558. The Council is divided in its views on religious education because of the personal beliefs of its members. The fundamental difference between the theist and the non-theist is not one we can try to resolve. A minority of members believe that religious education should not figure in the curriculum at all. They have stated their reasons in a note of reservation at the end of this Report and dissociate themselves from the views we express. Other members believe that religious education and the Act of Worship should influence the entire curriculum and set the tone of living and learning for the whole school community. The views of the remaining members of the Council range between these two extremes. We have decided to discuss in this section what reforms are possible and desirable within the framework of the 1944 Act. In doing so, we have borne in mind that a survey in 1965 (1) showed that 80 per cent of those interviewed thought that the present arrangements for giving religious education in schools and for daily worship should continue. This interest in religion is supported by other surveys. (2, 3)

559. The Act, in effect, improved the financial position of voluntary schools of which there are two main categories, aided and controlled. In aided schools, all religious education may be denominational; in controlled schools there is

*We prefer to call it religious education (RE) although the Education Act 1944 refers to religious instruction.
**See Notes of Reservation which follow the main Report.

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provision for not more than two periods of denominational instruction each week for children whose parents desire it. Most voluntary schools are Church of England; there is a substantial minority of Roman Catholic schools and a smaller number of Jewish, Methodist and undenominational Christian schools (see Table 9).

560. In both county and voluntary schools, the Act gave statutory force to the provisions of corporate worship (the 'Act of Worship') and of religious education, but it did not introduce either school prayers or scripture lessons, which were all but universal in schools before the Act came into force. It laid upon local education authorities the duty of providing or adopting a syllabus for RE which would be agreeable to the local education authorities, the churches other than Roman Catholic churches, and the teachers, but which would not be distinctive of any particular denomination. The Agreed Syllabuses were not an invention of the Act, but Parliament made general and obligatory what was already common practice. The use of the Agreed Syllabus is obligatory in county schools and controlled schools (apart from periods provided for denominational instruction) and it is quite common in voluntary aided schools.

561. The Act laid down that the Act of Worship should begin the school day: RE, which previously had to be given at the beginning or end of a session, could now be given at any time, the way being thus opened to specialist teaching. The rights of teachers who did not wish to give RE or to attend the Act of Worship were safeguarded. The rights of parents were also safeguarded so that at their request their children might be excused from RE and the Act of Worship or be withdrawn for denominational instruction or for Agreed Syllabus instruction within some limits.

562. At the moment RE is the only subject which the law requires to be taught and the only subject from which both the individual child and teacher may be excused. Its unique status causes difficulties. We stress elsewhere in this and the previous chapter the importance of the integration of the curriculum, particularly for the younger children. Can an integrated curriculum include religious education when individual parents may not wish their children to receive it and certain teachers may not feel competent or wish to give it? What is, and should be, the position of the child or teacher who wishes to withdraw, or the non-Christian head teacher? What form should the Act of Worship take? Are most Agreed Syllabuses in accordance with what is known about children's ways of learning? Is the very notion of an Agreed Syllabus compatible with the flexibility of the modern primary school? We try to answer some of these questions in the paragraphs that follow.

Teachers' Attitudes

563. The willingness of teachers to give religious education is a matter of some delicacy and, so far as we are aware, no direct approach has ever been made to the teaching profession to ascertain the facts. In 1964, however, a survey was undertaken by HM Inspectors. All those who happened to be carrying out full inspections in county schools during the Christmas Term of 1963 and the Easter Term of 1964 were asked to estimate, with the help of the head teachers, the proportion of teachers in these schools who would be likely to volunteer to give religious education if volunteers were called for. The lowest estimate of teachers willing to give instruction in any one primary

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school was 70 per cent. Of teachers actually heard giving religious education during these inspections, HMIs concluded that eight per cent of the women and 16 per cent of the men were reluctant or not much interested. It should be noted that in all but eight of the 163 primary schools included in this survey religious education was given by all the class teachers in their own classes. In the light of this evidence it seems probable that if religious education were to be given only by teachers who volunteered to give it there would be no difficulty in staffing it overall, though there might, of course, be some difficulty in individual schools.

564. The fact that schools seldom have to arrange for classes to receive religious education from other than their class teachers suggests that, although teachers are aware of their right to refuse to give religious education, not all those who wish to exercise this right on conscientious grounds actually do so. This may be because of the inconvenience which would be caused within the school, or because it is believed that a profession of agnosticism is a handicap to promotion. It seems to us that these reasons must operate, though with what frequency or force we are unable to say.

565. The morning assembly may create a greater difficulty for the agnostic aspiring to a headship than religious education itself. It is comparatively easy for a head teacher to arrange that other teachers of his staff should be responsible for religious education but, if he opts out of taking the morning assembly, his withdrawal is bound to be a subject of remark, and, since assembly is a social, as well as a religious, occasion, such a head is likely to be at a real disadvantage.

566. There is some evidence that head teachers and assistants are not sufficiently aware of their freedom in relation to the Agreed Syllabuses. In many instances, the Syllabus itself is very brief and the detailed commentary which may accompany it can be followed or not as teachers wish. In other Syllabuses, it is clearly stated that teachers may select topics and draft their own schemes to suit the children they teach. It may well be that the very existence of an Agreed Syllabus discourages teachers from thinking out schemes for themselves.

Difficulties of the Present Position

567. It does not imply any criticism of the excellent and imaginative work done in religious education in many schools to recognise that there are serious shortcomings in the present arrangements. The chief difficulties seem to be the following:

(a) Many devout Christians want for their children more convincedly Christian teaching than in present circumstances they sometimes get.

(b) For the non-Christian parent there is a difficult choice: either he must acquiesce in his child being taught beliefs which he holds to be untrue and harmful, or he must take the initiative and ask for his child to be excused from religious education, thus setting him apart from the rest of the school. He may not be prepared to do this because he does not wish to make his child appear different.

(c) For the teacher who does not accept the Christian faith, the present arrangements may encourage dishonesty or cynicism, and some sincere teachers are known not to have applied for headships because they would not pretend to a faith they did not hold.

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The School Community

568. The school should be a community within which children should learn to live a good life. They learn from their relationship with their teachers and with each other and from observing the way the adults in the school behave with one another and with children. By example at first hand children can learn to love and to care for others, to be generous, kind and courageous. Good experiences in personal relationships in early life will make a most important contribution to an understanding of spiritual and moral values when children are older. Teachers should have clearly thought out and positive views on what constitutes good moral and social behaviour. In the later stages of the junior school, children should be encouraged to discuss the basis of conduct. Junior children can feel true compassion. Children need a vivid experience of service to others. It is not enough to give money for refugees and famine areas. We have heard of a school whose 'adoption' of an Indian boy included personal friendship expressed in gifts and the exchange of letters. Another school invites the local old peoples' club for an afternoon of entertainment and hospitality. Such activities enlarge children's imagination and deepen their sympathy. Through them they learn that charity is about people.

569. Each school is composed of individuals, teachers and children, from various religious backgrounds. We believe that to provide for them and to carry out the spirit of the 1944 Act all parents should be told, when children are admitted to school, of their rights of excusal both from the Act of Worship and from religious education. They should be told how both these forms of religious education are conducted in the school and what provision, if any, is made for the children who are withdrawn from them.

The Act of Worship

570. We believe that the Act of Worship has great value as a unifying force for the school and that in it children should find, in brief moments, a religious expression of their life in school. They should be able to understand and to take part in what is happening. Yet there should be more freedom in the interpretation of the law. It is not always suitable, particularly in a junior mixed and infant school, for an assembly to include the whole school. There are occasions when it is appropriate for different age groups to have separate assemblies. Many schools have found advantages in placing the assembly at other times than the beginning of the day. In a school of mixed religious or non-religious backgrounds, it is essential that the assembly should be conducted in such a way that as large a part of the school community as possible, both teachers and children, can take part in it without offence being given to anyone's conscientious scruples. We are sure that, at this stage of education, common standards and values are of extreme importance and we cannot overemphasise the need for the security which a sense of these will give, especially to children in infant and lower junior classes.

571. The Act of Worship should illuminate personal relationships and introduce children to aesthetic and spiritual experience. It can derive material from other than Christian sources. There is no reason why heads should always conduct the Act of Worship; other members of staff may plan and lead the assembly. Arrangements such as we have described, both as to the

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content and the leadership of the assembly, already work - and work well - in many schools. We hope that heads of schools and administrators will be sensitive to the needs of minority groups, both for worship and for religious education. The need is especially evident when numbers of immigrant children of other than Christian religions are educated in schools which were hitherto largely Christian. It has long been common for special provision to be made in some schools for Jewish children. We have heard of a school with a large Mohammedan intake where pupils have been encouraged to bring their prayer mats to school and go into a room provided for prayer, rather than go out of school and travel some distance for religious observances in the town.

Religious Education

572. Our theological witnesses stressed that religious education should be given by those with a knowledge of young children. The vast majority of teachers have been brought up as Christians and accept the Christian code of morality though they are often insufficiently informed and mature about Christian beliefs and their application in the twentieth century. We believe that religious education should, when it is possible, be given by the class teacher. In practice most religious education in primary schools emphasises the cultural heritage of Christianity and the effect it has had on generations of men and women. There may be some schools in which parents' views are so divided that special periods in the timetable should be allocated for it. Whether it is given by the class teacher or assigned to a separate period, in either of these conditions, it should meet the wishes of those parents who have specifically accepted that their child should have this instruction. It should recognise that young children need a simple and positive introduction to religion. They should be taught to know and love God and to practise in the school community the virtues appropriate to their age and environment. Children whose parents do not wish them to have any RE will have to be catered for separately, but they should otherwise conform to the general life of the school. It is essential that the teacher who is prepared to give religious education should be honest and sincere in his teaching and should not pretend to beliefs he does not hold. For the non-believing teacher or one of different religion this may mean stressing the ethics and the history of Christianity rather than its theology. Children should not be unnecessarily involved in religious controversy. They should not be confused by being taught to doubt before faith is established. Inevitably at some stage of the child's growth the truth of religious teaching will be questioned and a free judgement made as to its truth or falsehood. These judgements will only exceptionally be made by children of primary school age. If children ask, as they will, whether stories are true they should be given an honest answer by each teacher according to his lights. Neither the believing nor the non-believing teacher should try to conceal from his pupils the fact that others take a different view. All teachers giving religious education should have some knowledge of Biblical criticism. There is reason to suppose that too much emphasis is still being put on the Old Testament rather than on the New Testament.

The Agreed Syllabus

573. There is an urgent need for a reconsideration and reappraisal of what aspects of religious faith can be appropriately presented to children, at what

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time and in what way. That there is anxiety about the Agreed Syllabus is apparent from the evidence we have received. One witness wrote 'In almost every case the syllabus was based on factual knowledge which it was felt a child ought to have. ... Educational thought today is questioning whether the basis ought not rather to be the development of religious concepts, and the meeting of the religious needs of children at each point of their lives'. Investigation on these lines into the spiritual development of the young child is already being carried out. (4) We welcome research which is trying to determine what religious subject matter and concepts are relevant to children's interests, their experience of life and their intellectual powers. We recognise that children may appreciate poetically what they cannot grasp intellectually. It is to be hoped that the recasting of Agreed Syllabuses will take account of all these points. It seems that children who are introduced very early to the more difficult Christian stories and beliefs are likely, especially when they come from a non-Christian home, to form concepts which are shallow and limited and attitudes which are legalistic. If they remain Christian, they may not grow beyond childish ideas and attitudes; alternatively they may reject religious ideas as their critical faculties develop, and, at the same time, the morality which they associate with them. There will certainly be some stories about the life and teaching of Jesus which children can be told at an early age. They may be led to find in him the expression of that which, in ways appropriate to their development, they have learnt to be good and true. A more systematic study of the life and teaching of Jesus should be delayed until the later years of the junior school, when children can be encouraged to think critically. At this stage children can begin to understand that the Bible is neither a work of science nor of history, and that its value is in the account it gives of man's relationship with God.

574. The selection of Bible stories to be told to children of various ages and of the hymns and prayers which they use require much thought. While young children enjoy and appreciate some Bible stories, they lose their force by too frequent repetition, and some stories are certainly better postponed until the junior or secondary stage. Prayers and hymns should be related to the child's interests and maturity but care should be taken to avoid the use of banal language and music.

