Schedule:Spring 1934
Biology: How Life is Lived
(National Programme, Wednesdays 2:30pm)
Music
(National Programme, Tuesdays 2:30pm & 3:00pm, Fridays 3:00pm)
Science and Agriculture
(National Programme, Mondays 2:05pm)
Talks for Older Pupils
(National Programme, Tuesdays 4:05pm, Wednesdays 11:40am & Thursdays 3:50pm)
BBC Radio
National Programme
Programmes broadcast on the BBC National Programmes throughout the UK, except Scotland (see below), and repeated on the Belfast Programme and the Plymouth & Bournemouth Programme.
| MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY | |||||||||||||
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| 11:30 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 11:40 French Readings, Talks & Dialogues | ||||||||||||||||
| 11:45 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 12:00 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 14:00 | 14:00 Reception Test | 14:00 Reception Test | 14:00 Reception Test | 14:00 Reception Test | 14:00 Reception Test | |||||||||||
| 14:05 Science and Agriculture | 14:05 Round the Countryside | 14:05 British HistoryTwelfth to Fifteenth Centuries | 14:05 Tracing History Backwards | 14:05 Life and Work in the British Empire | ||||||||||||
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| 14:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 14:30 | 14:30 World History1500 - 1800 | 14:30 MusicCourse I: Introductory | 14:30 BiologyHow Life is Lived | 14:30 King's English | 14:30 English LiteratureSome Books I Like / Delight in Poetry | |||||||||||
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| 14:45 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:00 | 15:00 MusicCourse II: Advanced | 15:00 MusicCourse III: Concert Talk | ||||||||||||||
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| 15:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:30 | ||||||||||||||||
| 15:35 Early Stages in German | 15:35 Early Stages in French(M. Stéphan) | 15:35 Friday Afternoon Story | ||||||||||||||
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| 15:45 | ||||||||||||||||
| 15:50 German Readings & Dialogue | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:00 | ||||||||||||||||
| 16:05 What's The News? | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:30 | ||||||||||||||||
There was also a Reading Test broadcast from 15:33 to 15:35 on Tuesdays, which is too short to fit on the grid.
Scottish Regional Programme
Programmes for schools were broadcast in the Scottish Regional Programme and repeated by the Aberdeen Programme. The schedule was a mix of some series from the National schedule and some original Scottish series.
The BBC radio network was made up of National Programmes and Regional Programmes (where "Programmes" means radio stations). Whilst the National Programmes in the rest of the country broadcast to schools as listed above, the Scottish National Programme broadcast output from the Regional Programme schedule instead between 14:00 and 16:00, while the Scottish Regional Programme did the broadcasts to schools. OK?
| MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY | FRIDAY | |||||||||||||
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| 11:30 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 11:40 French Readings, Talks & Dialogues (as National) | ||||||||||||||||
| 11:45 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 12:00 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 14:00 | 14:00 Reading Test | |||||||||||||||
| 14:05 Reading Test | 14:05 Tracing History Backwards (as National) | |||||||||||||||
| 14:10 Scottish History | ||||||||||||||||
| 14:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 14:25 Reading Test | ||||||||||||||||
| 14:30 | 14:30 World History1500 - 1800 (as National) | 14:30 Time and Tune | 14:30 Reading Test | |||||||||||||
| 14:35 Reading Test | 14:35 Science Course II | 14:35 Round the WorldAsia | ||||||||||||||
| 14:40 Elementary FrenchM. & Mme. Oberlin | ||||||||||||||||
| 14:45 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:00 | 15:00 Concerts for Schools | 15:00 Gramophone records | 15:00 Concert for Secondary Schools | 15:00 Concert for Primary Schools | ||||||||||||
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| 15:10 Science Course I | 15:10 Great Stories of the World | |||||||||||||||
| 15:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:30 | ||||||||||||||||
| 15:35 Early Stages in German (as National) | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:45 | ||||||||||||||||
| 15:50 German Readings & Dialogue (as National) | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:00 | ||||||||||||||||
| 16:05 What's The News? (as National) | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 16:30 | ||||||||||||||||
Wales
Programmes carried on the BBC West Regional and North Regional Programmes. The general schedule of English-language schools programmes was also available in these areas on the National Programmes.
| DYDD LLUN | DYDD MAWRTH | DYDD MERCHER | DYDD IAU | DYDD GWENER | |||||||||||||
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| 15:00 | ||||||||||||||||
| 15:05 Alawon Gwerin Cymru | 15:05 Y Tonau Emyn | 15:05 Plant Cymru trwy'r Oesoedd | ||||||||||||||
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| 15:15 | ||||||||||||||||
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| 15:30 | ||||||||||||||||
Notes & New Programmes
The National and Scottish programmes ran from Monday 15th January to Friday 23rd March 1934 - apart from the English Literature and Concert Talks series on Friday afternoons, which finished 1 week earlier as they were replaced by commentary on the Grand National horse race on 23rd March.
The Welsh programmes ran from Monday 22nd January to Monday 26th March 1934. The Welsh series were originally billed in the opposite slots - it had been planned to broadcast Plant Cymru trwy'r Oesoedd (The Children of Wales Through the Ages) on Mondays and the two musical series Alawon Gwerin Cymru (Welsh Folk Songs) and Y Tonau Emyn (Hymn Tunes, Their Structure and History) on Thursdays[1].
The first experimental broadcasts of schools programmes in the morning began in autumn 1933 and continued this term[1].
Reception tests and test signals and suchlike would normally not be included in the schedules on this site. However the Reception Tests broadcast on the national programme at 2pm daily this year were effectively schools programmes themselves, as the BBC conducted their Reception Tests on innocent schoolchildren! The tests consisted of a series of words and sounds being read out by the announcer. Teachers were asked to get a group of secondary-age children to write down the words they heard and send the children's work uncorrected to the Central Council for School Broadcasting. The ways in which the children spelled out the sounds they heard allowed the Council to judge the quality of the radio signal received in the school. These Reception Tests continued until 1935[2].
Sources & References
- BBC (1934) Readings, Talks and Dialogues for Older Pupils Spring 1934, London: BBC. (This is actually just the Talks for Older Pupils pamphlet, given the title from its inner title page.)
- Radio Times listings, 1934
- The Times broadcasting listings, 1934, via The Times Digital Archive
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The originally planned schedule, with the Welsh series transposed, was published in BBC (1934) pp.8-9. Notes on the introduction of morning broadcasts from the same source p.3: "As many schools have expressed a preference for a morning period, the B.B.C. have agreed to put at the disposal of the Council for one year a period, 11.40-11.55 a.m. on Wednesdays, to which the course of 'Readings, Talks and Dialogues, in French' [sic] has been experimentally transferred."
- ↑ Details of the Reception Tests from BBC (1934) and similar publications from the following few years.
Subjects key
Different colours indicate different school subjects.