William Tyndale affair

The William Tyndale affair was a controversy in British education arising from the introduction in 1974–75 of radically progressive methods at the William Tyndale Junior School in the London Borough of Islington. After parent protests and the publication in 1976 of a report commissioned by the Inner London Education Authority, the affair led to an increase in government authority over education in England and Wales and a reduction in the autonomy of the local education authorities.

In January 1974, Terry Ellis was appointed headmaster of the William Tyndale Junior School, located in Islington between the gentrified area of Canonbury Square and several large council estates. He and deputy head Brian Haddow instituted a radical child-centred system, the 'integrated day', under which the school day was divided into alternating 'open' and 'closed' one-hour periods, with pupils free to choose what they did in the open periods. They had great freedom and access to all parts of the school, "even the staff common room and lavatories". Ellis responded to parents' concerns that children were being allowed to roam the streets: "What do you expect me to do? Make the school into a concentration camp to keep your children in?" Ellis and his colleagues went beyond traditional progressive education of the period as recommended in the Plowden Report, which they saw as chiefly benefitting better-off children whose parents could help them with their work; rather, in Ellis's words Tyndale "geared its main educational effort towards the disadvantaged." Frank Musgrove, a professor of education, has described the Tyndale experiment as "implement[ing] a fair selection of sociologically inspired cliches in the repertoire of advanced diploma courses for serving teachers." A cloakroom was converted into a 'sanctuary' for disturbed children with a special teacher, and to provide all the children with an outlet for their own skills, a steel band was organised which practised as much as eight hours a week. Severe disciplinary problems arose that the staff were unable to solve, including gambling away of lunch money, fire-starting and throwing full milk bottles into the infants' playground from the roof of the toilets.

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