575. During the last years of the junior school more specific religious education should be given, and, from such areas of the curriculum as history, literature, poetry, geography and music, discussion may arise which bears on religion and brings in judgements on values. Among the historical characters about whom the older children should hear, care should be taken to include sympathetically those who represent a non-Christian tradition, Saladin for example, as well as St Bernard. Children's moral judgements and personal aspirations will also be stimulated by hearing about great figures of both the present and past, who like themselves combine strengths and weakness and who achieve much for others despite their weaknesses. At this stage, as at any other, teachers should be sensitive to the feelings of children of parents who are non-Christian, agnostic or humanist as well as to those of Christian parentage.

576. The future of religious education in the primary school depends on the training of teachers. Although many bring skill and devotion to this part of their work, many more are aware that they are inadequately equipped to teach

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it. A more thorough training of all who are likely and willing to give religious education is certainly necessary, difficult as it may be to reconcile with all the other demands of the training course. Religious education is often given too little time in the secondary school and students are likely to come to college with inadequate knowledge and immature concepts. They should be able to relate the background and facts of the Christian revelation to situations which are within children's experience and so give their teaching vitality and greater relevance to the problems of life. When the 1944 Act made religious education compulsory too little thought was given to the training of teachers. It seems reasonable to expect that some voluntary colleges should be a major source of teachers able to act as advisers to their colleagues in primary schools who are willing to give religious education but aware of their limitations. If practising teachers are to be brought up to date in the knowledge required to give religious education satisfactorily, and if they are to become familiar with modern methods of teaching the subject, systematic provision of in-service training should be made. Another important way of raising the standard of religious education should be the appointment of advisers in this subject by local authorities. At present advisers have been appointed by only four authorities.

Recommendations

577. (i) Parents should be told when their children are admitted to school of their rights of excusal from the Act of Worship and from religious education.

(ii) There should be more freedom in the interpretation of the law on the Act of Worship and it should not necessarily be conducted by the head teacher.

(iii) Further enquiry should be made into the aspects of religious faith which can be presented to young children.

(iv) Further in-service training should be provided to familiarise teachers with modern thinking on religious education.

1. Survey by Research Department, Odhams Press (1962) of young people aged 16 to 25 years.
2. Survey by Institute of Christian Education (1964) of parents of sixth-formers.
3. Survey by National Opinion Polls Ltd (1965) for 'New Society' in five regions of England, Scotland and Wales.
4. Goldman RJ 'Readiness for Religion: A Basis for Developmental Religious Education', Routledge, 1965.

578. Despite the obvious importance of English both as a means of communication and as literature, it has not had a brilliant place in the history of education, at least until modern times. In the public schools English was long subordinated to the classics. The first schools for the poor concentrated on teaching children to read the Bible. Later they aimed at equipping them, in

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the short period available before they went to work, with those minimum skills in reading, writing and cyphering which would fit them for a humble and useful station in life. The past is still with us in the trend in some schools to emphasise the techniques of reading and writing at the expense of speech and in the survival of a theory of grammar that derives from the inflected language of Latin. It is significant too that, central as English has now become in the curriculum and timetable of most primary schools, revolution came later than in art, partly no doubt because English became one of the two subjects by which fitness for secondary education was assessed.

579. But revolution has certainly come. It began when infant schools recognised how much and how spontaneously children learn of the world and of language in the four or five years before they come to school, more than they will ever learn again in the same span of time. Experience and language interact all the time; words come to life in the setting of sensory experience and vivid imaginative experience. It is equally true that experience becomes richer when talked over and recreated. Its meaning can be clarified and refined, feelings about it are brought more into harmony and it becomes the basis for further learning. The achievement of many infant schools has been to build on and to extend children's experiences, to provide opportunities for talk about them and to create a warmth of relationships which encourages children to talk and to listen.

Speech

580. Much has changed in the schools since children sang

'What is infant education?
Universal information.
While the children round are walking,
None should ever be found talking.'

581. For this reason among others, there seems to be no justification for the sudden decrease in the ratio of adults to pupils as children pass from nursery to infant schools. Similarly there is reason for grave concern about those children who get to the top of the infant school, and even more, the lower reaches of the junior school, before they have become fluent in speech. If teachers are over-anxious to establish literacy at this stage, they may concentrate too narrowly on graded readers and spend too little time on stories. They may clamp down on children's interests and on the conversation and planning arising from them, even though they provide an incentive for reading and writing. Towards the top of the junior school, the situation

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usually rights itself, at least for the abler children. Group interests and individual hobbies provide incentives and opportunities for children to talk at some length, though perhaps because of the stress on high standards in written work, as well as on account of differences between English and American society, it is rare to find quite the same degree of confidence in speech that some of our members noted on their visits to schools in the USA. Yet there is no doubt about the improvement in children's fluency, articulation and confidence in speech in the last 20 years. Its effects are already apparent in the speech of young teachers now entering the schools. Since example in speech is all important, we can expect a further improvement in the speech of children, especially since the influence of radio and television, and of easier relationships in society, are working in the same direction.

582. It goes without saying that children should be encouraged to speak audibly, though that is certainly not the same as being asked to 'speak up' which often in practice leads to children speaking raucously and straining their voices. As they grow older and their self assurance increases, occasions should be devised for them to talk, according to their capacity, to a group, to the class and at assembly, when audibility, and practice to ensure it, become a necessity. But we are less confident about the elements of speech indicated by such terms as 'correctness' and 'accent'. Usage is always changing and teachers must not burden their pupils with the observance of outworn conventions. Correctness should be sacrificed rather than fluency, vigour or clarity of meaning. When relationships are sound, children can usually accept and benefit from correction by their teachers of gross grammatical errors and of the use of phrases like 'kind of' which impede clear communication. It is more difficult to decide whether accent is to be tolerated, welcomed, or modified. All sorts of personal and social as well as pedagogical questions are bound up in this problem and whenever the matter is discussed in the press, wide differences of opinion and strong feelings are revealed. We hope that Project English, a research programme of which we have a little more to say later, will throw light on this and offer guidance to teachers.

Teaching Children to Read

583. Traditionally one of the first tasks of the infant school was to teach children to read. It is still, quite rightly, a major preoccupation, since reading is a key to much of the learning that will come later and to the possibility of independent study. In many infant schools, reading and writing are treated as extensions of spoken language. Those children who have not had the opportunity at home to grasp the part that they play are introduced to them by the everyday events and environment of the classroom. Messages to go home, letters to sick children, labels to ensure that materials and tools are returned to their proper place; all call for reading and writing. Many children first glimpse the pleasures of reading from listening to stories read to them at school; as teachers' aides are introduced (see Chapter 24), it should be possible for even more children to have the opportunity that others have at home of looking at pictures and text as a picture book is read to them individually or in small groups. Books made by teachers and children about the doings of the class or of individuals in it figure prominently among the books which children enjoy. They help children to see meaning in reading and to appreciate the purpose of written records. Children who show interest in reading but

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who are not ready to make steady progress on a graduated series often profit from using home-made books and picture books. They can get much interest from them, without mastering the whole vocabulary, and they will be protected from feeling that they are failures because they have not passed quickly to a second book in a series.

584. As to the systematic teaching that follows this introduction to reading and writing, the most successful infant teachers have refused to follow the wind of fashion and to commit themselves to any one method. They choose methods and books to fit the age, interest and ability of individual pupils. Children are helped to read by memorising the look of words and phrases, often with the help of pictures, by guessing from a context which is likely to bring them success, and by phonics, beginning with initial sounds. They are encouraged to try all the methods available to them and not to depend on only one method. Instead of relying on one reading scheme, many teachers use a range of schemes with different characteristics, selecting carefully for each child: some schemes emphasise sight reading, others phonics; some consist of short books, with a very slow build up of vocabulary, and suit children who need quick success; other schemes help children who are able to advance rapidly and to discard primers. Reading schemes should never determine the practices adopted for all children. A few children are able, with a little help, to teach themselves to read from books of rhymes and stories learnt by heart. Rather more can pass direct from home-made books to simple story books. Many children will not need to go right through a series of books: others will require a great deal of supplementary material.

Standards of Reading

585. Successive investigations into reading ability undertaken by the Department of Education from 1948 to 1964 (see Appendix 7*), make it clear that, despite the dismal reports that appear from time to time in the press, the standard of reading in the country as a whole has been going up steadily since the war. Children of eleven have advanced by an average of 17 months since the first report was made, and backwardness now has a different connotation from that which it had in 1948. For this improvement the schools can take much of the credit, but it does not dispose of all the questions asked about reading. The most important which remain are: what can be done to help the minority of children for whom learning to read is a slow business and for a few, never achieved? What use is made of the skill once it is acquired?

586. On the first question we must repeat our conviction of the setback which children often suffer from a change of school at seven. At this age many children are at a turning point in their mastery of reading. A week, a month, a term more and their future progress may be assured. Except for those children whose experiences in the infant school have resulted in disheartenment, nothing could be worse than a change of school at this time, after a long holiday during which their half-won understanding may have faded away. Even those children who appear to have failed completely might have fared better in the infant school had their teachers known that the introduction

*A fuller account of this study is to be found in 'Progress in Reading' (1966), HMSO.

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to systematic reading could be left a little later, and that there would still be time for unhustled progress. English children are taught to read earlier than in most other parts of the world. Evidence from research (1) has confirmed that transfer at seven can have disastrous results on children's achievement in reading. It has shown that nearly half of the children in a representative sample of schools continued to need after transfer the skilled teaching associated with the infant school. But, as we have pointed out in Chapter 10, they do not get it.

587. We are concerned about the quality and content of many primers and particularly of those used by children who come late to reading from an unbookish background. Too often, the difficult problem of combining interest with a controlled vocabulary is not solved. The middle class world represented by the text and illustrations is often alien to the children, the characters shadowy, the content babyish, the text pedestrian and lacking in rhythm and there is rarely either the action or the humour which can carry children through to the end of the books. We agree with the recommendation made to us by the National Association for the Teaching of English, that research should be instituted into the types of primer and library book which are most effective with children from different backgrounds and of varying levels of ability.

588. A hundred and fifty years ago, Coleridge, anxious about his own child's progress in reading, complained about 'our lying alphabet'. How great an obstacle is it to children who have difficulty in learning to read? The Initial Teaching Alphabet has attracted great public attention and has been the subject of heated argument. Should the claims made for the use of this alphabet be substantiated, it would mean that all but a small minority of those children who find reading difficult would find it so no longer. Since at present a substantial minority find difficulty, the claims merit careful scrutiny.

589. The Initial Teaching Alphabet is the subject of research (2) which is being carried out by the University of London. It is not yet complete but interim results have been reported. The Alphabet is in use in something like five per cent of the infants' schools in England and possibly in as many as ten per cent of the elementary schools in the USA. An investigation of all the available evidence is currently being undertaken by the Schools Council and its results may be published before our Report is out. It would therefore be inopportune to make an assessment here. All that needs to be said now is that ITA is not a method of teaching reading. It is an alphabet which is more efficient than Caxton's alphabet (adapted from the Latin). It is intended only to get children over the difficult first stage of learning to read and they usually transfer from it to a fairly simple primer in traditional orthography. It can be used with various methods and, like other instruments, it can be used well or badly. We welcome the investigations being made into the evidence of its use and success with beginners, and with children who have failed in learning to read the conventional alphabet. We also welcome research into the effects of improved methods of teaching reading in traditional orthography. It is important to stress that even if methods are found which make possible an early beginning in reading, it does not follow that children's time is best spent on reading. The earlier children read and the more time spent on it, the more important it becomes to see that books are worth reading and that their substance does not outrun children's experience and maturity.

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590. Some of our witnesses have suggested the existence of specific developmental dyslexia (sometimes called word blindness), a failure in reading which is thought to be due to neurological causes. There are so many possible reasons for poor reading, such as late maturation, ill-timed or poor teaching, sensory and speech defects, strephosymbolia (misperceptions of letters or numbers which usually correct themselves in time) and the emotional disturbances which may both cause, and result from, retardation in reading, that it is difficult to be sure whether specific dyslexia exists as an independent factor. An acute difficulty in reading appears to be confined to a very small number of children, perhaps five or fewer in a thousand. Research into it is now being carried out in Leeds with the financial support of the Department of Education and Science. In the meantime, we are advised that if children have not learned to read by the age of nine they should be referred to an educational psychologist. If they are also clumsy runners, and unable to draw a diamond shape, a neurological examination is advisable (3). If possible the educational psychologist should come to the school and discuss the individual children with the teachers.

