ETAWA History

The First Ten Years

by Rod Corby

Some notes before you read on.

Classes in Western Australian Secondary Schools were for many years named First through Fifth Year. External examinations were set at the end of Third Year when most students were 15 years old-the Junior Certificate-and Fifth Year, the Leaving Certificate. Secondary classes are now named Years 8-10 (lower school) and years 11-12 (upper school). In 1969 the Junior Certificate was replaced by the Achievement Certificate. The Leaving Certificate was phased out but has in reality merely undergone several name changes. The abbreviation EDWA is used for the various incarnations of the government department/ministry responsible for the state education system. A Curriculum is the range of courses offered at a school. The Syllabus is the outline of a particular course showing topics to be covered and the teaching plan. Original punctuation in quoted extracts. Thispaper is a social history. It is not a history of education in Western Australia; nor does it detail educational theories discussed in the decade covered. Footnotes and references are not included in this version.

Scope of this article

During the 1960s and 70s there were major changes to secondary education in Western Australia. English has probably been the subject most affected by those changes, and the process continues today. Up to the decade covered by this paper (1964-74), English had always been the one compulsory subject in public examinations, yet it was regarded in most schools as a non-specialist subject able to be taught by anyone. This view is enjoying a resurgance in Vocational Education and in some cross-curricular college where teachers teach a range of subjects--similar to primary schools. The English Teachers Association of WA (ETA) was formed in 1964 to advance English as a subject and to assist teachers with their professional development, eventually becoming one of the largest teacher professional associations in Western Australia. This article outlines the formation and the first ten years of the ETA. It also outlines the changing situation in many aspects of secondary education in Western Australian in the 1960s and 1970s. For English teachers, those changes included splitting English into two or three subjects and the change from external public examinations to progressive assessment.

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The state schools in the early 1960s

The changes to secondary education and the foundation of the ETA need to be placed within the context of the system which had been virtually static for decades. Little of significance had changed in Western Australian schools between the First World War and the early 1960s. Post-1945 immigration and the high post-war birth rate meant that by the early 1960s many large high schools were being built in Perth's growing suburbs, but there was little change to the teaching activity within those schools. Students used some texts that were familiar to their parents. The main change was in the percentage of students remaining at school longer. After the Second World War, the WA government desired universal secondary schooling to at least year 10 and the opportunity for any student who qualified to continue to year 12. As part of that process, the Director-General of Education, Dr TL Robertson (1950-1966), put all state high schools on to the same level. Rather than having 'ordinary' high schools and a few 'elite' schools, every state secondary school offered the same subject choices so the possibilities for innovation were limited. Students could readily transfer between schools but that benefit meant systemic inflexibility until Dr David Mossenson, Director of Secondary Education in EDWA, decreed that all state high schools did not need to offer the same choice. Core subjects were essential offerings but specialisation was allowed. From 1968 some schools began to specialise music and art. Most students in the 1950s and into the 1960s left school in the year they turned 15. Only a small number continued to Fourth year and the Leaving Certificate. A tiny percentage of those who started Year 8 went on to University, teacher training college, or into one of the public services. Between 1957 and 1963, the number of examination candidates increased from 7566 to 16138 so the University commissioned Dr JA Petch to review the examination system. His report is dealt with later.

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Examinations and University Entrance

The body established by UWA to set the examinations was the Public Examinations Board (PEB). It included representatives from the University of Western Australia-then the only university in the state-the Education Department, and independent secondary schools. The perception, detailed in a speech in the state Parliament, was that the University controlled the destinies of the PEB. The examinations were, however, largely controlled by the University's Professorial Board which set the requirements for entrance to the University-matriculation. After the formation of the University of Western Australia (UWA) in 1913, the, Leaving Certificate examinations were commenced in 1914 with a primary objective of screening applicants for the University. Until that link between university entrance requirements and success in the Leaving Certificate was broken, the university in effect controlled the Public Examinations Board. Subjects which the university did not recognise for matriculation were 'wasted' study. Subjects which the university required were compulsory. An alternative would have been for UWA to conduct its own entrance examinations. If that had been the case, curriculum reform could have happened earlier and caused less upset and confusion. In 1997 that policy was beginning to receive more serious consideration. It is worth reviewing the early requirements for university entrance because variations of the requirements lasted into the 1970s. Leaving Certificate candidates in 1914 required passes in five subjects: English; Mathematics; a language, and two other subjects. Only English and one other subject needed to be passed at Leaving level; the other three could generally be at the Junior level. The mythology of university being harder in 'the good old days' may not be true! The University controlled the public examinations and the University's English Department controlled the university entrances. No matter what study course intending university students pursued, they first had to pass Leaving English, so the English Department effectively determined which students could enter the university. Other faculties could screen candidates for their courses but they did not determine whether they entered the university in the first place. That control by the University's English Department remained unchanged for decades. Even when the children of the post-1945 influx of migrants from non-English speaking countries were in their final years of school, English still had to be passed at Leaving level for University entrance. Some exceptions were made for outstanding students, but it was a 'back door' entry. The debate continues over whether English should be a compulsory subject to qualify for University entrance.

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School Inspectors

One barrier to innovation in state schools was the inspectorial system. Theoretically, each teacher was subject to an annual inspection and reporting. This system encouraged teachers to slant workbooks and classroom exercises towards pleasing the inspector. Teachers who played the game received good marks; those who resorted to ruses scored more highly than their more honest colleagues. One person interviewed spoke of a teacher who used a spirit duplicator to produce faint outlines of work which students traced over for their work books. Inspectors failed to notice that all of the class had produced identical, neat work and the teacher received a good report. Other teachers in the school were sharply questioned as to why they could not produce the same quality in their classes. A teacher's mark was a combination of their qualifications, experience, and a teaching mark given by the inspector. Class control was a critical factor in that mark. The score was a factor in promotions. The mark was out of 90, which nobody ever received, although a teacher given an 89 knew they had been designated as outstanding and were clearly destined for greater things. Bob Biggins, former Superintendent of English in EDWA (1964-74), believes that under this system there was no incentive for teachers to share good ideas with other teachers who were competitors for a good inspectorial rating. There were no routine meetings of English teachers as now happens within English Departments; if they happened in some schools it was because of the individuals in the school, not because of any requirement. Even the establishment of subject departments in larger schools did not encourage greater communication between teachers. Opportunities for consultation between teachers, planning by the group, discussion of procedures, and assistance to younger teachers were negligible. Biggins believes that if good ideas were moved from place to place the process happened 'by the chance movements of staff from school to school'. He believed that one of his main roles was the cross-fertilisation of good ideas and practices so as he travelled around schools he carried samples of students' work and innovative teaching methods. There was little sense of collegiality because teachers were competitors not colleagues and there was little acceptance of the responsibility of more experienced and senior teachers to assist younger teachers. Some senior teachers were unwilling to offer suggestions to junior teachers and so appear 'better' in supposedly egaletarian Australia. Promotion to Senior Master/Mistress was seen as a reward for years of good reports and faithful service-a 'first among equals'. It was not considered by most appointees to be a leadership role. Teachers did not think of themselves as professionals; more as salaried staff. But fortunately for some young teachers and some students there were innovative and helpful teachers in the EDWA system. The inspectorial system was phased out in 1969 when it had become too cumbersome. The EDWA directive declared that 'Superintendents will be more concerned with the progress of the school as an educational institution and less concerned with the work of particular teachers. There were other limiting factors. English teachers did not have their own territory like the chemistry and physics teachers with their lab rooms, manual arts teachers with their workshop rooms, art teachers with their rooms, music teachers with their pianos in music rooms, and domestic science teachers with their kitchens. The teaching of English was not thought to need any particular place or space; classes could be held anywhere and be taught by almost anyone. Persons interviewed for this paper all agreed that the attitude was that 'Anyone can teach English.' No special expertise was thought necessary. English was regarded as merely ensuring literacy rather than being a subject worthy of study in its own right. So the strange situation existed in which the one compulsory subject was not worth a specialisation and in some ways was given the least standing in schools and taught by non-specialists. Another limiting factor was that the teacher training system encouraged trainee teachers to copy their own teachers. They were barely out of school as students before they were back again on practice teaching placements, frequently modeling their teaching on those who had successfully taught them. Hundreds of teachers were fed into the expanding school system but all that was being increased was numbers, not innovation. Although the EDWA superintendents knew the system was not working, much of their time was absorbed by administrative and inspectorial work, leaving little space for rethinking what schools were about and almost no opportunity for advisory work with new teachers. Superintendents had nine task areas in administration-from checking the school's supplies to developing headmasters, seven in their advisory work-from the youngest teacher to the principal, and four in the dreaded assessing area which included the classroom inspections.

