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.

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The fact that separate infant schools have flourished for nearly a hundred years in this country has led to a concentration of thought on the children of infant school age, with the result that people have been unusually aware of the nature of the children to be educated and ready to mould their education to their needs and capacities.

During their years in the infant school the change in children is often so great that it is sometimes difficult to realise that it has happened in so brief a period. When they come to school at five, many are barely loosed from their mother's apron strings; when they leave at seven most of them are self-reliant, able to hold their own with other children, and well-established as schoolboys and schoolgirls. Many children at five have a patchy but surprisingly shrewd knowledge of their own small world, and have learnt much of the ways of a few people. Many have speech more or less adequate to their needs, and already are well aware that printed words have meaning and that books can be turned into sense by reading - though very few at five can perform this miracle. They are not strangers to the concepts of size, number, money, weight and other measures, and they may well have contributed their scribble to a family letter. This they have learnt mainly through play and incidental experience, without much deliberate teaching, though often with parental encouragement.

A healthy child of five can run and jump and is beginning to perform such feats of coordination as throwing a ball or skipping. His senses have developed considerably, though he is still far from the adult standard in such things as musical pitch or close vision. His smaller muscles, such as those in the hand, are still not fully under his control, nor has he as yet a great amount of muscular strength, though he is strong for his size. He can move his limbs as speedily as older children. Throughout the primary period he is growing fast in every way. All this determines both

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what he can do and in what kind of activities he can be most profitably engaged.

Another characteristic of young children which determines the nature of their education in the infant school is their need to be active, both physically and mentally. A child growing towards seven does not move about as continuously as he did when he was younger, but he finds it difficult to remain still for long. When left in the open he usually begins to run, and he is always touching and handling things. The span of his voluntary attention is still very brief and it is possible to control it only for a short time. Thus, much of his day must still be occupied in doing things which of themselves focus his powers of mind and body.

A most helpful characteristic, which many children show at this stage, is that they already want to grow up. A few, even at five, are ready to read and write - as most are a year later - and some are interested in numbers and shapes. These children cooperate in their own education, and readily respond to their teacher's guidance and stimulus. They ask for information, and seek it themselves by observation and questions. The questions become increasingly intelligent, and the answers are more frequently remembered.

During the infant stage, imagination and memory are still often mingled with fantasy. It is good to let children play out their fantasies, but at the same time to encourage them to use their imagination more and more in real situations.

Unless their attitude has been warped before they reach school, the response of these young children is ready and open-hearted. There are few things they are not ready to enjoy. During these two years most of them begin to cooperate and to be considerate. They come to see that certain actions have certain consequences, and they learn to accept the consequences of their own actions and to make sensible independent decisions. For most children, every day is a new beginning and they live fully in each incident as it comes. Their reactions are often violent, but also short-lived; they may feel anger but do not harbour resentment; they quarrel but quickly forget their quarrels. They want to feel they are accepted and to be well thought of by their elders.

A child at the infant stage needs the teacher's help, as did the nursery children, in getting control of his self-centred desires, in learning to live with others and in taking some responsible part in the general life around him. Not only example and

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encouragement are needed, but now and then simple explanations too, especially when the school has to make up, as best it can, for the deprivations of an unsuccessful home. It is the adult who establishes the tone of the group and who enables children to live at peace and to feel reasonably confident.

In their intellectual development the adult's help is no less essential. As it is not until between six and seven that most children can read - and even then, for many, reading is not their main means of learning - much that a child wants to know he must be helped to find out or be told. His questions must be given honest answers. From an early age, children are sufficiently perspicacious to see through mere patronage or the hasty, superficial treatment of their enquiries. When a child is left intellectually unsatisfied he feels rebuffed, and may develop an unresponsive attitude towards those who try to teach him and become increasingly reluctant to make an effort. At this stage of education, as at any other, there is no substitute for the easy give-and-take between growing child and sympathetic adult. Ideas, knowledge, attitudes and shades of meaning and feeling are conveyed in language, gesture, tone of voice, and mood. Anything which diminishes the opportunity or ease of this contact, such as over-large classes or repressive personal relationships, handicaps children's development.