A Range of Books

591. As the skill of reading is established, it must be used and here a really remarkable change has taken place since the war. The provision of books, which was usually meagre in quantity and in quality in the elementary schools, is now much improved. The average number of school and class library books in schools in the National Survey was 1,800 (Appendix 5, Table 10). Junior school libraries of 4,000 to 5,000 books are quite common, although we show in Chapter 28 that many authorities are still insufficiently generous in book allowances. The establishment of a representative collection of children's books by the Department (commonly known as the 'Tann' collection), and its exhibition at teachers' courses and conferences all over the country, the provision of similar collections by many local authorities and by some colleges of education, the work of children's librarians, the collaboration of the publishers, some children's book shops and the displays arranged by the National Book League have all played their part in bringing the rapidly increasing range of children's books to the attention of teachers. The exhortations of Lord Eccles when Minister of Education, the readiness with which some authorities have responded to them by increasing their grants for books and the initiative which many head teachers have shown in building up school library funds in a multitude of ways have all added to the number of books in the schools. There is now a wide range of children's books, notably enriched by translations of the better books written abroad. Inevitably, there is dross as well as gold and a difficult problem of choice confronts the teachers when some 3,000 new children's books are published each year. Many schools have no book shop within reach and, save when an exhibition is arranged in their area, must send for examples of books, relying on the publications of the School Library Association and the reviews in the more reputable journals, some of which take special account of children's books. One of the functions of teachers' centres (referred to in Chapter 25) would be to house a collection of children's books which could be regularly kept up to date and could provide starting points for discussion by teachers of how children have responded to books. This discussion is important since adults

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may provide too many of the books which they enjoy themselves and which only appeal to exceptional children. There is still an insufficient supply of good light literature for the less able children.

592. Among the most welcome changes which have accompanied the growing informality of the primary school has been the move away from categories of books, each confined to a special time and purpose. In many schools there are now no longer class readers, supplementary readers, group readers, text books and library books: though library books were often the most exacting and rewarding of all, they were frequently relegated to odd moments when other tasks were finished. There are simply books - to be used as and when they are needed. Though there may still be occasions when class sets of books are useful, perhaps as a basis for discussion between teacher and children on the ways in which information can be sought, collated and summarised, much of the money that used to be spent on dull and over-generalised geography and nature study books is now available for the purchase of 'books of information'. Many are admirable but some certainly suffer from the same weaknesses as the text books they are tending to replace; over-generalisation, inaccuracy and poor illustrations.

593. Inevitably there are inequalities in the use as well as in the choice of books. There should certainly be a time for browsing among books; there is also a time for purposeful reading and consulting books to find the specific information needed, for instance, when a group project is begun, or to develop an individual interest. The starting point for an interest is often the teacher's knowledge and enthusiasm; this can carry children far beyond their usual intellectual range, the laggards and apathetic with the rest. Yet imposed interests are a contradiction in terms and are likely to result in worthless transcription from books, a danger of which teachers need to be aware. Whether interests originate with the children or are stimulated by the school, the teacher must not abdicate in favour of books but give continuing guidance and support. At the same time it is true that reading will often awake new interests as well as nourishing existing ones. Some children have a voracious appetite for facts and will read even reference books and encyclopedias from cover to cover. But it is the teacher's responsibility to see that such books are a support rather than a substitute for first hand evidence, whenever the latter is available. An adult reference book is often more serviceable to children, particularly for example for identification of flowers and birds, than the children's books in which the illustrations are usually, to quote a six year old's explanation, 'too beautiful' to be useful.

594. It may be children's appetite for fact in a world in which knowledge is increasing at an astounding rate that explains the dominating place of informative books in many school collections. Whatever the reason, fiction is often represented by a random collection of books lent by the public library, their uniform bindings sometimes comparing unfavourably with the books bought by the school. Yet most libraries will do their best to provide specific books if teachers ask for them and will leave books in schools as long as teachers need them. Many libraries set an example to schools by their choice and display of books. Certainly fiction ought to form part of the permanent collection of books in every school, since some children will come back to the same books again and again; and it is often the books which demand re-reading which are most worth reading. Probably, teachers are not sufficiently informed about

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the excellence of many contemporary children's stories or their availability in cheap editions. Since literary quality cannot be detected quickly, teachers tend to rely on the 'safe' classics and on the books they read in their own childhood. Often they are poorly produced and are in rehashed versions from which the quality has been drained away. Many of the outstanding children's classics, particularly the Victorian ones, continue to appeal, especially to the abler children. But the books of yesterday, perhaps because they derive from a period when children were artificially insulated from adult life, are often more remote from children than the timeless traditional stories and those of the classical and medieval world.

595. We are convinced of the value of stories for children, stories told to them, stories read to them and the stories they read for themselves. It is through story as well as through drama and other forms of creative work that children grope for the meaning of the experiences that have already overtaken them, savour again their pleasures and reconcile themselves to their own inconsistencies and those of others. As they 'try on' first one story book character, then another, imagination and sympathy, the power to enter into another personality and situation, which is a characteristic of childhood and a fundamental condition for good social relationships, is preserved and nurtured. It is also through literature that children feel forward to the experiences, the hopes and fears that await them in adult life. It is almost certainly in childhood that children are most susceptible, both to living example and to the examples they find in books. As children listen to stories, as they take down the books from the library shelves, they may, as Graham Greene suggests in 'The Lost Childhood', be choosing their future and the values that will dominate it.

596. We have written in some detail about the value of story because there are still too few books of literary quality in primary schools and too little time is given to reading them. Even in good schools, it is sometimes thought sufficient to allow a weekly library period when books for reading at home may be changed but there is little opportunity for guidance or stimulus. There has certainly been no glorious past here. Reading the same classic 'round the class' for a term or more, or working comprehension exercises on passages of literary quality - a practice which still lingers - can be looked back on without nostalgia.

Poetry

597. It is doubtful whether poetry has ever been well treated in the majority of schools. Matthew Arnold recommended Mrs Heman's poems to the schools, admittedly with some reservations. Another inspector included 'There are fairies at the bottom of our garden' in the immensely popular English text books which he wrote before he joined the inspectorate. Until fairly recently it was common to find class sets of poetry books including far too many of the traditional anthology 'pieces' and too much tinkling verse about fairies and elves written specially for children. A period was usually set aside for poetry each week: at best children made individual anthologies and memorised some of the poems they chose to copy out: at worst the whole class copied a poem a week from the blackboard and poetry became little more than a writing lesson. Occasionally, choral verse speaking brought some vitality to the poetry period but the poems chosen were not

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always well suited to the technique. Now the class sets of poetry books are disappearing fast though individual copies of them are not infrequently the sole representatives of poetry in class and school libraries. The number of really good anthologies for children - many of them compiled by poets and well produced - has increased rapidly in the last few years. Most of them are expensive and relatively few have found their way into the schools. Selections from the works of individual poets are particularly uncommon. Similarly, poetry is poorly represented in teachers' reference libraries and is often confined to collections intended only for school use. Some good teachers lack conviction about the value of poetry and are more confident about giving children opportunities to write poems than about nourishing them with great poetry. Few children learn poems because, once the nursery rhyme stage is past, few teachers speak poems to them. Children may lose much when they are not set an example of getting poetry by heart.

598. To leave an account of literature and poetry here would be to present too pessimistic a picture. There is some evidence that the tide is beginning to turn. In a growing number of schools the head or one of the assistants makes himself an authority on children's books and gives advice to the rest of the staff. It is not uncommon to find some interchange of classes so that children can enjoy poetry with an enthusiast. The proportion of young teachers who are sensitive to quality in literature and knowledgeable about children's books seems to be increasing. This may well be one of the gains of the three year course and the deeper study of English and of education which it makes possible. Supported by teachers, children can reach out to stories and poetry that they could not manage unaided. But a teacher can only share with children what he understands and likes. He can only choose wisely what to share when he has both a well developed critical sense and an understanding of children. In poetry, above all, children can be carried by the pleasure of sound over difficulties in language, but the mood must have some relevance to their experience. In schools where the place of literature is becoming stronger, teachers will give much time to reading aloud when they are introducing a book to their class. They cast their net wide in what they read, often making use of short passages from their own personal reading. They take chances with contemporary literature, especially poetry, recognising that children may be more in tune with the spirit of the time - to which poetry often gives heightened expression - than their teachers are themselves. Poetry written for adults, or written at least by those who are poets in their own right, is usually to be preferred to children's verse. In some schools teachers vary their own interpretation of poetry by the use of recorded verse. Occasionally a group of children put on tape a programme of poems on a particular theme. They have an incentive for the best reading they can manage, or for getting their poems by heart so that they can speak them better. The ordering of the programme can lead to much thought about the poems themselves. Teachers, too, encourage children to think about poems more by the sequence and contrast of what is read than by direct comment, and are content to leave the outcome largely to children's questions.

599. When teachers read much aloud, sometimes giving children only a taste of the pleasure that awaits them and referring them to the sources, the quality of children's own reading is influenced for the better. Time and peace for solitary reading must also be found, not always easy in a school which is

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humming with activity. If it is not possible to allow all types of books, other than expensive reference books, to go home, it means that a school has too few books. Some children will be literary cormorants, swallowing all that comes within their reach; it is for teachers to see that some of it at least is of a kind to give 'an obscure sense of possible sublimities', to be worth reading and re-reading.

Drama

600. Some of our witnesses regarded drama as an integral part of English. Yet drama embraces movement, gesture and mime, and these primitive features of drama should be emphasised with young children, especially since plays written for them are usually of indifferent quality and do little to extend or clarify their experience. In practice, drama bridges English and movement. This is apparent from the dramatic play of children in the infant school. They rely mainly on movement yet, even at the stage when play is largely individual and a group may contain three heroes and only one unwilling villain, words will force a way in as part of the movement. We have been much impressed by the dramatic work which has developed in junior schools in some parts of the country. Children re-enact and reshape experiences of everyday life and those derived from literary, Biblical and historical sources. Unscripted speech plays a part but if it is emphasised too much it may cramp movement and kill action. As children become more accustomed to this way of working, improvisations can be discussed, revised and rehearsed until they grow into coherent plays from which children begin to understand something of the problems and strengths of dramatic form. When the amount of dialogue increases, some children may want to polish their plays by putting words on paper. If pupils remain in the middle schools till 12, some will probably be ready to interpret the plays of others, beginning perhaps with the mummers' plays or mystery plays whose conventions are near to the children's own. A few exceptional teachers have communicated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare to children of junior school age and have even produced scenes with them, but it is doubtful whether this should become general. It is significant that the liveliest drama in the first year of the secondary school is of the unscripted kind that we have described earlier. Certainly, though some primary school children enjoy having an audience of other children or their parents, formal presentation of plays on a stage is usually out of place.

Children's Writing

601. Perhaps the most dramatic of all the revolutions in English teaching is in the amount and quality of children's writing. The code of 1862 required no writing other than transcription or dictation until Standard VI, or about the age of 12 to 13. In the thirties, independent writing in the infant school and lower junior school rarely extended beyond a sentence or two and the answering of questions, and for the older children it was usually a weekly or fortnightly composition on prescribed topics only too frequently repeated year by year. Now it is quite common for writing to begin side by side with the learning of reading, for children to dictate to their teachers and gradually to copy and then to expand and write for themselves accounts of their experiences at home and at school. Often these accounts also serve as their first reading books. As with speech, new routines have developed which, if followed too exclusively, or with all children, can also be deadening: the

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picture always accompanied by a caption, the class news book or individual diary filled in whether or not there is anything to be said, and the 'story'. What is most remarkable now in many infant schools is the variety of writing: writing arising out of dramatic play, writing associated with and explaining the models that are made, writing which reflects the sharpening of the senses, 'the peppery smell of the lupins', 'the primroses clustered so closely that the stalks can't be seen', the writing that derives from the special occasion, the tortoise brought in for the day - 'I could hug him and snug him and our teacher wanted to tell us the story of the hare and the tortoise but we had all heard it before'. Much of the writing derives from the experiences of individual children, much from the excitement of a shared visit, 'the most day that fascinated me', a visit to a zoo which led after a longish spell of time to a description of a snake 'slithering slowly through the long grasses. Up, up, up the tree he coiled and rested his head on his tall slim body'. Less frequently the spirit and language of a story are caught, 'one day however the prince was lucky for he found to his joy on the topmost branch of an oak the Golden Bird and he said in a joyful voice "Great Golden Bird, come down and let me pluck a feather from your breast so I may marry the princess". The Golden Bird shivered ...'