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Non-Government School Teachers

Until the 1960s, teachers in independent schools had not necessarily received teacher training; they were more likely to have been employed on the strength of a university degree. Some also had a Diploma of Education. Some were ex-state system teachers. Some were recruited from overseas and the eastern states. There was not such a difference in facilities and equipment as there is now between the average independent and state high schools although state system teachers thought that at least some of the independent teachers felt superior to them. Independent schools welcomed EDWA's output of curriculum material. After the ETA's formation there was close cooperation between teachers from the state and private systems. In the mid 1960s, students from independent schools were winning more of the examination exhibitions despite there being fewer students in those schools than the EDWA schools. Probably their family background was a major factor in that success, rather than the schools. Bob Biggins asked EDWA superintendents to look out for bright students and take a special interest in them, a strategy which had an immediate effect in lifting the number of state school exhibitions.

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Public Examinations and the syllabus

The Public Examinations Board, chaired by a member of the UWA staff, set the Junior and Leaving Certificate English Examinations. There was no official curriculum for syllabuses for the different subjects. In theory, schools taught the subjects with their own syllabuses. In practice, schools modelled the courses on recent examinations so in all examined subjects at least the syllabus was determined by the examinations. Students and teachers were all captive of that situation. The curriculum was not merely shaped by the examinations; the examinations were, in effect, the curriculum. A subject area's syllabus was not so much the plans and reading texts for helping students learn as it was the way teachers strove to get as many students as possible through the public examinations. Public Examination results were a principal measure of the quality of schools and teachers. Good teachers taught their students to pass exams. 'Good teachers got lots of students through the exams'. Such an examination-oriented syllabus did not encourage innovation or effective teaching. Peter Gunning's distinguished career in English education was to make him an influential member of the Education Department's staff in the late 1960s and 1970s and a key member of the English Teachers Association of WA. He wrote the guidelines for teachers when the Junior Examination was being replaced by the Achievement Certificate. Perhaps his own experience of the value of public examinations encouraged him in his role in curriculum reform. He spoke of his own Junior Certificate preparation when his English teacher picked six likely questions and wrote the answers on the blackboard. The students dutifully copied and memorised those answers. Three or four times in the weeks leading up to the examinations, Peter and his classmates were set variations on the questions and required to write out the answers. This drilling also happened in other subjects. Peter received a very good mark in the examination and was judged to be a good student. His teachers were judged to be good teachers; nearly all of their students passed the examinations. The school had a high examination success rate and was therefore judged to be a good school. In the mid-1960s, Eric Carlin was teaching at Bunbury high school. He was becoming concerned about the 'text domination' of English courses. Course programming was a combination of literature, vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension exercises. At the beginning of each school year, teachers were allocated their classes and given their texts: a novel, anthologies of plays, poetry, and short stories, and an English course book containing exercises in grammar and vocabulary. Programming English courses was no more creative than reading the list of examination texts in the Manual of Public Examinations and obtaining course books to follow-usually the English text book by Roy Grace which set out 'correct' usage. The book list filtered down to years eight and nine, so those classes were also indirectly under the control of the examination system. Although a few Australian novels and short story anthologies were beginning to be included, the book list was largely of 'classic' books that 'should' be read rather than books that might encourage adolescents to continue reading quality literature after they left school. So students read books that were supposed to be good for them rather than books that might encourage an interest in literature. It was elitist enculturation that had clearly not worked for decades but that did not prevent the UWA English Department from persisting. Bob Biggins describes the effect of public examinations as developing a 'narrow and largely unchanging syllabus and examination papers encouraging expertise in formal and stereotyped teaching and presenting an obstacle to the spread of new ideas'. Peter Gunning considers that the Examination Boards, for both Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations, were completely dominated by UWA.