(a) Variety among children

(i) Variety of background

Among the five-year-olds coming to school, only a few will have already attended a nursery school. All kinds of homes will be represented, from those where the children have had every advantage of affection, security, and all that is meant by good upbringing, to those where children experience little loving-kindness, have no possessions of their own, and seldom hear an intelligent conversation. There are areas where the school and parents have had long association and are well known to each other; there are new housing estates where a settled community life has scarcely begun and where teachers and families are all strangers to each other. There are places where children live in overcrowded built-up areas to which the teachers travel to school, and so can take little part in the life of the neighbourhood. These and many other circumstances set different problems according to the area the school serves - and often one

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school serves several different kinds of area. It is particularly necessary that a teacher of young children should be aware of the kind of life children live when they are not in school.

(ii) Variety in natural endowments

The differences in children's innate endowments are not confined to the more obvious intellectual accomplishments. Their physical vigour varies, their bodily skill, manual dexterity and emotional stability. There are children who are far less advanced than others in language or in any apparent interest in books, or whose curiosity seems scarcely awake. Though the majority come to school full of vigour, and eager to take all that can be offered them, there are always the few who are listless or timid, and others who show very little muscular control. There may be some who seem moody or quick-tempered. It is not easy for a teacher to find time to give to each child the help he needs; but all need help in some measure, and their progress may depend on their finding it. The really able children will already be showing their abilities and commanding that integration of powers which enables them to grasp and cope with new situations and to learn quickly from experience.

But at this stage, firm conclusions about a child's ability are very rash, for temperamental difficulties or impoverished upbringing may well mask, for the time being, capacities which cannot show themselves until the child is emotionally more stable or until some of the ground lost in his earlier years has been made up. This is one reason why 'streaming' in infant schools is generally unwise.

Schools vary almost as much as children and their backgrounds, and arrangements and ways of teaching are necessarily influenced by conditions of size, amenities, size of classes, staffing and environment. For example, in a school in which twenty children between five and seven are all in one class, or still more when the fives to sevens are in one class which includes older children too, the ways of doing things will necessarily be different from those in a class of forty children, all within a year of the same age. Again, it is obvious that the great diversity in physical con-

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ditions must to some extent, and occasionally to a very great degree, affect the kind and quality of the children's education. Limitations of space, light and amenities cramp movement and handicap the use of materials, as well as hindering training in good personal habits while, on the other hand, good conditions with spacious, pleasing surroundings are in themselves incentives to lively work and reasonable behaviour. Yet in the most unpromising physical circumstances, teachers have often somehow contrived conditions which are neither ugly, gloomy nor repellent to children, and ingenuity has more than once turned a forbidding institution into an inviting school. The best work is not always found in the newest buildings, and education of first-rate quality is not unknown in the most unpromising.

Where the infants form part of an infant-junior school it is essential that the Head, man or woman, should be well acquainted with the principles and practices of infant education, and should see that they are never impaired by the demands made by the teachers of the older children.

Some larger infant schools are fortunate in having on the staff an assistant whose main duty is to look after the physical welfare of the children, though she also takes a general interest in all they do. Such assistants, and the availability of clerical help, make an appreciable contribution to the school's opportunities.

Every child coming to an infant school should feel himself welcome, profitably occupied and happy. The way in which the children are received into the school, and their life there for the first few weeks, largely determine their attitude to school for a long time.

The child going to the village school is fortunate in that he meets only a limited number of other children of his own age; but for nearly every child, school means a bewildering enlargement of his physical world. His daily routine changes abruptly, and he enters a world which, however much latitude it may offer him, can only do so within its own regime and circumstances. He needs time to get used to it.

(a) Some ways in which children are helped to begin school life happily

Many infant schools encourage parents to take their children

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on a visit to school some time before they begin to attend it. This first visit should be, for the mother, only the beginning of a close association with the school which will last as long as her child is there. The common understanding by parents and teachers of the purpose and standards of school and home can greatly help a child to feel secure in the two worlds in which he now lives, and do something to ensure that neither home nor school makes conflicting claims.

When he begins school each newcomer needs the teacher's special help and attention, and ideally he is received into a small group, as in the nursery school. Children are usually admitted only at the beginning of each term, though many schools now manage to spread the entry over some days, so that each little group can be initiated gently into the school's ways.

Some schools also, retaining the same number of staff throughout the year, are able in the first term to keep the youngest class or classes small, so that by the time the newcomers arrive in the second and third terms the older children are able to look after themselves and help the younger ones. In the second term the class is still not full, so that at no time does the teacher have to cope with more than a part of the class new to school. This is a great advantage.