602. Some teachers at the bottom of the junior school become so anxious about children's insecure hold on reading that they make too frontal an attack on it. Equally, they become concerned about inaccuracies in children's writing and about the long-winded rigmarole which sometimes follows children's discovery that they can write. They worry about the consequences of the belief, occasionally encouraged by an over-enthusiastic infant teacher, that there is virtue in sheer volume, irrespective of what is said. But here again the remedy does not lie in narrowing children's activities or confining them to a starvation course of six simple sentences on 'Myself' or on 'My School'. When inaccuracy impedes communication, that is the moment, without worrying about inessentials, to help children to see how their meaning can be more clearly and economically conveyed. It may also be prudent to concentrate for a time on writing about the shared experiences of teacher and children - first hand or vicarious - which will be clarified to some extent, and therefore controlled by previous discussion.

603. In a growing number of junior schools, there is free, fluent and copious writing on a great variety of subject matter, similar to - but extending beyond - that found in infant schools. Sometimes it is called 'creative writing', a rather grand name for it. Its essence is that much of it is personal and that the writers are communicating something that has really engaged their minds and their imaginations. To this kind of writing, here as in the infant school, we give an unqualified welcome. It is nearly always natural and real and sometimes has qualities which make it most moving to read. Several collections of children's writing (4) have been printed and for this reason we give only brief examples here.

604. It is becoming less usual for personal writing to take the form of an invented 'story'. Save for exceptional children who have a story telling gift and should be given the opportunity to use it, this type of writing tends to be second rate and derivative from poorish material. The great story can change children's ways of looking at the world and at themselves; but poorer story

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writers often have more influence, in the short run, on children's style because their conventions are mechanical and easily borrowed. In the long term, the quality of children's reading will certainly influence their writing.

605. The best writing of young children springs from the most deeply felt experience. They will write most easily and imaginatively about their homes, their hobbies and interests, about things seen and done in science, mathematics, geography and on school visits. When relationships are good, the slower children often achieve most when they have talked over with their teacher the day to day experiences of school and family life. In a few sentences, a child from a fourth stream can portray her mother: 'she is not tall or short and quite ordinary looking. She is patient and good natured and helps us in all we do. She always gives in to my sisters and to me. She says sometimes, she wishes she was dead'. Children need extension of experience, both at first hand and through reading and listening, if they are to write well. They are often stimulated by hearing good poetry read aloud, partly by its whole flavour, partly perhaps because they are encouraged to convey their meaning in relatively few words. It was after hearing, and reading for herself, some extracts from TS Eliot that a girl of modest ability described how she had felt at home on the previous evening:

'The smell of fish and chips
Cooking in the kitchen.
The baby crying for its feed
And our old Dad reading the newspaper.
Slippers lying around the house,
And big sister telling us off.
Mother has got a headache
And so have I.
The doors are slamming to and fro.
Seven o'clock.
Time for television.'

'Pluto the lonely traveller
Far out in the unconquered universe,
Like a hermit
In the mysterious desert of space.
Mercury the baby of the family,
The Sun the mother,
Watching over her nine sons.
Pluto the shy and lonely one,
Earth the educated son.'

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history, which cannot be based to the same extent on experience at first hand. Whether a topic makes an impact will often depend on whether children are given, by oral lesson or through books, authentic detail on which their imagination can play. Detail, and therefore focus on selected topics, are vital in stimulating knowledge and language in every aspect of the curriculum at the top of the junior school. This is one reason for moving towards some subject divisions with the ablest children at this stage.

607. It is not easy to determine whether this flowering of children's writing has been accompanied by a decline in formal excellence - neatness, good handwriting, accuracy and arrangement. Some of our witnesses think that it has, but few collections exist which would make possible any comparison between the writing of the thirties and that of the present day. The far greater variety of subject matter now used and the decline of the 'fair copy', though it still has a place for the special occasion, make the matter even harder to decide. We very much doubt whether there has been any deterioration in the appearance of children's work but we think that there is room for improvement. Schools which make a feature of good handwriting, often in the Italic mode and sometimes in other styles, lose nothing in the freedom and imaginative quality of children's writing and can gain in other ways.

608. Some comment must be made on the efforts of schools to improve the accuracy and arrangement of ideas in children's writing. There are some schools in which, as an insurance policy for the eleven plus examination, teachers continue to prescribe and prepare with the children compositions on traditional subjects in the later years of the junior course. It is perhaps almost inevitable that the writing of older children will become rather bookish and pretentious. They may copy the hackneyed phrases which adults often use as as a substitute for thought and which even nowadays children are encouraged to adopt by being set worthless exercises of the 'cool as ...' type. There is certainly no point in forcing children into stock phrases and insincerity by setting them to write on the conventional subject: the walk in spring, the autobiography of the penny, the loaf of bread, or the tree, which may culminate in 'I am happy as a table, but I was happiest as a tree'. Children may well want to write in autobiographical form but how much more exciting and indeed more possible to imagine themselves with Columbus as he first glimpsed land, with Elizabeth as she reviewed the troops at Tilbury, or in Jerusalem on the first Good Friday.

609. Preparation of written work has more place in connection with the factual summaries which secondary schools will expect children to be able to write if their transfer from the primary school is deferred by a year. The child's view of what is important ought still to hold the field. Discussion is needed with individuals and groups about the kind of questions they will want to answer on an 'interest' or 'topic' and the ways in which material can best be ordered. In all types of writing, children will need tactful help in conveying their meaning and in the craftsmanship of writing. Ideally, it is best given orally to individuals, but the size of classes may make some written comment necessary and it may help to fix a point in a child's mind. Care should always be taken not to discourage children, particularly the younger and the less able, by too much criticism. What should children be told about their work? They ought to know if they have succeeded in sharing their meaning and, however tactfully, what impact the meaning made. Teachers should, that is to

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say, be at least as much concerned with the content as with the manner of what is said. They should be quick to notice an absurd combination of natural phenomena on a spring morning or bombs facilely disposed of by opening a plane window (though this kind of nonsense is usually the product of an imposed subject). Often the probing question is the best comment. Some 'correction', if so inadequate a word must be used, should be directed towards inaccuracies, not so much the careless slips that everyone makes throughout life, as the repeated errors in sentence construction, in punctuation and in spelling which get in the way of communication. Similarly such techniques as paragraphing can be taught when it can be made clear to children that the technique will serve their purpose in writing. With the abler children, there is room for some concern about form and style so long as it does not make children self-conscious.

610. Any follow-up of written work should be tailored to individual and group needs. The NFER survey has shown that there is relatively little group teaching in English, except in reading. Some schools provide assignment cards to correct specific weaknesses, and references to a single exercise or two in an English course book that can serve a similar purpose. Programmed texts are likely to be developed which can be similarly used to help individuals to correct errors in those particular matters in which they have difficulty. There is no sense in classes working systematically through books of exercises. Much money is wasted on these books which would be better spent in building up school libraries. Much time also is wasted by children on English course books. They learn to write by writing and not by exercises in filling in missing words.

611. The growth of the study of linguistics, with its interest in describing and analysing how language works, the differences between written and spoken language and the influence of language on children's thought and mental development, will no doubt come to be reflected in teachers' courses and in classroom techniques. Already the linguist has done a good deal to clarify the vexed question of the role of grammar in teaching English by his distinction between 'prescriptive' and 'descriptive' grammar. Speech is how people speak, not how some authority thinks they ought to speak. The test of good speech is whether any particular use of language is effective in the context in which it is used, not whether it conforms to certain 'rules'.

612. The Schools Council's 'Project English' will study among other questions the lessons that linguistics has to offer to teachers, and its findings will be awaited with interest. In the meantime we offer the following propositions for the consideration of teachers:

(a) Children are interested in words, their shape, sound, meaning and origin and this interest should be exploited in all kinds of incidental ways. Formal study of grammar will have little place in the primary school, since active and imaginative experience and use of the language should precede attempts to analyse grammatically how language behaves.

(b) The time for grammatical analysis will come but it should follow a firmly laid foundation of experience of the spoken and written language. When 'rules' or generalisations are discussed these should be 'induced' from the child's own knowledge of the usage of the language. The theory of grammar that is studied should describe the child's language and not be a

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theory based on Latin, many of whose categories, inflexions, case systems, tenses and so on do not exist in English.

(c) While there is no question of the teaching of linguistics in the primary school, some work in linguistics at colleges of education or in refresher courses will help teachers to a sound view of how language works.

1. Morris JM 'How Far Can Reading Backwardness be Attributed to School Conditions?', an address presented to the International Reading Association, May 1964.
2. Downing JA 'Initial Teaching Alphabet', Cassell & Co., 1966.
3. Evidence submitted by Medical Officers of the Department of Education and Science.
4. For example:
'The Excitement of Writing', West Riding Education Committee, Advisory Centre for Education, Cambridge 1966.
'Children as Writers', Annual Anthology of entries to the Daily Mirror Children's Literary Competition, started 1960.
'Free Writing', Pym D., Bristol University Institute of Education, London University Press, 1956.
'Young Writers, Young Readers', ed. Ford B., Hutchinson, 1960.

614. For many years there have been sporadic, individual and quite uncoordinated attempts to teach a modern language, nearly always French, in primary schools. The age at which boys in independent preparatory schools began Latin and French had already shown that there was no fundamental difficulty in teaching a second language to at least some children of primary age. Whether it was possible to teach a second language to all or most children was unknown, and the scattered experiments (if they deserved the word) just mentioned threw no light on the problem. They were generally confined to the most able children in the fourth year and were undertaken because of the appearance on the staff of someone who was 'good at' or 'keen on' French. Often the subject was not begun until after the selection examination had taken place and was thus limited to the period March-July. All too frequently the weekly time allowance was too short and badly distributed and if, as often seemed to happen, the key teacher left, French dropped out of the curriculum without trace. The plain fact was that the majority of primary school teachers were not qualified to teach a modern language. Furthermore, the secondary schools to which the children concerned went showed, often with some justification, a bland indifference to their claims to have 'done some French already'. The whole proceedings were an example of the least admirable side of the English tradition of independence and, as recently as 1959, the Department's handbook of suggestions for teachers, Primary Education, gave little encouragement to the introduction of a second language.

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615. In the last few years a complete change has occurred. It is possible that the general climate was already more favourable in 1959 than the writers of Primary Education supposed. More English people, including many teachers, had been travelling abroad and there was a feeling that links with the rest of Europe ought to be strengthened. The cultural advantages of knowing a second language, as distinct from the strictly linguistic ones, had always been understood, but it was now increasingly felt that they ought to be available to a much larger section of the population. In 1962 the Nuffield Foundation offered the sum of £100,000 for the production of materials for experiment in teaching French in primary schools. The Department of Education and Science undertook responsibility for organising the necessary teacher training and a joint steering committee, on which the Department, the Foundation and the local education authorities were represented, was set up.

616. The experiment is still in progress and this is not the place to describe it in detail, still less to assess its results. The preliminary period, during which the 13 experimental areas and the 53 associated areas were chosen, the teachers trained, a process that included a three month course in France, and the early stages of the teaching material prepared, came to an end m September 1964, when the second stage - that of beginning to teach French to the eight year olds - was introduced. At the time of writing (Summer 1966) these children are nearing the end of the second year of French and a second cohort of eight year olds are finishing their first.

617. There are a number of points which seem to be worth making at this comparatively early stage:

(i) The careful and systematic planning of the experiment was in contrast to the haphazard methods of the past, involving, as it did, a reasonable assurance of sound foundations and continuity and a firm agreement with the receiving secondary schools.

(ii) The Nuffield teaching material, despite its close connection with the experiment, is not an essential part of it. There is no compulsion to use it and in fact about 20 per cent of the pilot areas are using other material, some of it devised in France, some in the USA and some in this country. The schools which are using the Nuffield material have been given every opportunity for shaping it and improving it. The continuing and constructive collaboration between all concerned - Foundation, Department and teachers - is one of the most heartening and significant features of the experiment.

(iii) We appreciate the reasons which led to the experiment being almost entirely confined to French at primary level. The number of primary teachers who know any other language well enough to teach it is minimal and French is the 'safest' language from the point of view of transfer to a secondary school. Nevertheless we must regret that the experiment is perpetuating the dominance of one language, even though it is the language of our nearest neighbours and one with a rich literature. We hope that if the present experiment is successful, the possibilities of including another language will be explored.