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Impetus to change

A few teachers began questioning the whole stultifying system. Was examination preparation all they were really supposed to be doing? They wondered what they were actually teaching their students-apart from how to sit examinations. Was that all there was to a teaching career? Thoughtful English teachers were particularly plagued by self-doubt. What was English for? Were they only teaching students to read and write sufficiently well for them to sit examinations in the 'real' subjects-Maths, Science, History, and Geography? Was their business literacy, or was it wider than that? 'English teachers at this time believed, with reason, that the importance of English language and literature in the total education of the student was not generally appreciated.' The dilemma was summed up in a book which was influential at the time. I repeat then, that subject matter has no value in and of itself. A boy or girl who has unwillingly memorised six points of the character of Macbeth or eight lines plus two similes from Wordsworth is no closer to a state of grace than one who has equally reluctantly memorised six quotations in physics or eight chemical formulae. Probably he (or she) is further away. For science teachers in a 1967 community seem less capable of inculcating an antipathy for science than are teachers of English of engendering a loathing for Milton and Browning and Eliot and Dickens and Slessor and Stewart Did English have a value in and of itself? For the teachers themselves, the answer was usually, Yes! But did the students experience English as having any inherent value? The answer was frequently, No! Was English merely another obstacle which reluctant adolescents had to overcome to gain one of the Certificates? For many of the students, the answer was, Yes! Professor Walter Murdoch, foundation Professor of English at UWA, had written an essay expressing the view that literature probably could not be taught, and that attempts to teach it only induced life-long loathing of the text-if not of literature in general. Another ineradicable belief of mine is that whether literature is a subject that should be taught or not, it is not a subject in which examinations should be held; and that our present examinations in English, inflicted on schoolboys and schoolgirls, will be looked upon a century or even, I hope, half a century hence as one of the most grotesque features of our misguided examination system. To ask boys and girls to describe the character of Ophelia, or to comment on an obscure passage in Macbeth or to describe the prose style of Sir Thomas Browne, or to name the principal sources of Paradise Lost is, first, to ask them for a knowledge which no boy or girl should be expected to possess; secondly, it is to compel them to study things in which no boy or girl does or ought to take a particle of interest; thirdly, it is to compel the good teacher to teach English in the way he knows it ought not to be taught; fourthly, it takes the surest possible way in making literature permanently distasteful to the victims of this kind of teaching. I possess one bookcase entirely filled with annotated editions of the great English classics, from Chaucer to Dickens, and even later authors-editions intended, all of them, for school use; and I never take down one of these volumes from the shelf and look through the notes without a mournful feeling creeping over me. 'Poor children!' I reflect and, if I have any sympathy to spare, I add, 'Poor unfortunate teachers!' Yet he did not change the system, or even the reading list, and his successors continued to sponsor the teaching methods so decried by the Professor. Did he try within the University and fail? Nobody interviewed mentioned his support for reform of the system he decries. The poor children and the poor, unfortunate teachers had many mournful years to endure yet. Eric Carlin was beginning to see English as being more than a tool to express ideas. Studying literature was all well and good, but what about the student? He was coming to some understandings about the interaction between the texts and the students. He saw that up until that time, education had largely been a matter of filling up the students with information to reproduce during examinations rather than involving interactions between the student and the literature texts. Some teachers in WA were beginning to do things differently. They were reading books on the philosophy of education and English teaching. They were considering the value of literature as a 'life-quality', as a thought-provoking, experience-clarifying study that could enhance students' lives. In 1970, Carlin was granted a Fellowship to the Institute of Education in London where he was influenced by James Britton and Nancy Martin, among others. Britton and Martin were writing influential books about the nature of teaching. They seem common-place now, but at the time they were revolutionary, calling teachers to re-evaluate the purpose and methodology of what they were doing. The Institute also had a political agenda: empowering the working class and questioning the social order. Language was the vehicle for expressing thought, so a way to promote social change was to make the working class articulate. Carlin was also influenced by Bernstein's ideas on how language can keep people IN or OUT, and the importance of being able to express hopes and ideas. Rosen & Martin's Writing and Learning, analysing classroom practice was another important book. Returning to WA, Carlin wrote a report for EDWA on the application of the UK ideas to WA. He was then working at Churchlands Training College and therefore, he believes, not very influential because he had 'deserted the chalkface'. That is overly modest; he was in the highly influential position of training teachers. He thought that students needed to learn to speak; to become confident and articulate. Articulate communication gave power and confidence and learning grammar would not help them very much with that. Only when Britton toured Australia did local teachers begin to take notice. Nancy Martin, from the UK, was at the National English Teachers Conference in 1974 held in WA, and she returned to Perth in 1977 and 1980. The National Association for Teaching of English was influential in Western Australia through books and personal contacts. The Dartmouth Conference held in the USA in 1966 brought together English teachers from the UK and USA. Two reports were produced, each reflecting the emphasis in the different countries. The USA produced Uses of English by Muller, reflecting the pragmatic approach of English as a tool for communication, although that approach to English expression was countered by their 'genuflecting attitude to Literature'. The UK produced Growth Through English by Dixon, with English studies seen as intertwined with students' personal growth-'literature as virtual experience'-a way to share other lives. From this realisation came constructionism and deconstructionism, with literature acknowledged as having different meanings to different people-but that was still in the future. Perhaps as a reflection of this appreciation of language, a conference was proposed to the ETA in 1966 with the following outline: 1. The First Approach to Language (Paper by an Infant School Headmistress.) 2. The Growth of language (Classics Department, UWA.) 3. Logic and language (Philosophy Department, UWA.) 4 Precision in Language (Philosophy Department, UWA.) 5. Language and Imagery (English Department, UWA.) 6. Psychological Effects of language (Psychology Dept, UWA.) 7. language and Law (Law Faculty, UWA) 8. The Second language (French Department, UWA.) An article in the Journal on American Education quoted in the ETA Journal outlined the process of change in that country. Perceived lower intellectual standards in US schools led most subject areas to rethink what they were doing. The drive for reform came from within the schools, not from the educational authorities. English teaching was thought to be in so serious a condition in the US that the very foundations of schools and colleges were threatened. English needed to be redefined as a subject, with curriculum coherence graded throughout the education system. Grammar would not be taught as a subject; the emphasis was to be on usage rather than correctness and students were to be taught critical reading, not reproducible facts. English was to be taught not merely for its immediate usefulness but to help expand student's imaginations. The Americans were moving towards a British approach to English. Fortunately, as changes were needing to be made in WA, EDWA had the right senior staff in place. Bob Biggins and Nancy Richards were the English Superintendents and they were both seeking ways to promote English teaching, to encourage teachers, and to spur them along to more innovative and creative classroom practice. The appointment of other superintendents lightened the administrative load and gave them some space to begin to work towards change.

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Founding of the ETA

The English Teachers Association of WA was inaugurated on 25th September, 1964 at a meeting at the University of Western Australia. In August, the Australian College of Education had arranged refresher courses for high school teachers. From that course had come the question: Why not have subject associations? English teachers met in September and formed the ETA. The inaugural President was Mr RJ (John) Barnes of the University's English Department. In his President's Report in 1966 he outlined the Association's history.

• It is my privilege to report on the activities of the English Teachers' Association of Western Australia during its first year of existence. The Association was inaugurated at a meeting held at the University of Western Australia on the 25th of September 1964, under the chairmanship of Brother BC Manion. The meeting was sponsored by the Western Australian Chapter of the Australian College of Education, which had arranged an English Refresher Course at the University in August of the same year. The founding of the Association was, therefore, a direct result of the initiative taken by the members of the Australian College of Education, led by Bro. Manion. It is pleasant to recall that my first duty as President of the Association was to receive a cheque for twenty five guineas from the President of the Australian College of Education, Dr. Roy Adam.

