douglas schools testimony was given to the way in which he had performed his duties in connection with the attendance when his other duties allowed him, and, as substantial proof of his work, 988 children were examined by us in Douglas this year against 787 in 1879. This increase is mainly accounted for by the increase of numbers at the Board Schools; but I found that the average attendance at each school in the town had increased, with the the exception of St. Barnabas' Girls' School.

2. I pass to the second cause of the unsatisfactory state of things in Man — weakness of teaching staff. I will quote an instance. At Marown Board School there were two small classes of infants and children in all of the six standards. What is the teaching staff? One master, without help of any kind. The average attendance was under 60, and the Committee had up to that time refused to allow the master the assistance even of a monitor. This is one instance out of many of the difficulties against which Manx teachers hare to contend.

3. Want of good infant training is the third cause. As you remarked in your report last year, the infant schools in the Island are badly off as regards buildings and there are too few of them. I have elsewhere said that there is a want of this kind in Douglas. But it is in the country schools where the want of good infant training is most felt. The infants in the mixed country schools are very few, and, as a rule, very poorly taught. Of course, the distance to the schools is a great difficulty ; still, much more might be done in this direction. Thus it struck me that there might be an infant school in a central position in Laxey as a feeder for the Laxey Glen National Schools, Lonan South Cape, and Ballagawne Board Schools; and again one in Port St. Mary, to feed Port St. Mary Boys', Rushen Boys' and Girls' School.

I have discussed in some detail the three causes which are keeping back the Education of the Isle of Man; They may all, it appears to me, be traced to the unsuitable constitution, the inertness, and the parsimony of the School Committees.

Yours very truly,

(Signed) J. H. DAVIES.

At the Schools matrked * more than half the children on the Schedule had made less than 300 attendances.