(iv) The introduction of a modern language into primary schools raises acutely the question of specialisation. It will be easier when many more primary teachers are qualified to teach French, but that time is still a

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long way off. In the meantime there is bound to be some anxiety lest the methods used in teaching French vary sharply from those used for the rest of the curriculum. The developing tradition in primary education since 1945 has been away from class teaching and from formal lessons, but the early stages of learning a modern language inevitably involve some class teaching and many teachers fear that much hard-won ground will have to be given up. The approach adopted in the Nuffield material, and in any of the other three sets of material in use in the pilot areas, need not occasion anxiety; but there are other courses on sale and in use which are completely out of harmony with good primary practice. Some are intended for older children, and others introduce the reading and writing of French at too early a stage. Any school embarking on French ought to scrutinise critically the course that it proposes to use. We hope that work in French will flow over into other areas of the curriculum and that care will be taken to brief specialists and peripatetic teachers about the general principles of young children's learning.

(v) It is unfortunate that many schools and areas which are outside the experiment have chosen to add French to the curriculum without ensuring reasonable conditions for success. There is obviously not the smallest reason why a freelance school or area should not do just as well as an 'experimental' one. The fact remains, however, that far too many schools have introduced French without having a teacher who possesses even minimum qualifications, without consideration of what constitutes a satisfactory scheme and timetable and without any consultation with receiving secondary schools. This can only be deplored. No good purpose can possibly be served by it. Without a teacher who is well qualified linguistically and in methods suitable for primary schools, it is better to have nothing to do with French. The presence of a native French speaker, while it guarantees the former, often fails to provide the latter.

619. We discuss the problem of teaching English to children of foreign origin in Chapter 6.

620. History for children is a subject on which it is not easy to reach agreement. The heroine of 'Northanger Abbey' 'pitied the hard fate of historians filling great volumes and labouring only for the torment of little boys and girls'. Charlotte Yonge was so spellbound by the six volumes of ancient history which she was given before her sixth birthday that she was despondent a year later when her mother refused to christen her brother Alexander Xenophon. In adult life she was to add to the histories for boys and girls, and

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some of these books are still in print. Since then many new problems have arisen in the teaching of history to children. Personalities have tended to recede from the stage and when they hold their commanding position, their motives are difficult to disentangle. Economic influences and institutions have come to the fore. History, it is said again and again, is an adult subject. How then can it be studied by children without it being so simplified that it is falsified ? There is the further problem that it is not until the later years of the primary school, if then, that some children develop a sense of time. Yet we received oral evidence of an infant school where several of the older children became absorbed in historical subject matter of the most varied kind, and we visited an infant school where one exceptional child had memorised the dates of the kings and queens of England - 'all except the muddling Anglo-Saxons'. There is, it seems, a need for further enquiry into the impact of history on children, in terms of the interest, attitudes, knowledge and concepts which it develops. In particular, more studies are needed of children's understanding of time.

621. These uncertainties may go some way towards explaining the widely differing situation of history in the schools. We have received evidence that there has been a great improvement in history teaching since the publication of the 1931 report. This must almost certainly be true. The 1931 report took it for granted that history teaching would be based on a textbook. Now, the most common criticism of work in history is that it derives from textbooks and that chapter headings form the syllabus. Despite the doubts about history in school, it has been seized on by the writers of children's books and the publishers as subject matter popular with children. Informative books on history and historical novels are often found in considerable numbers in school and class libraries, and they rarely stand idle on the shelves.

622. In most junior schools history continues to appear as a separate subject in the timetable, certainly in the last two years and often before. It usually suffers the disadvantage of being confined to two periods a week and even this meagre time allowance is occasionally sacrificed to coaching for the eleven plus in the first half of the fourth year. But the dreary notes copied from the blackboard have largely disappeared and children are at least given the opportunity to make their own summaries in which emphasis may quite rightly be very different from that of adult historians of all shades of thought. History frequently provides a successful starting point for spontaneous drama, for narrative of the 'I was there' kind and for lively art and craft. This spilling over of history into other aspects of the curriculum is probably the most general advance of recent years.

623. Work of quality of which we have heard usually occurs in schools which break away from the conventional timetable divisions, either by giving a concentrated spell of time first to one aspect of the curriculum, then to another, or by working on topics such as exploration which link history and geography or by studies of the environment. Some schools are fortunate enough to have an enthusiast for history on the staff who may show his colleagues how for a time a class can be steeped in the past. Children may study it in such detail that probing questions are asked, connections are seen and discoveries are made as authentically from written sources as from environmental study or scientific investigation. This kind of work does not usually develop until children are 10 or 11 and is equally suitable for children

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in the lower forms of secondary schools. A topic may be formally introduced by the teacher because the subject matter is interesting, important and balances other work done by the children, or it may begin with a child's question arising from a local antiquity or from a historical novel. Once interest is stirred, materials are collected from the school library, and the public library and elsewhere; stories for background, children's reference books, adult books, printed source material, illustrations, film strip, photostats of documents from the local record office or elsewhere. Collections of contemporary documents and illustrations are now on the market and some are suitable for use by children between 10 and 12. If the local museum has a school loan service, it may be possible to supplement displays of pictures and books with real objects from the period. Class discussion clarifies the aspects of the period which individuals or small groups of children can investigate. It may be advantageous to let choice take its natural course and for several children to study the same topic. Provided that the books used are not full of generalities, even primary school children may begin to glimpse that history is in part created by the historian. It is essential for teachers to help individuals and groups to clear their minds about what they want to find out, though children will often find themselves led by the material itself in unexpected directions, and to guide them with exact references to source and adult books so that they do not waste time.

624. Visits to houses and churches of the period and to museums are best made early in the school year or in a study of a topic so that, if children have further problems, they can make return visits. They are often most evocative when children are prepared, not by lists of things to look out for, but by first-hand source material which will fire the imagination. Only one brief quotation can be given from a wealth of exciting narrative which followed a visit to an Elizabethan manor house, full of priest's holes. The children had heard extracts from the Autobiography of John Gerard and could feel in some degree what it was like to be cooped up in a tiny cavity, with nothing but an earthenware bottle of water and the jar of quince jelly that the mistress of the house had in her hands when the alarm was sounded. 'As the day wore on', a ten year old wrote, 'the searchers came to the library and began scratching, tapping and measuring. Every minute they drew nearer to my hiding place. I recognised their leader's voice. He was Benedict. "I know that Father Domine is here" he said, "he must be here somewhere". When he said this I pressed myself against the wall and trembled. I wanted to cry out but I repeated again and again a fervent prayer. I quivered as a child might when about to be smacked by an angry parent. Suddenly my heart seemed to stop beating. A soldier stopped outside by the beam which I had lifted to get into my hiding place. I bit my lip, "No, no", I almost cried aloud ...'

625. At the end of six weeks or a term, when children have been led on by direct teaching, by reading and by visits, and have discussed with each other their findings, they will have escaped temporarily from their own world, have been confronted with a different world, with the fact of change in the past and its implications for change in the future. By the top of the junior school, a few children may begin to have an imaginative intuition of period, of how things hang together and men are the creatures as well as the creators of their time. They may be helped to taste, for example, the flavour of Elizabethan exuberance - the extravagant clothes of the gentry, 'sooner is a great ship rigged

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than a gentlewoman made ready'; the increasing comfort at home, the heavily carved and bulbous table legs akin to the slashed and exaggerated breeches; a passion running all through society for whatever 'is dear bought and far fetched'. Though they will not talk about cause and effect, they may sense a connection with the boom in overseas trade in the middle of the reign and the private fortunes that were being made right through to its close.

626. Study in depth of the kind we have described frequently originates from children's curiosity about their environment, from the modest survivals - the fire society mark, the milestone, the Victorian letter box, the toll house - as well as those on a grander scale. Often history will be only a small part of a study which cuts across subject divisions. How big a part history should play depends on the children and the particular environment. Even in so rich a historical environment as Bath, it was enough for one class of slow learning children to spend a day or two on history, on a vivid reconstruction of Roman life, a visit to the bath, and the modelling and painting that followed. That this much was worthwhile was apparent from a boy, ascertained as educationally subnormal, who looking at a culvert commented 'think what things must have flowed down that drain'. The same boy turned away from a model hypocaust saying that he would rather look at the real thing.

627. An example of an environmental study with a historical bias comes from a Shropshire school. Children visiting Ludlow for another purpose began to speculate about the castle - who built it, how old was it, who lived and died there, why were there so many castles in Shropshire. At this stage, class teaching on the Norman Conquest, relying heavily on the Bayeux Tapestry, became a necessity and children were soon taking sides - Norman or Saxon, and no half measures. Having begun to see the need for castles in conquered territory, held by a handful of men, the children visited early Norman castles near the school. Running up a 100ft motte, they imagined what it felt like to be Saxons or Welsh trying to storm the wooden keep, defended by Normans using arrows, stones and burning pitch. Stories of attacks and sieges stimulated ballad writing. A large-scale model of a motte and bailey castle was built, using clay for the mound and to line the moat, and wood for the keep and stakes. Extracts were read from stories like Puck of Pook's Hill, Hereward the Wake and the Gauntlet. Interest turned to weapons and particularly to archery, and led to work of a mathematical kind on the speed and distance of flight and some on the trajectory of the arrows. Before the topic came to an end, children had visited Ludlow and Stokesay and seen that a more comfortable life could be lived there than in the early purely military castles. They became enthusiasts for heraldry and devised their own coats of arms. They searched their surnames and vocabulary for traces of Norman-French influence.

628. A limiting factor on the use of school environments is their very varying nature. Suburbs and housing estates in particular may be historically poverty-stricken. Yet even in the newest estate it may be possible to build up from children's memories and those of their parents and grandparents, from old photographs and newspapers and bric-a-brac, a record of some of the vast changes that have taken place in the last 50 years. Within this limited period children can get an idea of sequence and change: from long skirts and woollen stockings and cotton prints to rayon and nylon (though the process has now ceased to be regular), from candle and oil or gas lamp to electric lighting,

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from the first probing with the cat's whisker and the broadcasts from 2LO to the valve set and then TV, and so on. This, like exploration, is one of the aspects of modem history that primary school children can appreciate and it can be given reality for them by being founded on first-hand evidence and focused on the changes in their own town or village.

629. Other springboards into the past have been found in children's names, their games, their phrases, their conventions and their hobbies. Their interest in steam engines (which grows as the steam engines themselves become fewer) and in the history of some of the everyday things mentioned in the previous paragraph has supported history based on so-called 'lines of development' which has the advantage of being backed by good reference books for children. One of the weaknesses is that, like some work on the environment, it may overemphasise gradual evolution whereas children are often more interested in the contrast of past and present. Too often, work centred on railways, ships, buildings and costumes leaves out the people who made and used them.

630. Children are interested in history because they are interested in stories. We have already suggested in the section on English that children may be starved of stories, even in good junior schools. Many of the stories through which children approach history in the earlier part of the primary school and which should balance environmental and other studies at a later stage are not to be distinguished from literature. Odysseus, Beowulf, the Norse stories, Roland, some of Chaucer's Tales, Arthur, Robin Hood: children should not be denied these stories. As they grow older and understand that the stories are legends, they may begin to realise, if Beowulf is linked with the Sutton Hoo remains, that the story illuminates a shadowy period of history when Christianity was beginning to triumph but monsters and dragons had not lost their sway. In Robin Hood they can see the memory of an England where great tracts were given over to forest and to hunting. The forest law was so harsh that even the dogs had to be crippled. Even more clearly, children can appreciate that the Arthurian stories have something to tell about medieval knights, if little about Arthur. In the story of Edward I and his son swearing on the swans that they would be revenged on the sacrilegious Robert Bruce, and the young Edward pledging himself never to sleep in the same bed till Scotland was reached, some mature children may begin to see that if history makes legend, legend also makes history.

631. It is heroes and villains - fairy tale extremes - that young children look for in legend. But even before they leave the infant school, some children press to know whether a story is really true. Stories which have actually happened have an added force for them. This is surely the moment for heroic stories, despite the many difficulties they present, for giving children 'the habitual vision of greatness' which Whitehead believed to be essential to moral development. Leonidas, Boniface, Alfred, Francis, explorers from the fifteenth to the twentieth century: these are among the characters who can be exciting company for children.

632. Whether in a story or in some other form of historical work, it is detail, not the generalisation of the textbooks, that carries conviction and stimulates enquiry. Detail for the imagination to play on is a parallel to the concrete situations from which young children may form their mathematical concepts.