Shortage of teachers or of rooms sometimes causes frequent promotions from the entrants' class to make room for other children coming in. This is unfortunate. Children who are still settling down need the steady companionship of the teacher whom they are getting to know and the familiar environment of their own class and classroom. They need, also, to feel the steadying effects of the regular life in school, which, if disrupted, may for some lead to setbacks.

There has, in recent years, grown up in a few infant schools a practice of organising the school so that each class contains children of different ages - five to over seven. This is to carry into the large school the kind of classification that is automatic in the small school, and it is an attempt to reproduce a kind of family atmosphere in which older and younger children live together, the younger ones emulating and imitating the older ones. Where schools are so organised, the initiation of the five-year-olds is comparatively easy, since the newcomers are spread over every class in the school and there are plenty of older children to look after them; especially is this so where the school is

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careful not to separate members of the same family. The problems presented by such an organisation will be clear from what follows; but, where the groups are of moderate size and are in the hands of skilful teachers, an organisation of this kind enables the younger children to make good progress in every way.

But more important than anything else are the attitudes of teachers towards children and towards each other. For though children do not understand, in the adult sense, the full implications of attitudes expressed in behaviour, they seem to have an intuitive appreciation of an adult's feelings and to be affected by them.

A welcoming friendliness is essential, but not enough. From the beginning the school sets out to provide a fuller life for the children than their homes can do. For those who have been in a nursery school or class the infant school has to continue education in healthy ways of living and in social behaviour. Some of those for whom the infant school is their first school may need much help in forming good habits of cleanliness and orderliness. For all, the infant school should offer good upbringing in personal behaviour and in attitudes to other people, though these do not appear as part of the curriculum or in schemes of work. To all the children the school must offer stimulating materials and situations, as well as scope for their growing powers, and must enable them to learn all that they can. How this is done can be considered from three aspects:

(a) materials and equipment;
(b) the teacher's part;
(c) the arrangement of time.

As has been said, children at the primary stage, and especially at the beginning of it, are active, curious and wanting to do and make things. The quality and success of their learning depends, therefore, on their being in an environment which stimulates them to explore and find out, and which gives them the means of expressing in a diversity of ways what they learn, feel and imagine.

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Out of doors and in the hall there is usually apparatus on which children can climb, slide, and experiment in movement. The classroom should be a playroom, workroom and living room combined. There should be in the room, as well as elsewhere, materials and tools of the kind suggested for nursery schools. In addition to dressing-up clothes there should be fabrics of all sorts which the children use in a variety of ways. There should be many simple means of counting, weighing and measuring, and of experimenting with size, shape, weight and volume. The more simple, homely and familiar this apparatus is, the better. A number of constructions, such as a shop, circus or railway station, crude perhaps, and temporary, reflecting the children's recent interest and experience, and made by themselves, are commonly to be found in a good infant classroom.

There should be a good supply of varied materials for drawing, painting and writing, and of what is often regarded as waste material. The children need some protection for their clothes, and some protection is also needed for parts of the floor so that the children can play freely and without doing damage. They must be taught to clear up when they have finished.

Musical instruments and a variety of objects with which children can produce sounds are useful, and there should be pleasant things to look at. The arrangement and care of these and of the aquaria and of any animals which the school keeps should be everyone's concern. As often as possible the children should take material and tools to work in the open air.

Every room in an infant school should contain a good collection of books - clean, attractively printed and produced, and arranged so that children can see, handle, use and take care of them. Of some books there may be only one or two copies, and some may not have been specially written for the very young. The variety should reflect the wide range of interest and of capacity these children already show. During the day children can choose and take down books for themselves, sit quietly turning the pages, absorbed perhaps in the pictures and finding words to talk about them, to themselves, to a neighbour or to their teacher. One may find a book from which he 'reads' what the pictures suggest the print-script is about; another 'reads' what he knows by heart; another may in fact recognise words, phrases or sentences which he reads in the true sense of the word. Others may already be turning to books for pictures of things they know

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and want to know more about. There should also be books from which the teacher reads to the children, letting them 'look over' and sense the pleasure of turning print into meaning. Thus, from the very beginning, the enjoyment and the use of books form a part of normal life at school.