John Barnes had trained in Melbourne and overseas. He came to UWA as Reader in English, a senior position for a young man to hold. He was 'enormously urbane, a powerful influence, a man who thought before speaking'. Barnes was active with English teachers. One opinion expressed is that he was more help to them, by and large, than the Superintendents. (He probably had more time.) He would discuss the examination questions and books suitable for use by Junior and Leaving teachers, requiring teachers to think hard on what they were doing. As Chief Examiner, he gave the markers a rigorous instruction program and maintained a close supervision of the marking process, weeding out any people who were not meeting his standard. Barnes was instrumental in forming the ETA-which also brought Government and private school teachers together for the first time-and was the foundation President. His contacts with educators in other states enabled ETAWA for establish good relationships with other states' ETAs. He encouraged teachers to think of English as a study discipline area and was looking to establish in Australia something like The National Association for Teaching of English in the UK-which he would have known in England. The ETA Journal, a stencil-cut A5 newsletter of up to 12 pages, was arranged by Glen Phillips who remained the editor until 1972. A draft constitution was presented to a meeting on 5th November, 1964. The first AGM was on 9th April, 1965 when the initial Committee was expanded. After the first AGM the office bearers were: President, Mr RJ Barnes, UWA English Department Vice President: Mr A Uhe, EDWA Sec/Treasurer: Mr L Ericson of Churchlands High School Committee: Mrs Hunt, Ruth Campbell, Sister Catherine, Mr Raynor, Father Murphy (Discussion Groups Coordinator), and Glen Phillips (Newsletter). Membership was 70 at the first AGM, increasing to 107 soon after. Most of the members were from non-Government schools. Annual subscriptions were £1. The Australian College of Education had contributed £26 when the ETA was founded. That dwindled to £11.11.3 by the AGM in April 1995. Ruth Campbell was a foundation Committee member and become the President at the post-enthusiasm phase of the organisation, guiding it through that trough to future growth. She had gained an MA in Melbourne and was senior English mistress at Methodist Ladies College in Perth. The 'intelligent and alive' Mrs Campbell returned to Victoria in the mid 1970s. Early ETA meetings were of two types: 'workshop' meetings dealing with classroom and professional concerns; and 'lecture' meetings on literary texts and topics. Early meetings were on the topics of: Poetry in Schools (in discussion groups that met several times), teaching literature to the Junior level, drama, The Petch Report (dealt with later), teachers and the school library, contemporary American fiction, and Leaving English seminars. Although members participated in organising and presenting at the workshops, in the absence of volunteers all of the lectures were delivered by UWA English Department staff. One of those academics was the highly regarded Mrs Jean Bradley of the UWA English Department. She was a Western Australian graduate of the university who remained as a member of staff. In 1965 she spoke to the ETA's AGM on 'Drama in Schools'. Her list of recommended plays was printed in the May, 1965 ETA Journal.

She prefaced the list of plays she considered suitable for girls with these comments: First of all not the following types:

1. (With few exceptions) plays written for all-women casts. They tend to be forced, trivial and valueless.


2. Modern dress wherein girls borrow their brothers' clothing.

Probably the first book on her list, He Was Born Gay, would no longer be considered. The Man Who Married A Dumb Wife might also be struck off today. One of the early meetings with publishers and booksellers raised the question of book prices in Australia compared to Europe and America. The representative from Heinemann's asserted that the Australian system of selling books through bookshops actually resulted in a smaller mark-up than in America in which, he claimed, books are mainly sold through mail-order. After decades of British and US publishers dividing up the world into markert areas to restrict competition that debate also continues today. Another perennial concern was reluctant readers. A meeting with the Library Association on the subject discussed the problem. Other state ETAs were founded around this same time. Some were supported by state authorities; others, including in WA, were not officially recognised. It was noticeable that the attitude of EDWA and the Public Examinations Board in WA were out of step with South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales in ignoring the ETA. The ETA affiliated with the newly-formed Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE), and members began receiving the national magazine English in Australia. AATE is the national affiliation of all state ETAs. There was a clear desire expressed for the ETA to be involved in AATE and national events and debates, but the cost of travel meant that only if a member happened to be travelling when something was on could anyone from WA be represented nationally. Newsletters could be exchanged, but there was no substitute for personal contact. John Barnes went to an AATE meeting in Adelaide in July 1965. Power in the national association was held by Victorian and South Australian ETAs, both of which received significant grants from their Education Departments. Victoria still has a disproportionate influence in AATE office holders and has an executive officer funded by the state's Education Department.

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Changing English

Two major developments in the 1960s were the splitting of English into two subjects and the replacement of the Junior Certificate by the Achievement Certificate. We will look at the split first and the Achievement Certificate later.

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The Petch Report

In 1964, Dr JH Petch was invited by UWA to report on the WA public examinations situation. Dr Petch, a doctor of Law, was secretary to the Joint Matriculation Board covering five English universities, had sat on the examination boards of several English universities, and was the Chair of a Joint University Board in the north of England. Petch went to other states before spending six weeks in WA. People interviewed for this paper consider it a political exercise. One past president of the ETA described the report as spurious and not at all well regarded. He believes that Petch took what evidence was necessary to give the answers the Public Examinations Board wanted to hear. A past EDWA superintendent described Petch as peppery and old fashioned. The report acknowledged the domination of the syllabus by the examinations but he said he had heard little criticism of that domination. Teachers were not keen to begin writing a new syllabus for each school; they preferred the set syllabus. He found little support among teachers for abolishing the Junior Certificate. Petch commented on the 'mark fixation' in the state and observed that 'passes are not the whole aim of education'. Petch was critical of the Junior Certificate, considering it a light-weight examination for which a good student could prepare in two years. He noted the big gap between the Junior and Leaving Certificates and suggested that success in the Junior held out false hope to some students about their ability to succeed at the Leaving . Among his recommendations, Petch suggested splitting English at both the Junior and Leaving Certificate level into Expression and Literature . English Expression was to be for teaching writing skills together with an appreciation of effective prose. Literature would allow a fuller study of texts than had been possible before the split. Expression would be compulsory; Literature was to be regarded as an optional specialist study. WA was the first state in Australia to split English into Expression and Literature. The change was not welcomed by many teachers in the 1960s. In July, 1965 John Barnes, ETA President and Chief Examiner for Leaving English, submitted a proposal to the Professorial Board of the University advocating a Leaving examination based on a critical reading paper, an essay on set texts, a 'theme' essay, and an objective test. Barnes sought the retention of literature texts in the English examination rather than having them split off to a separate subject as advocated by the Petch Report. He believed that literature was central to any study of expression. The EDWA superintendents supported him. Their fear was that English would be down-graded to making students literate so they could study other subjects and that literature would be side-lined to a specialist subject. That would stop most students being exposed to the wealth of ideas and experiences contained in the best literature. The way forward was not to abandon literature but to present it in classrooms in such a way that students were not turned away from the 'classics' or reading in general. Other university faculties and the business community wanted English to be a read-and-write subject so that secondary graduates were literate enough to undertake study or find a job. Literature studies were not thought to train people for anything useful. In September, 1965 the Syllabus Committee supported the retention of a wide selection of reading texts in the Leaving English course. In December 1966, they pressed the point that Leaving English (Expression) would not have sufficient content for a matriculation subject. To gain University entrance, students should be required to pass Literature. The ETA Journal of Sept 1968 reported that John Hay and Bruce Bennett gave a talk to the ETA on problems in examining Leaving English.

• Leaving English in 1967 consisted of one three-hour paper demanding four essay-type answers on set texts in literature, one one-hour objective test, and 1½ hour essay paper which constituted 20% of the total mark.


• Examiners were required to attend a marking session at which they were given two pages of confidential instructions but no model answers so examiners could interpret the questions as they wished.


• Marking was to be 'wholistic', similar to impressionistic, because it was considered accurate and tested higher skills than analytic marking.


• There was no multiple marking.


• Markers had to submit thirteen graded papers to a moderator for re-checking and standardisation.

