The History of our School
The School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences (ECLS) has a proud history. Here we chronicle the innovations that have made the school what it is today. Over the course of the school's history, academics from Newcastle University have pioneered new approaches in the fields of education, communication and language sciences. In the narrative of the School of ECLS we can celebrate a number of groundbreaking developments, and we are pleased that the school continues to play a leading role in the these areas today.
Over 100 years of teacher training
In 1990 Newcastle University celebrated 100 years of teacher education.
Portrait painting of Mark R Wright, Principal of the Day Training Department 1890-1895, Professor of Education 1895-1920
The first twenty 'pupil teachers' at Newcastle's College of Science enrolled for a two-year course in September 1890. The aim of this initiative was to improve the quality and status of elementary teachers by attaching their training to institutions of university rank.
The training centre created in 1890 became a College department in 1905, located in the main building until it moved to adjoining houses in Leazes Terrace. Department and Institute, installed by then in the Joseph Cowen building, combined in 1972 to form a School of Education which also included a sub-department of Speech and the Centre for Physical Education and Sport. Extra space in what had belonged to Newcastle Breweries provided a rather palatial board-room and a warren prompting stories of finding remains of unfortunates who had failed to find a way out.
UK’s first Chair in Education
The original training centre was among the first six established in England. Its principal (and 'Master of Method') Mark Wright, formerly head of a Gateshead school, then became the country's first holder of an established Chair in Education in 1895. His department took a lead in one of the first programmes to challenge the assumption that the subject knowledge of teachers in secondary schools made any training unnecessary.
Portrait painting of Sir Godfrey Thomson, Professor of Education 1920-1925
Championing the region
Mark Wright's successor in 1920, Godfrey Thomson, developed for Northumberland the country's first group intelligence tests with the declared purpose of 'helping children of intelligence' from humble backgrounds not to be 'overlooked'.
The first to train speech therapists
The 1959 appointment of a lecturer in Speech and Speech Pathology was the start nationally of a university base for training speech therapists and, at Newcastle, of a major centre for teaching and research in applied linguistics.
International focus since 1960
In Education, the Commonwealth Bursars recruited in 1960 were the beginning of a national centre for 'Overseas' teachers and administrators who have come over the years from some fifty countries.
The year-long course for Norwegian teachers of English began as far back as 1962. Chosen by their Ministry, which also appoints annually an additional specialist tutor, students undertake a year's study of this country's language, literature and institutions.
Tony Edwards: Professor of Education 1979 - 1997, Head of School 1981-1989, Dean of Faculty 1989-1996
Steering national policy making
A Centre for Evaluation and Management was created early in the 1980s, its title reflecting major policy preoccupations, and Carol FitzGibbon developed a system for enabling schools and colleges to assess their own examination performance which became widely adopted nationally.
Pioneering Research
A strong departmental emphasis on applied research produced a wide range of policy- and practice-based investigations, many of them funded by the Research Council or by Government agencies. In the first national reviews of research performance, and especially in the more 'precise' national assessments beginning in 1992, educational research at Newcastle showed up very well.
Linking University study to the World of Work
The School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences as we know it today emerged from the University's restructuring in 2002. Communication is obvious common ground, the strength of language sciences is recognised, and the traditional commitment to teacher education is complemented by substantial non-vocational undergraduate teaching.
Acknowledgement:
Historical information on teacher education at Newcastle is provided by Colin Tyson and Professor John Tuck in a 1971 departmental publication, and in the essay collection edited by Gordon Hogg as part of the centenary celebrations. Updated in 2006 by Professor Bruce Carrington.