All this material has to be frequently overhauled, kept clean, and replenished when necessary. It is obvious that physical conditions can encourage or hamper the range of opportunities that the teacher can provide. In schools where there is adequate space and storage, the varied activities go on without friction, and all the materials can be tidied away and kept dust-free and orderly. In many schools, the hall, the corridors and other spaces outside the classroom are used almost as fully as the rooms or playground and garden, and almost everywhere in the building children may be seen hard at work at their different employments.

Where conditions are poor the teacher may have to decide carefully what are the children's most essential needs and to maintain a good range of opportunity by changing materials from time to time. In such circumstances, she needs considerable ingenuity and persistence if she is to keep everything clean and tidily stored. Fortunately a class of children who find life in school satisfying are, even at five, good allies of a teacher whom they like, and soon share her pride in a well-kept room.

(b) The teacher's part

The arrangement of the room and the uses to which the equipment is put are the teacher's responsibility. No matter how excellent the equipment and materials, they will fail of their purpose unless through them the children learn effectively and learn what is of value. Whether or not they do this depends largely on the teacher's power to think ahead and to organise.

An experienced teacher's planning is flexible and long-term. She can see, in outline, a month's or a term's work ahead, and knows how children can work within this general plan towards the objectives she has in mind. She can therefore afford to let them follow the enthusiasms which carry them forward effectively, even though for the time being some other things are left aside. She can wait for the children to work out fruitful enterprises for so long as they can give their attention, and so let them taste the satisfaction of achievement at the end of sustained effort. Such a teacher can bring each phase of work in turn into

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focus, so that in due course the whole range is covered in ways which make full use of the children's interests as they arise and of the energy which flows from them. With a rigid day to day plan many opportunities are missed. It must be admitted, however, that a teacher's capacity to plan in this flexible long-term way is, as a rule, the reward only of experience and reflection, and can scarcely be acquired either by instruction or from books. A young teacher has to avoid being too ambitious at first, and may need the advice and help of a more experienced colleague.

Each day, the teacher has to be watching and working with groups or with individuals and yet to be fully aware of the whole class. She has to know the stage that the various children have reached in the many sides of their progress and to be ready to help them to take the next step forward. There are sure to be some individuals who have never handled some of the materials they find in schools and are at first shy of doing so. If the teacher herself takes part they gain confidence and are soon excited by the possibilities of the material. Sometimes a teacher may encourage another child to help the newcomer, and he may do it better than she can. The timid child or one too sheltered at home has to be encouraged to do things and to use his body and limbs, and the impetuous child to persevere in the job which he has started and given up in impatience or despair.

Though at five children are rarely able to converse among themselves and though their talk to one another consists of apparently desultory chatter and broken running commentaries, they can converse with their teacher, since she understands and takes their idea and throws it back to them. This conversation is of great value to the children, weaving language and experience together for them in a way which expands and strengthens language and gives more meaning to experience.

A few children, even at five, are ready to read, and the teacher must give the necessary help. She may use a book or a primer. She may write down for the child what he would say, or perhaps his title for or comment on, a picture he has made. The children may 'read' and even copy what is written, and so, from the beginning, reading and writing have sense and purpose. Much of the vocabulary of number, size, shape and measurement may well come into the conversation about what the children are doing and, informally, they learn much that is part of the substance of mathematics.

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Sometimes the teacher works with groups; sometimes the whole class comes together for a short lesson, to hear stories or to make music.

The teacher's appraisal of what the children do and make is very important. Probably one of the surest ways she has of knowing what they are gaining from what is provided for them is to take note of the quality, range and amount of what they originate themselves.

The teacher also notes the signs of the children's personal progress towards self-reliance, friendliness and thoughtfulness for others and of their power to cooperate with them, and of growth in many other ways. Her response to the children's efforts inevitably suggests standards and values, and at this stage this is the children's main way in school of knowing what is good or bad, acceptable or otherwise. Children already have some awareness of when they are doing their best, and appreciate the recognition of this by their teacher; and they also know when they are merely playing about, and quickly lose respect for a teacher who allows them to do so. Again, in the things she presents to the children as worthy of admiration, a teacher reveals her own tastes and forms theirs. Fortunately, in the arts and the natural world there are very many things which, from childhood onwards, are sources of satisfaction, giving different pleasures to different ages; a great many poems, stories, and pictures and much music can be enjoyed by teacher and children alike without condescension on her part or boredom or bewilderment on theirs.