Hay and Bennett believed that multiple marking would be preferable to this method. From statistical analysis they had concluded that the choice of essay topics cold be reduced without disturbing the reliability of the examination, that the essay paper could be omitted entirely, that the function of the Objective test needed to be closely examined, and that examiners should receive papers from a random selection of schools rather than blocks of papers. In March, 1967 John Barnes circulated a proposal to English teachers suggesting: that separate courses for English and Literature should be retained; if English and Literature were to be separate subjects, the split should begin in Year 11; English should include reading three anthologies and six texts; and English should be taught for six periods a week, Literature for four. In effect, English Expression would then remain much like the old Leaving English and Literature would be added as a higher level study of texts. He received 'almost no response' from teachers, although whether that was because the proposals did not get through to them, or because they agreed with the changes, or for some other reason, is not now clear. Surprisingly, given their periodic criticism of the standard of graduates from the secondary schools, the Professorial Board of the University disagreed with all of those submissions and argued in favour of the split in English. They wanted first-year students who could read and write without having been required to pass a study of literature. The ETA expressed regret at the subject division but reserved further judgement until after observing the change in action. At the ETA's 1969 conference, Bob Biggins, Superintendent of English for EDWA, spoke on the main areas of change in education in recent years, including the policy of encouraging a wide range of reading by students which the changes would undermine. He said that the separation of English and Literature had been forced upon EDWA by the Professorial Board just at the time when a similar split was being abandoned in England because the results had been disastrous. The policy of wide reading was preferable because, apart from students' exposure to many thoughts, concepts, and situations, it acknowledged the research over decades that the teaching of grammar has no effect on writing skills. The proposed split would not achieve its aims. Wide reading, classroom discussion, and practice in writing were the way students learnt to write well. The literature selected needed to be trustworthy and should show the child the whole of life. Peter Gunning believes that the split of English was a disaster. There was very little confidence among teachers that the examinations did other than express the prejudices of the markers. Even team marking did not overcome the problem because each pair included a member of the university staff whose opinion invariably prevailed. Teachers were finding wide discrepancies in students' results in the three examinations-English and Literature at Leaving level and Literature for matriculation. John Barnes stepped down as President of ETAWA after the first year. He was also the Chief Examiner in English and he expressed concern about a conflict of interest. Mrs Ruth Campbell became President, Alan Uhe was Vice-President, and Peter Gunning joined the Committee for what would be a very long stint. He had begun teaching in 1952 at Northam high school, becoming a superintendent in 1974 following Bob Biggins, and retired in 1987. ETA Membership was then 70 but subsequently rose to 107, mostly of teachers in non-Government schools. (By comparison, the South Australian Association in 1964 had 370 members.) Membership was $2; the accounts were over $40 in credit. There were regional groups in Claremont, Nedlands, Swanbourne-Cottesloe-Fremantle, Scarborough-Wembley Downs, Victoria Square, and Leederville. After the initial enthusiasm, the ETA's membership remained static or declined, even though there were regular opportunities for professional development offered. For example, a talk on film education led to an informal two-night seminar at Graylands Teachers College. Three meetings on Drama had culminated with a tour by David Adland of the UK including drama workshops in schools. Group discussions were held on the new Leaving English Syllabus and later on the Achievement Certificate. During 1968, ETA meetings were moved from UWA to the Secondary Teachers College and two rooms made available to the association for meetings, a library, and storage. Another member of the UWA English faculty, John Hay, became president in 1969. Mrs Ruth Campbell was Vice-President. Peter Gunning of EDWA was Secretary/ Treasurer. Committee Members were: Paul Duncan, Mrs Felicity Haynes, Stan Richards, June Jones, Miss Pat Harris, and Bruce Bennett. Glen Phillips remained the co-opted editor. Ruth Campbell delivered her out-going President's report. After listing the talks and discussion groups offered during the previous year she said that the plan to shift some meetings to Saturday afternoons had been unsuccessful because of the poor attendance. (In 1996 the ETA reintroduced Saturday events because they were generally more popular than weekday evenings.) Membership had fallen off considerably since the early years and only 35-40 people attended the evening meetings. Mrs Campbell thought it a pity that despite an interesting and valuable program having been offered, not many teachers took advantage of the opportunities. (The current ETA Council shares her frustration.) A possible reason for low membership is that teachers in government schools were receiving some support and professional development whereas those in independent schools were not. State school teachers may have thought that they would not get much out of the ETA and did not want to give up the time. Many were doing university courses part-time and were already under time pressures. Others may have thought that the ETA was for the 'higher ups'. The May, 1968 Journal recorded the death of Alan Uhe, foundation Vice-President. He had become Acting Superintendent of the Research and Curriculum Branch, largely responsible for the Education Department's curriculum booklets in lower school English. He went to senior positions at Claremont Teachers College and Graylands College and then had been appointed secretary of the Committee inquiring into Secondary Education but had to resign because of ill health. Peter Gunning remembers him with great respect and affection as having had a significant influence on his own career. After 1968 the number and variety of examinations increased. Each change to matriculation requirements had come from the Professorial Board of the University and each of the changes had affected English teaching in fourth and fifth year. In 1968, a pass in Leaving English was compulsory for matriculation to University. The English syllabus was a review of English Literature since Chaucer, grouped according to genre. After the split, English was compulsory for matriculation; Literature was an optional subject (grouped with Economics, Geography, History, and Music) and examined at both Leaving and Matriculation levels. One exam had been replaced by three. Only a minority of students were now doing the literature reading that had previously been compulsory for all. By 1969 English was a wide-reading course of mostly contemporary fiction and non-fiction. Texts were recommended rather than prescribed, although in practice the recommended list was the reading list. Textual knowledge was not examined for its own sake; understanding and appreciation were. Literature was unchanged except for having a wider reading list. Matriculation Literature was based on the Leaving course but involved practical criticism of passages in the examination. Two people from the UWA English faculty who were both ETA Presidents were Bruce Bennett and John Hay. They produced a number of reports on examinations and English and shared the task of Chief Examiner in English. Both were significant influences at the University English Department and among English teachers. They pioneered the multiple choice (objective) examination, using ETA members as part of the study. The objective test was a worry to teachers because it was a sight-unseen examination. Many teachers either wrote or used poor examples of objective tests to try to prepare students for the examination, which only made things worse. The Objective tests were an innovation to English examinations and not everyone was convinced that they worked. Bruce Bennett wrote an article for the ETA Journal in which he said that the only way in which the tests were 'objective' was that they could be marked with a marking key. They were comprehension tests with declared 'right' answers. Whatever they were called, they were supposed to be valid and reliable: valid in that they did what was required of them; reliable in that there was an accurate correlation between the tests and students' ability in English comprehension. In 1969 that had not been established to everyone's satisfaction even though they were part of the Leaving Certificate. They relied too heavily on identifying trivial details in passages of writing and on true/false answers that were artificial or elementary. Multiple choice questions were to be preferred to objective tests. The difficulty was in writing a test that was clear, positive, brief, and had only one right answer. Peter Gunning was part of the team trying to produce such questions. 85% of suggestions were rejected. The exercise was conducted in conjunction with a Victorian group which arranged trials of the tests there. The ETA held a review meeting in June 1970 to discuss how well the separation of English into Literature and English was working. Jan Keeley, a member of the original Syllabus Committee of the Public Examinations Board, outlined the history of the split, pointing to the Petch Report as the most significant forerunner of the eventual changes. Ruth Campbell observed that no research had been produced to support the split, nor was any planned to examine the new approach. Teachers still taught with one eye firmly on the Leaving Examinations. This was the time when students could take Literature as a subject and also sit the English paper. She concluded her comments by describing the new English course as 'a rag-bag of general interest, social issues, and current controversies, stressing entertainment rather than improvement in expression'. Ian Tomlinson, Senior Master in English at Perth Modern School, was in favour of the split despite the 'growing pains, fuzzy objectives, and dubious assumptions' of the new English course. Maurice Jones, Senior master of Scarborough High School, also highlighted the lack of clarity in the aims of the two courses. He thought that most students preferred the new ways, although the increased classroom discussion had shown up an over-readiness of students to agree to anything, and for the more able students to dominate the discussions-with the less able withdrawing into silence. Glen Phillips, of Mt Lawley Teachers College, said he believed that the first students into college from the new secondary system were generally more articulate than in previous years. Thirty percent had studied Literature, a much higher figure than the state average. A protracted but quite hectic discussion' followed these reports, with views expressed including:

• The effect of the Achievement Certificate on student preparedness to read longer works might prove the opposite of present student disinclination


• Teachers of English need more effective preparation for teaching both the Achievement Certificate and the new leaving courses


• English expression might well be taught as an element of al subjects instead of as in a separate course from which transfer was always problematical


• The leaving Literature course seemed to be oriented too heavily towards the female student judging by the proportion of the sexes attempting it.

Even in those early days, it was evident to teachers that girls were clearly outnumbering boys in Literature classes, an issue that has continued to vex teachers. Interpretations, the ETA's journal, devoted issues to 'Boys in English' and 'Gender and English' in the mid-1990s. Mr Davies of Hale School wrote to the ETA Journal suggesting as an alternative that English be examined at two levels: Leaving, and Matriculation, allowing Matriculation English to be set at a higher level to satisfy those who wanted University entrance to be a clear divider or to give evidence of suitable literacy. That suggestion would have reproduced the 1914 situation of English being compulsory and at the highest level. It also raises the question of why English and Literature should be split for Leaving and matriculation when the science, maths, and the social sciences were not. It is another reflection of the uncertainty as to what English is actually for; reading, writing, and spelling-or something deeper. The nexus of the AATE lay in Victoria and South Australia, both of which states' ETAs received considerable financial support from their education departments. The AATE decided to publish a Review Journal of book reviews and phase out of English in Australia to allow more space for publishing the results of research projects. John Hay, ETAWA president, concluded that only the forthcoming Review Journal and research projects made the AATE meeting worthwhile.

ETAWA Accounts 1970
Receipts, including Conference $992.85

Expenditure, including conference $ 888.24

Balance c/f 28.2.70 $104.61

In 1971 the Public Examinations Board stopped regarding Literature as supplementary to the compulsory English. Students could now study either or both. But were the changes having the desired effect? The Examiner's report on the 1970 Leaving Literature paper concluded that a significant number of students were below the level of literacy (which level they did not say), vocabulary was too limited, answers lacked structure, candidates avoided committing themselves to their own response to texts, and many candidates clearly had not read beyond the required texts. On the other hand, Examiner's reports do tend to say such things year after year. By 1972 matriculation requirements could be satisfied by passing either English or Literature. However, students were liable to be disadvantaged because of significant differences between the examinations and the marking procedures. Flexibility in the syllabus was being compromised by the examination procedures. In the context of raising some questions in his 1972 President's report, Bruce Bennett made these observations:

• '...our task as English teachers is far more radical than we sometimes think: it includes the enlargement of understanding and imagination in our students; discrimination among varying sets of contending values; and complementing these two aims, the development in our students of a literary intelligence in which the rational intellect is not set apart from the emotions, as so many other subjects seem to demand, but in which thinking and feeling can go on together, the one informing and vitalising the other.

Bennett urged English teachers to ask radical questions about their function in the education process and to seek ways of meeting students' needs. The alternative to that radical thinking, he suggested, would be fragmentation or disintegration of English as a subject.'

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Preoccupations

While some teachers may have been doing that, the evidence in the ETA Journal is that more mundane matters occupied their attention. Two were the continuing debate over Grammar, and the selection of appropriate books for students to read. The ETA Journal issued in December 1968 reprinted an article by a KD Watson from the July 1968 issue of the New South Wales ETA Newsletter. Watson bemoaned the fact that the 'the difficulty of escaping from the toils of one's education is well illustrated in the Grammar and Usage section of the new Primary English Syllabus in New South Wales'. Watson believed that the syllabus committee had ignored half a century of research into the futility of teaching grammar and merely continued to prescribe what they themselves had endured in school. He quoted:

• a 1903 study which concluded that learning formal grammar did not help children to write well; [JM Rice]


• a 1923 study confirming a low correlation between grammatical and writing ability; [Asker]


• 1926 research which found that the relationship between knowledge of grammar and the ability to write essays was no greater than the relationship between any other pair of subjects; [Segal and Barr]


• research from Scotland in 1947 which concluded that 'a certain stage of mental maturity appears to be required for an understanding of grammatical function' suggesting that formal grammar not be taught to children below 14 years


• a 1960 study which found little relationship between children's scores on a grammar test and their grading on three pieces of written composition; [Robinson]


• Research in 1962 on two groups of children having, in the case of one group, no formal grammar exercises while the other group continued with the grammar syllabus. After nine months the group without instruction was ahead in their composition results; [WG Heath, Birmingham University]


• and, most tellingly, recent research of a long term experiment in which, for two years, two classes ran parallel in a school, except that one class had no formal grammar instruction at all-the time was used for extra writing. The non-Grammar class had made 'significant gains'; the other was almost unchanged. The conclusion was that 'the study of grammatical terminology had a negligible or even a relatively harmful effect upon the correctness of children's writing'.

To continue with quite high level grammar instruction in primary schools, with the traditional grammatical terminology retained, was not going to increase children's' skill in using language. The assertion that teaching grammar was largely a waste of time was seized upon both by teachers who already knew that from experience, and by teachers who did not like teaching grammar, or who maybe did not know enough about it themselves to teach it. The statement was meant to say that merely teaching rules of writing was a waste of time; grammar should be taught as part of the literacy and writing process. That is harder to do than following a grammar exercise book. Most teachers were happy to drop grammar and most students were happy to see it go. Parents had the feeling that another baby had been thrown out with bath water and employers were soon lamenting what they perceived as declining grammar and spelling skills in their young employees. Despite the studies questioning the effectiveness of grammatical study, parents and employers continued to insist that children be taught grammar and spelling by periodically writing to the Minister for Education lamenting declining standards. The avant guarde theories of academic educational theorists were all very well, but everyone knew that standards of grammar and spelling in children were not what they had been in the 1950s and the country was going to Hell in a handcart as a result. Bob Biggins has long held the belief that the best thing children and adolescents can do to learn English expression is to read widely. That is, grammar was better caught in the process of reading than taught as a subject.

