Primary Education (1959)

(page numbers in brackets)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages (i-xiii)
Foreword, Preface, Contents

Part 1 Historical
Chapter I (1-11)
Recent History of Primary Education

Part 2 The Primary Schools
Chapter II (15-26)
Introduction
Chapter III (27-36)
Nursery Schools and Classes
Chapter IV (37-55)
Infant schools
Chapter V (56-77)
Junior Schools
Chapter VI (78-105)
The Working of the School
Chapter VII (106-110)
Special Educational Treatment

Part 3 The Fields of Learning
Chapter VIII (113-116)
The Curriculum
Chapter IX (117-129)
Religion
Chapter X (130-134)
Physical Education
Chapter XI (135-178)
Language
Chapter XII (179-212)
Mathematics
Chapter XIII (213-246)
Art and Craft and Needlework
Chapter XIV (247-259)
Handwriting
Chapter XV (260-274)
Music
Chapter XVI (275-288)
History
Chapter XVII (289-313)
Geography and Natural History

Part 4 The Special Problems of Wales
Chapter XVIII (317-329)
Wales

Index (331-334)

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1959
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Preliminary pages

[title page]

[page ii]

[page iii]

Since the war the teachers, the local education authorities and the Ministry of Education have had to concentrate all their energy and resources on the tremendous task of providing education for not far short of two million extra children. This phase is now drawing to a close and, as we prepare to make an even bigger effort to improve the nation's schools under the policy described in the Government's recent White Paper, I should like to thank everyone who has helped to win the 'battle of the bulge'.

But the recruitment and training of teachers, and the design and construction of buildings, are no more than means to an end: the real objective is to give a good start in life to all the boys and girls in our primary and secondary schools. And from this point of view it is the quality of the teachers, and of the teaching they give, that matters more in the long run than logistics.

Fortunately, we have in this country a tradition of independence and vitality amongst the teachers which guarantees that new knowledge and experience is quickly translated into new courses, new ideas about the way schools should be run, and new teaching methods. And these new ideas, developed in the schools, in turn inspired the successive editions of the Handbook of Suggestions for teachers issued by the Board of Education during the first half of this century.

Since the last Handbook was published this process has continued with increasing momentum, and it now seems the right moment to compile a new anthology of the ideas and practices which teachers are successfully developing in the schools. But the ideas collected together in this pamphlet have no other claim to authority, and they are not now contained in a 'Handbook of Suggestions': the old title is no longer in tune with the status of the teaching profession, or with the broader view which we now take of what constitutes good education.

[page iv]

In conclusion, I should like to emphasise that I intend to make it easier for every school to reach the high standards which are the aim and inspiration of this pamphlet by the steps I am taking to reduce the size of classes and improve school buildings.

[Geoffrey Lloyd was Minister of Education from September 1957 to October 1959.]

[page v]

The last Handbook of Suggestions for teachers and others engaged in the work of public elementary schools was published by the Board of Education twenty-two years ago, and for the first time was conceived in terms of separate infant, junior and senior stages of education in what were then the public elementary schools. But though the infant schools already showed many of the features which characterise them today, the junior schools were at that time only tentatively striking out towards what are now common practices, and less than half the children between eight and twelve years of age were then in schools separate from those containing older children also.

Since the 1944 Act established primary education as the first stage in a continuous system of education, over 2,600 new primary schools have been built, and many more have been renovated. There has been for some years a widespread and quickening interest in primary work among both teachers and the general public, while the children's achievements in many directions have been remarkable. These achievements have not come about suddenly or by the mechanical application of any special methods, but because teachers, from their experience and from the growing body of research available to them, have come to understand better the ways in which children learn, and have applied their knowledge to good purpose. The present seems, therefore, a suitable time for the publication of a fresh volume for the consideration of teachers, limited this time to primary education.

The 1937 Suggestions stressed the change in emphasis in educational thought and practice from the subjects of instruction to the child. Primary education today is deeply concerned with children as children, with their great diversity of aptitudes, abilities and temperaments, with their many, but interdependent and changing needs. The present book calls also for a more critical consideration by teachers of the quality and substance of what is offered to the children for their learning, and for a firmer realisation that children's capacities, whether they be small or great, should be exercised to the full.

[page vi]

The contents of this book are based on what Her Majesty's Inspectors have seen in schools in all parts of the country in recent years, and on discussions with teachers about their work and about the principles on which they act and the standards they achieve. Teachers in primary schools will recognise here some of the situations they meet every day, and by reading of them in a wider setting may find their thinking stimulated and their practices challenged or confirmed by the experience of others. The book is necessarily selective. It does not attempt to give a complete picture of primary education as it now is. Its authors have selected from the mass of material available to them those ideas and practices which seem most worthy of consideration by teachers in primary schools at the present time.

Chapter XVIII has been contributed by Her Majesty's Inspectors in Wales to meet the special needs of teachers in Wales.

This book contains a number of quotations and the Ministry wishes to acknowledge the ready way in which publishers and others gave permission for the use of those where copyright is involved.

[page vii]

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