(c) The arrangement of time

The arrangement of the school day depends ultimately on the Head, but it is usually planned in consultation with the staff. Apart from the corporate act of worship prescribed by the Education Act of 1944, there are no regulations to be observed for the disposal of time, and therefore each school can please itself. But in some things most infant schools agree.

There is, in good schools, enough leisureliness to prevent the children or teachers feeling hurried. Children of five are still slow in doing quite simple things, such as washing and going to the WC [toilet], or putting away their materials and preparing to move from one place to another. From a sense of there being time to do what has to be done, comes a feeling of calm and serenity. Without serenity no environment can be satisfying to a child; nor

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should he be forced beyond a pace at which he can go without confusion.

Then, a good programme, whatever it may be, achieves a nice balance between the properly vigorous excitement of one phase and the quiet of another. Constant stimulation is as tiring to a child as turmoil. And to add to the children's sense of security, the general order of things, day after day, should be sufficiently familiar and recognisable to provide a stable framework, within which, however, all kinds of interesting variations may happen.

Times must be fixed for use of the hall and other accommodation or equipment which is used by more than one class; but schools differ in the way they use the time that remains, and take account of circumstances and of what the teachers find is best for the children. In some schools the day is still divided into a succession of short periods, but this is becoming very rare. In most schools there are longer periods, used at the teacher's discretion, during which the children may be doing many different things, individually or in groups. In some the programme of each day appears to be much less clearly defined than in others, and what the children learn and how they learn seem to depend largely on immediate interests and unexpected opportunities. But, on closer investigation, it is generally found that, in fact, the apparently spontaneous interests and pursuits were not unforeseen by the teacher or unprovided for by her, though the children had all the satisfaction and incentive of feeling themselves to be the initiators and the discoverers.

There is, then, a wide range of ways by which commonly accepted principles may be put into practice. The education of young children must necessarily be a flexible process, sensitively applied and held steady by experience and common sense.

The later stages in the infant school can be considered under the same headings as before, though more briefly.

(a) Materials and equipment

Many materials, such as paper, paint, pencils, clay, wood, fabrics and all the paraphernalia of dressing-up and building belong to every age from childhood to adult life. It is not the

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materials they use, but what they do with them which shows the children's progress. At this stage they will work with greater concentration, ask more penetrating questions, and take a greater responsibility for any work they do.

The children should now have many more opportunities to use and find out about numbers, sizes and shapes, and should be expected to show more exactness in what they do, observe and record.

The range of books should provide for the wide differences, as well as for the remarkable range of interests, found in a class of children of this age. The children's reading and writing may be manifested in many ways; newspapers, nature records and dictionaries appear, probably made by the children themselves, and showing how the literary skills are becoming a normal part of their lives. In many schools, some children are now showing at about their seventh year a dramatic advance in their powers of writing down vividly what they want to say, such writing having a freshness and vigour unsurpassed later. This is one of the most remarkable developments in the post-war primary school.

Where the teacher is using opportunities to the full, children's progress in what they do with materials is very great. They make the dough they use for many purposes, and make it, as well as doing other simple 'cooking', from written recipes. They not merely dress up themselves, but they measure, construct and decorate clothes for their dolls. They do not merely put objects or bits and pieces together to represent, rather vaguely, something that is in their minds, but, often using acute observation, they may construct objects with a skill and an exactness remarkable in relation to the extent of their knowledge of materials and their competence with tools. It might almost be said that, before they leave the infant school, many children have shown something of the power which artists have to imagine the end they seek, and the power which craftsmen have to achieve their end in their own way.

(b) The teacher's part

The demands on the teacher are great. The children need her support and companionship as much as ever, and she has to be versatile and resourceful. She has to introduce new interests in a way that catches the children's attention and, without dimming their sense of wonder, to increase their understanding and help

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them to relate their otherwise fleeting ideas. School subjects* are at this stage all closely interwoven, and the teacher has unlimited opportunities for showing the relevance of one thing to another.

During these later stages, there must be more methodical teaching, whether to individuals, groups or to the class, however informal such teaching may be. Reading and writing are a case in point. The teacher continues to reveal to the children, by reading to them, by showing and by mentioning books, what books and reading can give them; but, as the children themselves begin to recognise words and phrases, they need help in mastering the skill of reading and in practising it. Infant schools are as concerned with reading as they ever were, and teachers have lost none of their old skill in teaching it, but they take a more discriminating view than formerly of its place at a particular stage.