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Censoring of Texts

Another continuing issue was the selection of suitable texts for students. The ETA's 1969 program opened with a talk on censorship titled Avoiding Extremities-which wasn't done when the guest, Gerry Glaskin, was introduced as an 'internationally celebrated novelist and dramatist'. Mr Glaskin gave 'a somewhat electrifying' address on Anglo-Saxon censorship, particularly in Australia. He mentioned the amount of money spent by HM Customs and Excise on enforcing censorship. [The list of prohibited publications at that time was 6cm think and contained many hundreds of works. The author was working in HM C&E at the time]. Glaskin concluded that Australian censorship was merely an expression of moral hypocrisy and 'blasphemy of the natural order'. What he meant by that was not explained. Mr Pat Hutchings, lecturer in philosophy and local art critic, declared that his main objection to censorship was that it was unconvincingly performed-suggesting that if HM Customs and Excise were ruthlessly efficient he would have no trouble with censorship. He believed that pornographic literature could aggravate adjustment problems for maladjusted adults. Mr Hutchings concluded that censorship should be retained until 'our fear of obscenity can be shown to be unfounded', but did not say how that might happen-even allowing for seepage from HM Customs offices. 'Judging by the paucity of questions from the audience, some sort of state of shock had been induced by one or both of the speakers.' Or maybe they just wanted to go home. Another meeting on censorship was scheduled for June 1969. That meeting was lively, if poorly attended. Of the thirteen members present, eight were Committee members. The issue was the selection of reading texts; who chose them and by what criteria? Were bowdlerised editions desirable, or even necessary? The Journal records that 'Paul Duncan opened discussion by reading salacious titbits from Cider With Rosie, until cautioned by the astute Mrs Campbell'. Mr Duncan said he considered the violence worse that the sexual titillation, but admitted that using the book in a class might be unhelpful. His reasoning was that students might find it difficult to discuss because the experiences in the book might be too close to their own experiences-but whether he meant sexual activity or violence he did not say. Catcher in the Rye was thought to have some good points which overrode the obscene language, prostitution scenes, and nihilistic attitudes of the author. That view was not supported by all of the members, perhaps because books with a philosophy of despair were not helpful to students in examination years. Brave New World had the same despairing slant, giving rise to discussion on the moral messages that should be conveyed to students. 'No firm conclusion can be said to have been reached.' In 1974 there seemed to be more concern among teachers to confiscate True Confessions and comics than to address the harder issue of the diminution of their subject area. Yet another ETA meeting on undesirable reading matter discussed whether comics and Enid Blyton had literary merit, and whether Ribald and Playboy should have the same level of interest for teachers as they did for adolescent students-if perhaps for different, or extra, reasons. A clinical psychologist invited to address the meeting dismissed the supposed harmful effects of sexual pornography and concluded that parental puritanism was more damaging to adolescents. Literacy Levels A controversy that continues to this day surfaced at the 1973 AGM. Professor Jones of the UWA English faculty spoke of the 'total incompetence' of some of the University's new students in some basic language skills: not knowing the meaning of plot, story, rhythm, etc.; and in having little understanding of different literary forms. All the professor asked of university entrants was that they write grammatically, understand and respond thoughtfully to print material, marshal their thoughts and think through issues, and show some skill in their written response. They should also be able to recognise different types of fiction writing and the different tones in writing, understand that poetry is a pattern of verbal connections, and have a feeling for the musical connotation, intonation, volume, and tempo of poetry. Did that mean that teachers were incompetent or lax? Or that they used faulty methods? Was it the fault of the Achievement Certificate? Nobody seemed to know, but whatever was the problem it was shared by the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia. The fact or perception of the inadequacy of secondary school graduates continues, with some universities running English bridging courses for the first years.

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Counter Reformation

In 1974, Messers Hay and Bennett recommended that English be reunited into one subject with the general aim of teaching students to write English effectively and read English with understanding and appreciation. They proposed two syllabuses substantially the same as the existing English and Literature courses under the oversight of one syllabus committee. Each syllabus would have its own examination with a lot of weight being given to the objective section and essays team-marked. The report was circulated to schools for comment, of which there was very little. In 1967, John Barnes had done the same thing with the same result. Perhaps less than a third of all English teachers are members of the Association at any one time and, combined with the minimal response to proposals circulated to schools for comment during the time of the changes, one wonders whether teachers were happy with the turn of events and desired no input into them, or whether they were sufficiently disinterested in their careers and/or their students to just sit back and let anything happen. It was looking likely that from 1975, English would not form part of the entrance requirements for tertiary institutions. John Hay urged the ETA to voice concern at the real possibility of English being down-graded.

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The Achievement Certificate

While the debate about upper-school English had been occurring, the Achievement Certificate was introduced into the lower-school. Dr Petch had suggested that '… a certificate gained in a separate subject examination may give a better assessment of his achievement at school than a certificate which requires for its award the passing of a prescribed number of subjects. He also suggested a five-tier marking system: A for the top 10%, B for the next 15% (good result), C for the next 50% (moderate result), D for 15% (weak) and E for 10% (very weak). Petch presumed the final mark for a student would be a combination of the examination and a school assessment. The ETA meeting of September 1967 scheduled the Director of Special Services in the Education Department, Mr Woods, to outline the new Certificate. The meeting emphasised the implications for English teachers. The same issue of the ETA Journal reported that the Achievement Certificate was being trialed in some WA High Schools and had received criticism at the Annual Conference of the Teachers' Union. The ETA's Committee thought there were special problems for English with cumulative assessment. Reading the Journal, it is hard to escape the conclusion that few teachers grasped the concept of the Achievement Certificate. The Certificate permitted students to progress at a rate commensurate with their abilities and interests. That required English teachers to rethink their program-to say nothing of remedial and enrichment programs. Teachers would need to know their students at greater depth than many did at the time and to take more responsibility for assessments. The presumption was that students would desire to progress through the curriculum. But what if they didn't? Under the previous regime such students were encouraged to leave school before the Junior examinations. Some schools actively sought jobs for students for whom the Junior was not appropriate and who assuredly would fail. But what now? The ETA's Secretary, Peter Gunning, was appointed to conduct the research and planning for the English segment of the Achievement Certificate. At the 1969 National AATE conference in Perth, a talk on English teaching in Tasmania began with 'One of the greatest incentives given to English teaching this year in Tasmanian High Schools was the removal of the rigid external examination which has acted as an iron calliper on our freedom of method.' Schools could make their own assessments and shape their own syllabuses. The Tasmanian ETA had supported the change. 1969 was almost the end of the Junior Certificate. For the first time for decades, year 8 students did not face three years of study with a make-or-break examination at the end. 1969's year 9s would be the last group to go through the Junior and Leaving process. Most teachers breathed a huge sigh of relief. Peter Gunning's perspective is that the subjectivity in the Achievement Certificate's grading that many teachers had feared could be used positively. A student's work could be pair-marked and the results brought together. A score within a broad band gave a good indication of the student's ability. The public was not so sure. The new marking system did not give people marks on a 0-100 scale. Gunning believes that they wanted examination marks to have the accuracy and truth of Holy Writ-which they apparently believed the Junior and Leaving Examinations had supplied. By 1972 the Achievement Certificate was moving into Years 11 and 12. Peter Robins from the Board of Secondary Education wrote an impassioned article for the ETA Journal urging teachers to view the changes as opportunities to accept professional responsibility and to adjust their goals and teaching to each class-and to be continually revising what they were doing. Robins thought the suspicion of the Achievement Certificate and requests from teachers for course outlines and subject directions were a hankering for the secure and guidelined years of the Junior Certificate. He predicted that if teachers would grasp the opportunity they would have a more vital, personal, and enthusiastic approach to their teaching. An ETA meeting on the Certificate was cooler toward the proposition. The mechanics of the assessment process were not complicated but the resulting As (25% of students), Bs (50%), and Cs (25%) were unsatisfactory. Cumulative assessment was supported but the result did not supply the clear indicator or number showing a student's ability required by parents and employers. The First Year Teachers' Guide listed three aims for assessment: promoting the best kinds of teaching in English, giving reliable information about the student's development, and maintaining adequate comparability of standard between schools. Michael Albany, Senior Master of English at Cannington Senior High School, questioned whether those aims could be achieved. Promotion of the best kinds of teaching involved aspects which did not necessarily lend themselves to assessment: happiness with the subject area, joy in exploration, recognition of individual worth, good communication, and critical good sense. He shared the opinion that an A, B, or C gave little information, reliable or not. Comparability between classes within the same school was hard enough to maintain without trying it between many schools. Albany thought that was 'going out and looking for trouble'. What was needed was fairness, communication with and between teachers and moderators, and a broad enough assessment that was as accurate as possible.