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Children ask exactly what their heroes looked like. Sometimes there is no authentic information but when it exists they should be given it - Edward I's great stature and drooping eyelid, the wart on Cromwell's nose and his linen 'plain but not clean'. It is not enough to learn that Elizabethan ships were small and that music was popular in Elizabethan England. Children benefit from knowing the exact dimensions of the ships that ventured into unknown seas, that explorers like Drake and Davis found room for a small orchestra on board ships so tiny that adequate supplies could not be carried, and that Elizabethan barbers provided citherns rather than magazines for their waiting clients.

633. History may be studied in its own right or as a dimension of the many topics in which children are interested. In either case, its quality will depend on the sources available for children and teachers alike. In this, as in most other aspects of the curriculum, a consultant is needed on the staff, who will see that good historical material is available for pupils and teachers, (including the many cheap editions of sources that are now in print). He ought to make himself knowledgeable on the historical resources of the neighbourhood and to discuss with his colleagues which of children's historical interests are most worth underlining and reinforcing.

634. Though there is doubt about the belief that young children memorise more readily than adolescents, children profit from having some landmarks in chronology. Certainly if they remain in the middle school till 12 plus, they should be helped to see by time charts and other means the broad sequence of the events and aspects of history they learn about, and to acquire in effect a short 'alphabet' of history.

635. A key problem in the teaching of geography is to balance the knowledge which can be learned by children through their own senses with knowledge about distant places, which can only be learned through reports of various kinds made by other people and which demands imagination and interpretation on the part of the children. It has long been recognised that the first sort is a necessary prelude to any real appreciation of the second. For this reason many teachers have regarded local geography as the foundation upon which may be built sensitive and accurate imagining about strange lands and customs. Such teachers are prepared to accept the difficulties of organisation, the hazards of being confronted with questions which they cannot answer, and the demands upon professional skill to select from among a miscellany of experiences, all of which are the consequences of outdoor work. One of the notable changes in geography teaching in the primary school over the last 20 or 30 years has been the steady increase in outdoor work. Some schools not only conduct local studies but arrange visits to a contrasting area, often using exchange visits with another school or a brief period of residence in one of the field study centres which a growing number of local education authorities are establishing. Other schools have made little or no serious attempt to assess the potentialities of their neighbourhoods for geographical study. There has thus been an uneven growth of learning out of doors, and, concurrently with it, an uneven reassessment of the qualities that children's geographical books should possess.

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636. Forty years ago primary schools were largely dependent on series of text books written in simple language specifically for young children. Some text book writers sought to use the dependence of Britain upon imported food and raw materials as a link between the children and other lands: there grew up a fashion for the geography of products which often told of 'workers' and gave descriptions of meaningless industrial processes, rather than people and the lives they lived. Other writers sought an orderly framework of world geography; Herbertson's 'natural regions' (elements of an advanced geographical concept) were often used as the basis of world study and the children were told of the great climatic and vegetation belts as broad types of environment within which it was erroneously claimed that human activity conformed to set patterns. Terms like tundra, selvas and deciduous forest became the stock in trade of junior geography, and lessons dealt with 'the lumbermen of the cold forests', 'the pygmies of the hot wet forests', and 'the nomads of hot deserts'. These generalised cardboard characters belonged to no specific place. Subsequent writers have realised the importance for young children of the specific before the general, and there has been a steady increase in books which deal descriptively with a single family or small village, with a real farm or plantation, or with a few workers in an actual mine or factory. These sample studies carry much of the authenticity of local geography and permit genuine comparisons with the home region. There are now many hundreds of books for children, often illustrated with photographs or attractive line drawings, which tell of life as it is actually lived in many parts of the earth. These books stimulate some of the most searching questions from children and the most assiduous reference to maps and globes. There are also text books which fall between these two extremes and stimulate sample studies by manufacturing characters and names and situations which are claimed to be typical of certain areas. They rarely achieve authenticity.

637. A third element which has assumed increasing importance in the last 20 years in many schools is the use of mechanical aids; film strips, cine film, sound radio and television have made available new and vivid sources of information which call for discriminating use by the teacher.

638. Visits to schools today show an enormous variation in the extent to which teachers are prepared to exploit their localities as teaching laboratories and to use new kinds of geography books and other teaching aids. The head of the procession has advanced far beyond the tail.

639. The work done by many teachers in primary schools suggests that there are three broad stages through which children pass in their geographical education in the primary school:

(i) The first stage, which is appropriate to younger, and some older, infants is concerned with indiscriminate examining and observing of objects, events and phenomena, and learning the vocabulary needed to communicate about them. Weather, people and their actions, growing plants, inanimate objects, scenes in the road or street are all matters of curiosity and comment. A walk out of doors was recorded by infants on a large wall frieze in which houses, the church, trees, clouds, a lorry driver, a dog and the children themselves were prominently depicted: three dimensional models were made and some words, phrases and sentences written to accompany the pictorial record.

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(ii) In the second stage the continued enlargement of vocabulary (which indeed persists into adulthood) is accompanied by more discriminating and selective examination. Single objects or phenomena are isolated and analysed; changes in the weather, farming activities or the traffic flow are discussed, the different layers of soil are compared by feel, colour and texture; leaves of one tree may be set against those of another. Questions of a quite penetrating character may be asked and explanations given by parents or others may be remembered and repeated. At this stage observation can be acute and children find themselves striving for modes of expression which they have not yet mastered. The following piece of writing by a seven year old boy after seeing a picture in a geographical magazine illustrates this stage:

'Once a lovely liner was nosing down a Norwegian fjord. High steep rocky mountains towered the sides of it, and the captain of the liner was gazing out all around him. It was quite lovely and lonely. A fjord is an arm of water, like a channel with mountains at the side. All fjords are in Norway, and some are used for harbours. The captain was on his bridge eating egg sandwiches and drinking lemonade. The captain's ship was called the "Golden Glory". The funnels were red with gold stars. The ship had three funnels, a Union Jack at the front and back. It had two anchors one for the front and one for the back. The ship weighed a 150 tons. It had 21 portholes at each side. The Golden Glory was 2,000 yards long. It had a mast at each end with a flag on. The ship was two miles up the fjord.'

(iii) In the third stage the analysis and comparison of phenomena take on precision as mathematical skills, language and simple argument come to be employed. A sequence of events in human activity is recorded; temperatures are measured, clouds are classified and the directions of their movements described by points of the compass, traffic is counted and classified. Tables, graphs and written descriptions are commonly used as well as models and pictures. As children pass into this stage many of them are able to elucidate relationships and offer explanations. One group of juniors who kept a graphical record of atmospheric pressure and rainfall discovered that a large fall in pressure was accompanied by rainfall. On the single occasion when the correlation failed they wrote to the Meteorological Office to discover why.

641. There are many first hand experiences through which primary school children can become acquainted with objects and events of geographical significance, can gain a vocabulary associated with them, and can lay the foundation of that essentially geographical skill, map reading. But the situation of the school invariably limits the teacher's choice among these experiences. In some districts a stream may be both accessible and safe and

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the observed speed of flow, the depth of water, its muddiness or clarity can become topics for observation, measurement, and, at a later stage, explanation. Terms such as source, current, bed, sediment, confluence and estuary are used and questions may need to be answered about the relationships between weather and flow. Work of this kind may enable a child to understand more clearly what the Aswan dam can mean in a country like Egypt. In another area the river may be regarded as a source of water supply, as a barrier to movement that has necessitated bridges or ferries with their dominating influence over road and rail patterns, or as a means of transport linking the interior of the country with the sea. Some schools, particularly those in northern and western Britain, may find a source of interest in rocks in their many forms. Children may become acquainted with their textures, colours and weights, observe the strata in which they occur, and in some favoured areas the fossils they contain. They may observe how rocks are used for building stone and road metal or, in the case of chalk and limestone, sent to the cement factory. Other schools have access to the coast where cliffs, beaches, sand dunes and the flotsam lines of high tide are matters of interest. Animals, machinery, crops and farming routine are part of the rural setting available to some schools. Schools in urban areas can study shops, transport, housing estates and industry. There are very few schools indeed that cannot make useful studies of building materials, that cannot observe and record weather changes, and that cannot dig a small hole in a garden or adjacent field to find out what soil is like and how it changes with depth. Elements such as these are being employed by teachers to help children to gain vivid impressions by seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and examining the world around them. Measuring and calculating come at a later stage and often accompany a change from pictorial recording to graphs, maps and written accounts. Older juniors may relate one phenomenon to another such as rainfall to stream flow, slope to cultivation, land use to elevation or industrial sites to railway or canal.

642. There are various means by which local studies carried out by children themselves may lead outwards to the study of areas that cannot be visited. Sometimes a local feature possesses a direct link with a distant place; for example, a stream may send children to maps to discover its source, the hill where it rises, other streams which share its basin, the towns on its banks and the port at its mouth; a railway, road, canal or ship may carry children in imagination from the northern industrial district to the farmlands of Lincolnshire or the Fens, from the uplands and valleys of Wales to the industrial Midlands, from London to the holiday resorts of Cornwall or the lonely Scottish highlands, from Hull to Oslo or Copenhagen. A more profitable device, especially for older children, is to stress the thematic aspects of local study. Thus a farm which is well known to the children becomes the heart of a series of farm studies; dairying in Cheshire may be compared with sheep farming in Wales, stock fattening in Northumberland, fruit growing in Kent, wheat farming in Saskatchewan, rice cultivation in Java or subsistence agriculture in Nigeria. Weather studies and graphical records may be used for comparison with exotic climates and some awareness conveyed of the great contrasts that occur in temperature and rainfall and their seasonal fluctuation from one place to another. Older children may thus enquire into some of the reasons that differentiate their home area from other areas. Younger juniors marvel at the way in which the homely matters of food, clothing and houses in

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strange regions stand in contrast to those which they know, and seek for simple explanations of some differences. In such excursions the children are called upon to exercise their powers of imagination and this is where modern aids can bring powerful support to the teacher and child.

643. The cine film, transparencies and clear pictures are a valuable complement to first-hand experience and extend indirect experience; but time must be given for studying and discussing them or much of the impact may be lost. Broadcast programmes which provide local background colour in the form of typical sounds and conversations have a similar value but they, too, need preparation and time for discussion if their value for the children is to be fully reaped.

644. To a large extent the teacher learns to control or to be prepared for the directions in which children's questions lead outwards to the world from local study, film and broadcast lessons. But there are other influences at work outside the classroom which inform children and stimulate questions. The cinema, the press, and most of all television have made available to everyone a general visual knowledge of the world such as was impossible for adults, let alone children, before their invention. Simply left to himself, the television viewer sees more of the world and its peoples than the most travelled man of a century ago. Such knowledge may be superficial but it bears the ring of authenticity. This makes the task of the school at once easier and more difficult; easier because the sources of knowledge are much greater than school geography alone, and more difficult because the wealth of impressions possessed by children will be incomplete, confused and often coloured by the selection and purposes of the programme observed. The producer of a programme on the animal life of Borneo is under no obligation to explain to his viewers that the clothing, weapons and houses of the people seen as background to the main theme may represent skilful adaptations to natural environment, available materials, social organisation and the present state of technological skills which prevail. Detailed descriptions of a variety of environments and modes of life are needed before children can realise the wise balance of adaptation that has been achieved by a great many communities. In this respect some textbooks are open to serious criticism because they convey an oversimplified and often grossly distorted version of the lives of children and grown up people in other lands. The textbook flat conical hat of the south Chinese peasant is not 'funny' to Chinese; it is sensible headgear made cheaply from available materials and well suited to a climate in which heavy rain and hot sun may alternate. Recent developments in northern Canada and Greenland have enriched the way of life of the Eskimo communities in a manner quite foreign to many standard textbook accounts.

645. Even the best books will need constant revision. There is an increasing supply of well written and well illustrated reference books, and the sources of reliable, unbiased information of the sample study type as well as of good films are constantly being enriched.

646. Some form of national and world geography ought to be studied by older juniors and the emphasis ought to be primarily on the relationship between a way of life and the total environment rather than on natural features in themselves or economic products. If such studies are accompanied by the

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regular use of globes and maps, the sophisticated conventions which they employ are gradually absorbed by the children and help to bring order to the many diffuse environments and cultures to which they have been introduced. But the important thing ultimately is that people should understand people, and in the primary school a significant contribution may be made to this end.