Similarly, in learning to write, the children need not only the best tools but help from the teacher, and this she can give only if she understands their capacities and difficulties and has some knowledge of the art of handwriting.

In mathematics much depends on what is offered to and expected of the children at this time. They need help in realising something of the mathematical significance of the many things they do and discover in the wide and diverse fields of 'how many?' and 'how much?'. Already they are beginning to make some part of their knowledge automatic, and are acquiring their first mastery of simple processes. Above all, their vocabulary in these matters should be growing apace.

A teacher's appreciation of the children's efforts in creative work, whether in spoken or written English, in paint or plastic materials, requires a nice judgement on her part as to what she might expect from each. It is essential that every child should enjoy success, and equally important that he should not enjoy it without effort, pleasurable though the effort may have been. Indeed, a teacher often has to sustain his effort until achievement comes. Perhaps one of the hardest things a young teacher has to learn is the standard of work that is to be expected from a class of any particular age, and from each child in it.

(c) The arrangement of time

What was said in describing the early stages of school applies

*See Part 3 for full discussion of the teaching of all school subjects, including their beginnings at the infant stage.

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equally here. There are the same general principles, there is the same variety of practice. The children's increased responsibility and powers of working independently over a longer period show themselves in the way that jobs are carried out. The day may be broken into shorter periods or longer; sometimes all the children may be doing the same thing; at other times, groups or individuals may be differently employed; sometimes a period is set apart when all work at the 'Three Rs,' though one group may be doing reading and another writing or number. Many teachers, however, find that this particular combination gives rise to difficulties, and that they can give more attention to those who need help in reading, for example, if other groups are doing something other than mathematics or writing. No two schools are alike in their planning; but everywhere one would expect to find that the children spent some time in physical activity, some in music-making and some in reading or hearing poetry and stories; that all had opportunities for making things with different kinds of materials, for the study and care of flowers, plants and other living things, and that proper attention was paid to reading, writing and mathematics.

All that was said earlier about the teacher's planning applies even more strongly to the later stages. With experience, she can foresee the children's progress on all fronts for a fairly long time ahead, and at this stage she can take them into her confidence and allow an undertaking to go forward to its conclusion while other things wait to be done later. During this period a skilful teacher is able to cultivate in the children a useful sense of responsibility about the different sides of their work, while making full use of their current interests and enterprise. So the days and weeks will be contained in a framework which holds the whole programme together, but which is never a strait-jacket cramping initiative.

The children's behaviour, in a successful school, reflects the discipline of wholehearted effort in pursuits that are intelligible and of absorbing interest to them.

The infants in an old and small rural school sometimes suffer grave disadvantages. In buildings not yet renovated, they may still be in the ancient 'baby-room', small, and often dark.

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Sanitary fittings may still be primitive, and there may be scant provision of the materials that the children need for their play and work and almost no space to store such materials. There is always to be sure in these rooms a comforting sense of intimacy, but this can scarcely compensate for the disadvantages. When these old buildings are renovated, the children are given a room that is light and airy and from which they can go direct to the playground. There is space to use and store books and materials, and sanitation is brought up to date. Such changes bring about remarkable developments in the kind of education the children can be given. But until this happens it is most important that everything which can be done to mitigate the poor conditions should be done. The children should be taken into the open air whenever possible; means of washing should be improvised, and every device for storing and using books and materials should be considered. It is also a help if these children are given every possible chance to use the larger room (generally the only other room) and if they are allowed to share in anything that would give them more opportunity for movement and for the activities natural to children of their age.

It is a pity that there has been so much misunderstanding about what has been called 'activity' - and a still greater pity that it has sometimes been assumed that it and methodical teaching are mutually exclusive. It is time that the term was again given a more homely and general connotation, and that the misleading assumption that the children's activity somehow excludes good teaching should be dropped.

Teachers have always known that no child learns unless he is active in mind, body or both (in the last resort the distinction is difficult to make). The teacher's problem is to stimulate in the children the effort which makes learning successful and to use it fruitfully when it is aroused. Children's effort is most effective when it is sustained by some urge within themselves - by curiosity, interest (whether direct or caught from someone else) or the urge to express, make or do. The 1937 edition of the Handbook of Suggestions made this very clear:

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'Much use will, doubtless, be made of those corporate activities of a realistic kind which make it possible for each child, working as one of a group, to engage himself in the particular operation which appeals to him most. The better the equipment of the school, the more it will provide suitable opportunities for this. The children's enjoyment is in itself worth while, for childhood - a stage in itself - is more than a preparation for maturity, and there is no doubt that children learn a great deal naturally through spontaneous and undirected play.