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The 1969 National Conference

Western Australia hosted the AATE's national conference in 1969. The theme was 'English in the Technocratic Society'. The Conference was opened by Professor Alan Edwards of the University of Western Australia's English Department. He was an Englishman who took the Chair of English in the mid-1940s. His exposure to Levis and New Criticism brought a new freedom to his students, opening their eyes to the essential meaning of written texts. Professor Edwards was a powerful force in the English Department. Some of his students became senior teachers in WA. During his address he took the opportunity to remind his audience of the distinguished service of the University of Western Australia's English Department in furthering the creative arts in Western Australia. Mrs Jeane Bradley of UWA spoke of the Challenge of Values. She instanced three events that seemed to her to reflect the value placed on English studies in Australia. First, that the English Department of an un-named university had been directed to raise its pass rate to 90% over the following three years. Second, that a local government authority had refused a request for $6000 to help establish a new theatre but had granted $100 000 towards building a new bowling green. Third, the fact that she was at the conference not because she had many years of experience teaching English but because she had been appointed to the Australian Council for the Arts. Mrs Bradley posed three questions for the audience: should English teachers willingly submit to the pressure of modern society that was making society illiterate?; could the English syllabus absorb an increment of Asian literature without reducing the British origins of Australian's historical and literary roots; and why should English have been split into English-a 'useful study'-and Literature, presumably not useful and therefore not important. Dr David Mossenson, Director of Secondary Education in Western Australia, spoke of the major reorganisation of secondary education begun in 1953, the concept of core subjects and options, the autonomy beginning to be offered to schools, and the removal of external examinations which would present more of a challenge to teachers. Dr Mossenson was a major influence in education in Western Australia. He went on to become Director-General of the Education Department and later Chairman of the Board of Secondary Education-which became the Secondary Education Authority. He promoted the development of specialist subject expertise. It could be argued that his greatest achievement was in carrying through the change from the Junior Certificate to the Achievement Certificate. That struggle included a live televised debate with academics from Australia and overseas, with Mossenson's viewpoint carrying the day. He gave people responsibility and expected results. For example, to focus the discussions of subject committees he required them to write their preferred syllabus and the requirements to make it work. He wanted WA to control its own curriculum, rather than have a national curriculum imposed. People in leadership positions under him speak of his energy and vision and he is held in high regard. After the conference had been and gone, the ETA negotiated with EDWA to help with the implementation of new proposals for the assessment of English courses. Twenty seven years later, the perception that the ETA still had too close a tie with EDWA and consequently had difficulty maintaining a critical distance was mentioned as a problem by Marnie O'Neill of UWA Graduate School of Education and a past ETA President. Eric Carlin, former Senior English Master at Modern School, and David Nicholas of Wesley College, described an innovation to an ETA meeting: English rooms. Other subjects had their own areas, but nobody had thought that English could benefit from its own space. In these new English areas, the most important decision taken was to lay carpet. This allowed recordings to be played with less echo and chairs to be moved into different groupings without too much noise. Bob Biggins says that one of the most important steps forward for English was carpeted English rooms. The atmosphere was more relaxed, resources could be left out, and drama could quickly be set up. There was also a trend towards English staff rooms which the Senior Master/Mistress could share with the teachers rather than sharing an office with other Senior teachers. That helped break down remoteness and encouraged collegiality. Nationally, the priority for AATE was the establishment of a national office with paid staff and permanent headquarters, but lack of finance was a problem. Research into the teaching of English was thought desirable, but it also cost money. English in Australia moved to quarterly publication. Infrequent AATE meetings and the fact that state representatives did not know their colleagues meant that delegates at conferences were constructing projects 'on the fly' Comparison subscriptions and membership details for the states were:

	Subs	Members
Victoria	$7	1050
NSW	$8	750
SA	$4	425
QLD	$3	350
TAS	$3	150
WA	$3	80

A UNESCO-sponsored seminar in Sydney revealed considerable differences in English teaching in the Australian states. Most innovation was coming from South Australia. AATE published a collection of short stories, Bad Deeds Gang, that is still being sold to top up class sets. In 1970 the leadership of the ETA remained stable. Bruce Bennett of the UWA English Dept was President, Ruth Campbell, Peter Gunning, and Glen Phillips retained their positions on the executive. Noteworthy additions to the Committee were Bill Bunbury (later of ABC radio), and a future long-serving President, Peter Forestall. In his President's Report, Bennett mentioned the various groups that had met during 1969 and concluded 'that the groups were not bigger, or more heterogenous, testifies less to any possible lack of variety among speakers than to a general apathy among English teachers which in this state far exceeds that considered to be the national stereotype'. The ETA continued to offer its 79 financial members talks, seminars, and workshops. Areas covered were Australian literature, drama, and meetings on implications of the Achievement Certificate. Ten days short of ten years after the ETA had been founded, it hosted its second national conference in September 1974. Although still a small association, it had offered its members a wide variety of opportunities to be involved in discussions on both practical classroom activity and the great changes to secondary education in Western Australia. Its office bearers had included people involved in making those changes happen and, had teachers got behind the association, it may have had a greater impact on the curriculum and examination changes in the decade from the mid-1960s. The association was to grow stronger and become more adventurous in the 1980s. During the 1990s, it established itself financially and was able to begin to accomplish some of the things that the early organisers had hoped would happen.

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