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Published: 13th May, 2011

HENRY Pluckrose, who has died aged 79, was one of the most inspiring teachers of his generation.

He believed that children have intellectual, emotional and aesthetic capacities that few adults realise and too few schools exploit.

For more than 50 years he made a major contribution to our understanding not only about how children learn, but about how to put that knowledge into practice.

He was headteacher of Prior Weston Primary School, Whitecross Street, from 1968 to 1984 and established there a model that aroused international admiration. In the early 1970s, he initiated a liaison with nearby Richard Cloudesley School for pupils with special needs, the first inclusion programme in London.

Born in an impoverished part of Lambeth, Henry, as he was known to parents and pupils alike, spent his first six years, as he recalled “in  a tiny second-floor flat – running cold water, gas for lighting and cooking, outside toilet, no bath”.

His mother suffered “emotional instability” and he was largely brought up by his elder sisters, who read to him from their homework, and taught him to recite passages from Hiawatha and other poems.

He became a chorister at Southwark Cathedral and, after national service in the Royal Army Education Corps, qualified as a teacher at the College of St Mark and St John in south-west London.

Prior Weston – a brand new school – recruited children from across Islington as well as from the City of London’s Barbican development.

In 1967, the Plowden Report gave an official imprimatur to fresh thinking in primary education and the school became a mecca for those committed to innovative teaching and more open forms of learning.

Despite the responsibilities of headship, he was a prolific author and editor producing many books for both teachers and children.

His Open School, Open Society was the major statement of his educational approach. He wished, he wrote, to extend the schools’ “human dimension” and to make them “more open to the society they served”, not only involving parents but also becoming the focal point in the lives of their local communities.

At the time, the vision of education created by him and other gifted teachers and administrators seemed likely to carry all before it. But a speech in 1976 at Ruskin College, Oxford, by James Callaghan, then Labour Prime Minister, marked a change in official thinking. Schools, it was argued, had moved too far from rigorous learning and basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

Though left of centre politically – he was proud of being “handbagged” by Margaret Thatcher at a publisher’s party during her term as Education Secretary – Henry struggled to find a comfortable space in conventional British politics.

He was so committed to the children in his charge that he felt an almost physical revulsion against industrial action, and joined the “no-strike union”, then called the Professional Association of Teachers. He might best be described as a radical individualist and his favourite politicians were maverick, principled Labour MPs such as Joan Lestor and Renée Short. They were among the informal group he formed to oppose – or at least modify – the educational counter-revolution, holding frequent meetings at the House of Commons. 

Largely as a result of its deliberations, he edited two books – The Condition of English Schooling and Education 2000 – with Peter Wilby, then education corres­pondent of the Sunday Times. 

The books were only modestly successful but his international reputation continued to grow. A Swedish TV documentary, made at Prior Weston, struck such a chord in Sweden that Henry became something of a national celebrity there. 

As he recalled (with some hilarious anecdotes) in The Travels of a Journey-Man Teacher, government agencies invited him to lecture and advise teachers in Canada, the US, France, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Bulgaria, Singapore and Hong Kong.

In 1984, he left Prior Weston and did not return to full-time teaching or headship but served on such bodies as the National Book League, the National Trust, the Royal Ballet and the Civic Trust.

In 1986, he joined the staff of the Royal Opera House’s education department, finally retiring in 1999.

By then, he had published more than 300 books and touched the hearts and minds of thousands, perhaps millions. He was already showing the first signs of a rare form of Parkinson’s disease, an affliction he bore with great courage, even starting to write poetry. “I have discovered,” he said, “the joy which comes from having time to stand and stare.”

He is survived by his wife Helen, from whom he was separated, by their children Elspeth, Hilary and Patrick, and by his partner, Hilary Devonshire.
ROGER TINGLE