But so far as the school itself is concerned, these activities will, in addition, provide the best foundation for future development if the teacher herself understands their value and their possibilities and takes steps to ensure that they do not degenerate into mere barren repetition, or take the form of that apparently aimless kind of play which marks an earlier stage of childhood.'

The best of what have been called 'activity methods' are the attempts of teachers to use natural ways of learning so that the children give their full attention to what they are doing and use all their desire to explore and find out, putting out their maximum effort. The teacher should have a clear idea of what she expects them to learn, though she may not foresee all that any particular child will get out of the opportunities or materials she provides for him, for children's inventiveness and what arrests their attention can be a constant source of surprise to even the most experienced teachers.

The teacher's responsibility for what is offered to the children, for the ways in which they use opportunities and the attitudes of mind which lead them to make the most of them, and for the maintenance of good standards of performance in relation to the children's capacity, is in no way diminished, but rather increased. She is, in no uncertain sense, 'in charge', and her powers of organisation are at full stretch.

Nor should 'activity' suggest any omission of methodical teaching. At every stage, at the right time, all children need methodical help. Such help is given in a simple way at home when they learn to dress and to feed themselves; it is continued at school when they learn to read and write, to care for pets, and to do many other things. But methodical teaching is effective to the extent that the children see it aiding their own efforts, and if it holds their attention and helps them to achieve something they want to achieve or have a use for or a pride in doing. In short, it is effective if it is given at the moment and in the amount which

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the child's own activity of mind demands, and if it does not smother his ardour.

Similarly with practice: no skill can be acquired without practice; but there is a vast difference in the effectiveness of practice which children undertake with zest and with concentrated effort to achieve, and that which is merely mechanical with no active desire to succeed. The ways in which children practise bodily skills and language, even before they are five, provide plenty of examples of the kind of repetition which leads to success.

The ways of teachers differ; but should they attempt to elevate particular methods or procedures to the level of fundamental principles, and cease to be critically aware of what they are doing and of the value of what the children are learning, unfortunate results are likely to follow.

The differing levels achieved by children by the time they leave the infant school are not the result only of their diverse abilities and aptitudes. Children are usually admitted to an infant school at the beginning of the term in which they will reach five years of age: but in nearly all areas, all children over seven are transferred to the junior school (or classes) only once a year, usually in September. There are many good reasons why there should be only this once-yearly transfer; but it means that a child may spend anything from barely two years to two years and two terms in the infant school and be from between just seven years of age to nearly eight at the time of transfer. The attainments of the children must therefore vary greatly - a fact of crucial importance for those who receive them in the junior school.

Even the youngest and the slowest may be expected to have advanced a long way, and in many directions, since they started school. By comparison with a child of five, a child at the end of the infant stage is self-possessed, responsible, independent and capable of devoting himself to a straightforward task in a practical and determined way. Most children have met many new interests and adventures of mind and body and savoured them with the freshness and vividness of early childhood. They will have acquired a measure of social discipline and some power of

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self-management from their daily life with their group, and they can be expected to be friendly, lively and responsive. They will have learnt to express themselves, many competently, in talk and conversation, and some may be filling books of their own making with descriptions of what they have seen or imagined. Some write verse. Many can make simple and accurate records and can use writing for many other purposes. Indeed, the sudden spurt which many children show, especially in linguistic capacity whether oral or written, towards the end of the seventh year, seems remarkable even to teachers with long experience. Some read fluently and with deep absorption; many can use books to find out what they want to know. All but a very few will have made a start in reading. Their mathematical development should have taken firm root.

Nearly all the children will have learnt to manage many different kinds of materials and tools, and should still have the zest and ingenuity in using them characteristic of their age. They should be using their physical powers with confidence, and their bodies and limbs with increasing dexterity and continued satisfaction. Some children, for various reasons, will, in one way or another, have made less progress than the rest. But, whatever their achievements, it is important above all that children should leave the infant school with a sense of confidence in what they have already learnt, and should be ready and eager to learn more. If they have escaped being discouraged and have some confidence in being able to do even a few things well and in using effectively the powers they have, they will be as well prepared as they can be for the next stage.