647. Until comparatively recently a typical 'scheme of work' in a primary school could have been summarised somewhat as follows: 'Composition and decomposition of 10. The four rules. The four rules in money. Tables. Vulgar fractions. Simple decimals. Simple problems.' Emphasis was laid upon knowledge of tables, computation and quick and accurate 'mental arithmetic'. About twenty years ago the first signs of change appeared, but it is perhaps only in the last five or six that the new ideas have spread so as to affect at least a majority of primary schools, and to justify the name of revolution in a substantial minority.

648. Rapid revolutions are not common in English education and, before describing the change and saying what we think about it, it is worth indicating briefly how it has been brought about. Changes of this nature and magnitude probably occur only when there exists a fairly widespread dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs and a predisposition to look in new directions. The dissatisfaction had certainly been there for many years and it was not confined to this country. It was associated with the growing need of society for mathematics at an advanced level. Those who supported the accepted ways argued that a sound mechanical foundation was essential before anything more adventurous could be attempted and that children must learn to walk before they tried to run. There was, however, a growing conviction that the accepted approach laid too exclusive an emphasis on mechanical operations, was too little concerned with the practical uses of mathematics, and that the traditional syllabuses included much useless lumber.

649. For 30 years or more attempts had been made both by teachers and by the writers of textbooks to make arithmetic more practical and more interesting, but it was not until a mathematical, rather than a purely arithmetical, approach began to be made, that the whole subject began to take on a new look. The various kinds of number apparatus for the use of infant schools, none of which was perhaps essential to the change that has taken place, have helped teachers to think in a fresh way about number and broken down some of the misgivings that many women teachers undoubtedly had about mathematics as distinct from 'infant number'. Even more important was the work of many infant teachers, and their advisers, who realised that learning in school and out of school went on all the time and who directed children's attention to the mathematical aspects of their environment and of their play. Many of these teachers came to realise the contribution of experience to the formation of concepts and the limited value of processes learnt by rote. Books, too, had their influence - Piaget's researches, books about the history and nature of mathematics and the Mathematical Association's 'The Teaching of Mathematics in the Primary School', which was a tremendous encouragement to change.

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650. There is little doubt that the next most important move came from the Department of Education and Science. Individual members of HM Inspectorate had, since the mid-forties, been encouraging a more mathematical approach and the Mathematical Panel of Inspectors, which had formerly been mainly concerned with secondary mathematics, had for some time taken a greatly increased interest in primary schools. In 1959 one of its members was seconded almost full-time to the task of organising courses and conferences for teachers. As a result, about 15 per cent of all primary teachers in England have by now attended courses and conferences organised by HMIs, with much valuable co-operation from local advisers and lecturers in colleges and departments of education. The aim was to introduce teachers to new ideas, to encourage them to set up local groups for further study and exchange of experiences, and to remove the insecurity and inadequacy of which many were all too conscious. These groups were an essential part of the development that took place. Some mathematical specialists from secondary schools took part in all courses. According to the National Survey 26 per cent of teachers attended courses in mathematics between 1961 and 1964 (Appendix 5, Tables 30 & 31).

651. The most encouraging result has been the great interest known to be aroused amongst teachers attending, including those who had always thought mathematics beyond them. The collaboration of mathematicians from many different institutions has led to an enrichment of mathematical knowledge and to a clearer understanding of each other's needs and problems. The experience gleaned in the years from 1959 to 1964 has been embodied in the Schools Council Curriculum Bulletin No. 1 Mathematics in Primary Schools (1), a work of much interest and, we think, of great usefulness. It contains many fascinating accounts of children's work and activities and can be recommended to any reader who wishes to know in detail what modern teaching of mathematics in the primary schools is like. It has greatly influenced the current Nuffield project in primary mathematics. A deliberate change in the curriculum has been brought about not by the issue of programmes by states or universities as is often done in the USA, but by pioneer work by teachers, clarified and focused by advisory services to teachers, and diffused on a national scale by in-service training in which self help has played a major and essential part. This may prove to be the beginning of a new era associated with the establishment of the Schools Council.

652. The Nuffield project, which is being sponsored by the Schools Council and which has been financed by the Nuffield Foundation, involves the issue of material for the use of teachers. At every stage primary teachers have been involved in its production and at every stage it is being 'tried out' in primary schools. It will thus have undergone a more rigorous testing than any ordinary mathematical textbook, which is normally the work of a single writer. But the material is not a textbook, nor is it a course. It is best described as a 'do-it-yourself' series of handbooks. Furthermore, when it is published and made available for general use, it will carry no authority other than what its own inherent qualities command and will compete on equal terms with other books and courses.

653. It would not be timely to describe in detail the present state of mathematical teaching or to pass judgement on it. We offer a brief general account of new ideas on mathematical teaching, followed by some comments derived

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from what we have seen on our visits to schools and heard from our witnesses.

654. In Curriculum Bulletin No. 1 (Chapter 3, page 9) the following summary is given of the principles underlying this new approach:

(1) Children learn mathematical concepts more slowly than we realised. They learn by their own activities.

(2) Although children think and reason in different ways they all pass through certain stages depending on their chronological and mental ages and their experience.

(3) We can accelerate their learning by providing suitable experiences, particularly if we introduce the appropriate language simultaneously.

(4) Practice is necessary to fix a concept once it has been understood, therefore practice should follow, and not precede, discovery.

(a) Instead of being presented with ready made problems in a textbook the children find their own problems or are given them in a 'raw form' with the idea of their learning a mathematical concept. The old ready-made problems were often concerned with irrelevant situations such as filling baths and calculating how many men would take how many hours to dig so many yards of ditch if it took another lot of men a different number of hours to dig a different length of ditch. These were simply mechanical sums in disguise. They involved no constructive thinking, only the choice and application of a process. Now many infant schools arrange equipment so that children can themselves discover relationships between numbers in the counting sequence. The genuine problem may arise very early as when infants notice the varying length of shadows at different times of the day and ask the reason. They are encouraged to begin to look for an answer even if the description of the problem, the measuring of the shadow, is as far as they are interested or able to go. Later on a dripping tap in the cloakroom, not an imaginary one in the textbook, might provide a 'real' problem. How much water is being wasted in 24 hours, in a week, in a year? Later still the problems may be quite complicated. Some ten year old children had collected a number of bird and animals skulls and became interested in comparing the capacities of the brain cavities. They had to think out an efficient method of measuring them and then construct some cubic receptacle for measuring the dry sand that they had poured into the cavities. The cubic inch that they had used for the cat's and the rabbit's skulls proved to be too large for the bird's and the interesting discovery that a cubic quarter inch was not the same as the quarter of a cubic inch was not likely ever again to be forgotten.

(b) The communication of results in mathematical symbols and graphs develops alongside the practical experiences. Children do not first of all learn fractions, then graphs, then equations, then indices as was done in former days. They learn the appropriate symbols and techniques as they need them and often show a capacity for mathematical thinking and for processes formerly regarded as 'advanced' much earlier than was ever dreamed of under the old methods. The correct vocabulary is often quite naturally introduced at an early stage.

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(c) 'Pure mathematics' appear to have a fascination for many children, and such things as number series, sets, magic squares and the geometry of shapes now appear in the primary school curriculum. Some schools are experimenting with teaching mathematics through the language of sets. This approach has been taken up more strongly in the United States. There is hardly enough evidence as yet to judge the success of these experiments.

(d) Although the new approach has brought much new experience and material into primary schools and has made for a much greater flexibility in matters of presentation and sequence, it has not removed the necessity for a very carefully thought out scheme of work in junior schools, for careful individual records of progress, for practice in computation and for accuracy.

655. Our first comment upon these generalisations would be that this sort of approach demands a considerably greater knowledge of mathematics or rather degree of mathematical understanding in the teachers than the traditional one. If the children have to think harder, so do the teachers. Some have difficulty in identifying the mathematical aspects of topic work. Many teachers, especially women, faced the change with a poor equipment of mathematical training, and it is a measure of their willingness to learn and ability to profit by their learning, that so much has been achieved in so short a time. The changes in the study of mathematics in colleges of education ought to produce a generation of teachers with a much better initial equipment than formerly.

656. There is ample evidence that many of the claims made for the new approach are well founded. Moreover, the number of non-mathematicians floundering in a welter of half grasped rules and inaccurate figures is noticeably less.

657. The extent to which the primary schools have adopted the new approach is difficult to measure precisely. The general impression of HM Inspectorate is that at least a majority of schools have been influenced by the developments of the last five years and that a substantial minority, something between ten per cent and 20 per cent, have completely rethought and reorganised their mathematical syllabus and teaching methods. One of the most encouraging features of these developments is the evident enjoyment that many teachers themselves display on encountering mathematics in its 'new' form.

658. Will the modern methods lead to a decline in computation and accuracy? A modem approach can be mishandled like any other, and a lazy or unsympathetic or muddle-headed teacher could fail in this approach, no less than in the traditional one. Occasionally children may be given too little guidance but there is nothing new in this. When taught by older methods, children were sometimes either kept together as a group or left to 'work on' in their book without enough teaching, stimulus or discussion. Accuracy, indeed, is likely to improve, since in this kind of work there is a built-in incentive to accuracy. The children are much more personally involved and are often called upon to exercise their own judgement on the degree of accuracy, either in measurement or in computation, that each particular operation requires, whereas in the old arithmetic books inches appeared in the same sums as miles. It has been feared by some that computation would

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be given too little place. The more fascinating the mathematics, the less the enthusiasm that might be felt for 'sums', but here again there is an automatic safeguard. Computation can be seen to have a clear purpose, that of 'fixing' a necessary process and increasing the speed of its performance. The introduction of the decimal system should reduce the time necessary for arithmetical computation.

659. If, as we think, it is desirable that this development should continue, the process which brought it about may indicate the means of furthering this. We believe that the local groups of teachers which sprang up in the wake of one HMI, and those who worked with her, provide a useful model. If the stimulus is provided by industry, local education authority organisers, university lecturers, researchers and HMIs, the initiative and responsibility for development must lie mainly with primary school teachers themselves. They must form working groups which exist not primarily to listen to lectures but for the discussion of experience and ideas and for practical work. The centres for teachers which are being established in some areas will fail in their object if they encourage either a passive attendance or attendance with the object of learning how to teach a programme. They must have as their main objective the encouragement of initiative and of imaginative and constructive thinking.

660. It is obvious that in a large number of smaller primary schools mathematics must be taught by those who are in no sense mathematical specialists, while even in the largest schools a full-fledged mathematician cannot, even if it were desirable, do all the mathematics teaching. We think that the teachers' groups that have been described will be the most useful means of ensuring that the mathematicians and the non-mathematicians work in a team and that the latter learn from the former. The specially devised machinery of the Nuffield project must be succeeded by established machinery. The future will depend upon the extent to which we can produce teachers with the necessary knowledge and understanding to use and improve upon the material made available to them, and to keep themselves up to date. This is the responsibility of the colleges of education, supported by whatever permanent arrangements are made, locally and nationally, for in-service training.

661. The 'Southampton School Mathematics Project' in which a number of maintained and independent schools have co-operated, was the first of several experiments at the secondary level. Nevertheless children who have learned to think mathematically in the primary school are too often faced with little more than mechanical computation, repetitive sums and revision when they arrive in their new schools. The moral is that arrangements made for the in-service training and the re-education of primary school teachers should be increasingly available to the teachers of the younger pupils in secondary schools, and that the latter should be actively encouraged to take advantage of them. The raising of the age of transfer will make this an urgent necessity.

662. It happens that our enquiry has coincided with a period of change in the teaching of mathematics and we have been privileged spectators of it. While it must be evident from our remarks that we are full of enthusiasm for what we have seen and of hope for the future, we must emphasise that the last thing we wish to see is a hardening of the new approach into an accepted

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syllabus supported by textbooks, work books and commercially produced apparatus and consecrated by familiarity. The rate of change must obviously slow down, but the initiative must remain firmly in the practising teachers' hands.

1. 'Mathematics in Primary Schools', Schools Council Curriculum Bulletin No. 1, HMSO, 1965.

663. Traditionally, the only science taught in primary schools was nature study which varied from a close study of living things at first hand to avid note making and illustrations of animals, birds, plants and insects seldom actually seen and often scarcely recognisable. BBC talks and the admirably produced pamphlets which accompanied them often aroused interest but resulted too rarely in first-hand observation. Unless the individual teacher had a real knowledge of natural history, the subject tended to be one of the less satisfactory in the primary school.

664. We must emphasise that there is hardly any material more suitable for study by young children than living forms. The observation, identification and recording of fauna and flora found in the neighbourhood of the school, the elementary study of ecological features, simple studies in human biology, the breeding and care in good conditions of insects, small mammals and fish, are all educational and appropriate. Some authorities are setting up animal 'banks' from which animals, much greater in variety than those formerly seen in the classroom, can be supplied. The presence of animals encourages a great deal of writing and practical work. Interest in living things tends to be particularly long-lived.

665. Quite naturally, the children's enquiries can lead to some understanding and respect for the fundamental life processes of breathing, feeding and movement, of sensitivity and reproduction. Discussion of the significance of these could be sufficiently wide-ranging to include some reference to human organs and their functions; but it must be handled with delicacy and should avoid eliciting too morbid an interest in self. Curiosity so aroused can lead to simple experiments which test the efficiency of digestive juices like saliva, of the design and arrangement of muscle, sinew and bone, and of the heart and circulation. Some enquiry into the workings of sense organs and their efficiency and limitations is another fascinating topic and should lead to studies of reaction times and even to some interest in the functioning of the brain and nervous system. Although we include later in the report a separate section on sex education it may best arise in the context of a general study of life processes, and teachers would perhaps be wise to channel and encourage enquiries to this end. It would certainly seem natural and desirable to foster in older children a sense of wonder at the power of organisms, including man,

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to adjust to environment, to escape enemies, to grow from tiny origins and complete a life-cycle, covering remarkably varied spans of time, and to produce young like themselves. Indeed, with this in mind many schools consider it important to supplement classroom studies with visits to farms and the growing of suitable plants.

666. But there is no reason to confine scientific studies to biology even in environments particularly favourable to that kind of work. There are some teachers who are more at home in the field of physical science, which is certainly a source of absorbing interest to most children. Young children have enjoyed playing with models, magnets, siphons, low voltage electricity, lenses and so on for as long as anyone can remember. For some years, interest tables in many infant schools have been stocked with magnets, pulleys, levers and magnifying glasses and have proved stimulating when supplemented by oral or written suggestions from the teacher. Teachers have drawn children's attention to physical phenomena through water play without trying to explain too much. But, for no clear reason, little place was found for these matters at the junior stage and for most children their first serious introduction to physical science was in the secondary school.

667. In 1957 a meeting of teachers was called by the Department of Education and Science and conducted by HM Inspectors. It was followed by national and local courses, the publication by the Department of a pamphlet 'Science in the Primary School' and, in 1963, by a Nuffield project, planned on similar lines to the mathematics project and in close co-operation with it. The material produced by the Nuffield team became available on a limited scale in the autumn of 1965 and is still in an experimental stage. By late 1966 a teachers' guide, a volume of case histories of science in the primary school, and a series of teachers' books on a variety of general topics will be available for purchase by the many local education authorities who wished to take part in the first phase of the Nuffield project but who could not then be accepted. This second phase, of testing materials, used on a large scale, over a period of six years or so, will be evaluated by a study commissioned by the Schools Council. The project is planned to cover not only the primary years as at present defined but also the years up to 13.

668. A twofold change is therefore occurring: first the introduction of a much greater variety of subject matter into primary schools and secondly a new approach. The physical environment of a school, as of an individual child, contains an immense variety of objects and phenomena. Besides the natural world of living forms and of sun, moon, stars, wind, rain, snow, frost, fog, heat and cold, night and day, there is the man-made world in all its technical complexity. The conventional ways of categorising these phenomena as biology, branches of physics such as optics, electricity and magnetism, chemistry, engineering and so on are neither natural nor, except very crudely, understandable classifications to young children of primary school age. If, for the terms used above, rabbits, railway engines, telescopes, TV sets and aeroplanes are substituted, these are at once seen to be things about which children show a spontaneous curiosity and ask endless questions. The subject matter of primary school science thus almost settles itself. It is those objects and phenomena in the physical world which attract and interest. The choice

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within that vast range must depend partly on the immediate environment, urban or rural, plain or mountain, coastal or inland, partly on the special resources and interests of the teacher who may be a keen birdwatcher, a radio amateur, an enthusiast for railways or for twenty other different things, and will do best if he shares his special interest with his pupils. Clearly, the topic must be suitable for study by children of primary school age. Mains voltage electricity would be fascinating, but might also be fatal, and electronics would involve concepts too difficult for all but the most able children to grasp.

669. The treatment of the subject matter may be summarised in the phrase 'learning by discovery'. In a number of ways it resembles the best modern university practice. Initial curiosity, often stimulated by the environment the teacher provides, leads to questions and to a consideration of what questions it is sensible to ask and how to find the answers. This involves a great exercise of judgement on the part of the teacher. He will miss the whole point if he tells the children the answers or indicates too readily and completely how the answers may be found, but he must not let them flounder too long or too helplessly, and can often come to the rescue by asking another question. But, though constant dialogue between teacher and children is an essential feature of the approach we are describing, it would be wrong to picture it all as taking place in a classroom or even a laboratory. Essential elements are enquiry, exploration and first-hand experience which may mean expeditions, perhaps no further than to the playground, but sometimes to a railway station, a factory, a wood or a pond. The making of models and the construction and repetition of experiments will also play an important part. Young children may want to repeat experiments over and over again and the comparison of results will often lead to further enquiry. If, as children become older, they jump to generalisations too readily from the results of a single experiment, the teacher should see that they repeat their experiments. By this means children's understanding of precision, reliability and the nature of evidence can be increased. Some enquiries will certainly lead children to books, and information picked up from books or from television will also provide starting points for enquiry. But if primary school science is confined to knowledge taken from books, the whole purpose of the study of this area of the curriculum will be lost.

670. Although we welcome the extension of primary school science to include the physical sciences, we would regret any tendency to underestimate the importance of the opportunities of natural history. Our first example of first-hand study of the environment is therefore drawn from the latter, and is an extract from a much longer account by the headmistress of a little country school.

'In the spring of last year a mother carried a jar of frog spawn to school for her five year old son following his interest in a discussion we had after a ramble down the lane to find any material indicating that spring had arrived. He had asked his mother to take him for a walk after school and they had seen the frog spawn in a dirty pond so father was sent with the jar to get some for school.

The spawn was put into the tank and next day pond water and plants arrived from many sources. Daily observations were made, always some-

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body was popping over to see if the 'black things' were frogs yet. We found shy children giving their views as to whether they were bigger than yesterday, and what movement could be seen. The older children began to note down and sketch the changes, but the Easter holidays broke into this piece of observation, and the interest was flagging when one of my managers visited the school and invited us to fish for tadpoles in her lily ponds.

Next day nylon stockings, wire and sticks, for fishing net making, arrived. The following day a shuttle service with cars conveyed all the infants and then any juniors who were without bicycles to Hailey House.

My helper took charge of the infants to fish in the lily ponds while we fished in the disused swimming pool. Although it poured with rain their spirits were not dampened, and very reluctantly after an hour, the party left with tadpoles and jars of creatures and mud from the swimming pool. Days were spent in naming newts, beetles, water boatmen, making charts with pictures cut from old books or magazines from home and information added which had been sought for in library books. Feeding habits were watched at odd times and inhabitants were counted as it was realised that some were being eaten. Some of our original tadpoles were put in their tank too, so that the water in the tadpole tank could be lowered and stones put above the water line so that they could now be amphibious, and as the change to frogs seemed too slow I suggested they should have natural surroundings but not too far away for us to watch. After discussion it was decided that plastic would hold water and having some big plastic bags the boys dug a hole and made a very satisfactory pond which lasted until the summer holidays. This gave them the chance of seeing the final development into frogs and the comparison of indoor and outdoor growth. Discussions arose naturally on stagnant water, fresh water, drinking water and flowing water which took us down into the village to note the currents, depth, etc., and to fish. Plants in the water and at the edge were named. The use of bridges and fords was another topic, the flooding and the debris left behind, and the flowing of the streams into the River Thames and its journey to the sea.

After this a girl brought a jar of water from the football field to show me that it was not fit to drink although it was always used for the players' tea. Then the boys wanted to find out if the rain water running down the bank contained any debris, so more jars of water were left to settle and the children were again experimenting a bit farther.'

671. Our second example is an account of some group work by second year juniors on heat. It illustrates the interplay of the children's discovery and the teacher's guidance. We print it at the end of this section, as it was written.

672. Once again we emphasise the importance of language in this kind of approach. We have been told of a class of rather backward children who, after a term of being taught science in this way, showed a startling improvement in both spoken and written English. What they had said and written had a meaning and purpose for them which they had scarcely known previously. For the first time, perhaps, school was offering them first-hand

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experience which demanded exact recording. For some less able children it may be appropriate for this free-ranging enquiry to continue beyond the primary school; it may still be for them the best way of learning. For others, perhaps the older and abler ones, a pattern of experience may emerge from their work that engages their attention and impels them to confine their enquiries within a chosen framework. For them a narrower field and deeper, cognate enquiries may become more satisfying. This development could fit them well for the more mature and systematic work that is more evident at the secondary stage.

673. The development that has been described has not been greeted with unanimous enthusiasm in all quarters. Some teachers of science in secondary schools have feared that children would come to them possessing all kinds of fragmentary, unclassified information, some of it inaccurate or at least 'unscientific', all of it incomplete. Although it is too early to make a general assessment of the new approach, this particular objection to it can be fairly summarily disposed of. Knowledge is always incomplete, and it is only gradually that children can build up a coherent understanding of any aspect of it. The kinds of classification that are useful and necessary at an advanced stage may be meaningless at the age of 11. If children leave their primary schools with their natural curiosity not only unimpaired but sharpened, with experience of first-hand discovery in several different fields, with some idea of what questions to ask and how to find the answers, they will be well equipped to proceed with a scientific education. We believe that many secondary school teachers of science welcome this already and we hope that soon all of them will do so.

674. Whatever the outcome of the current projects, we are confident that the teachers' groups described in the section on mathematics will have an important part to play. The close connections between science and mathematics point to it, and the groups might well in practice be identical. Much of the material needed for science and mathematics is the same. Most science equipment is simple, and can be obtained from local shops or made in school. Some is expensive and requires careful 'housing'. Further, science is constantly extending its boundaries and though the frontiers of pure science are remote from the primary school, the practical application of new discoveries are not. Children now ask questions about space flight and transistors, neither of which existed a generation ago. We hope that, as in mathematics, teachers' centres will encourage initiative in teachers and will certainly not be used to draw up school syllabuses, though examples of the materials which can be handled by children at various ages, and of the ways in which investigation has developed in individual instances, can be useful. They should provide opportunities for teachers to extend their own scientific knowledge by practical work, and by study courses and lectures given by experts. The new methods demand more knowledge in teachers. There ought also to be opportunities for them to make apparatus to use in school and to discuss with their colleagues the innovations they are trying out, and opportunities for them to see each other's work in the classroom. There already exist the field study centres at Flatford, Malham Tarn and elsewhere, which have done much for the further education of teachers in biology and, more particularly, ecology, and a similar need undoubtedly exists in the non-biological sciences.

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The precise relationship which ought to exist between teachers' centres, institutes of education and colleges of technology will probably vary from area to area but we have little doubt that some kind of partnership is needed. In the long term, the development of this work is bound also to depend heavily on the success of colleges of education in educating teachers who have broad scientific interests.

675. We have indicated the close connections which exist between science and mathematics and science and English, but the kind of science that we have been describing has even wider connections than these. A visit to a stream with the avowed object of collecting specimens may lead to non-scientific consequences to a poem, or a painting, or to drawings which may be at once accurately observed and artistically pleasing. A visit to a church, with history and religion in mind, in one instance that came to our notice, resulted in a decision by the children to find out how the church was built, what were the engineering problems involved and, surprisingly, how much it weighed! The project involved much careful planning and hard work in mathematics and science, and a great deal of speaking, reading and writing. In a modern primary school this kind of thing is increasingly apt to happen. We applaud it because it reflects not only the nature of young children and their methods of learning but interconnections of subjects which have been more or less arbitrarily classified.

We were puzzled in our group because the polystyrene feels warm to your hand. I'm sure I felt warmth when I held the palm of my hand about half an inch away from a cube surface.

We thought at first the warmth must come from inside the polystyrene so we drilled a deep hole in one cube, and placed a centigrade thermometer inside the hole and hung another thermometer outside near it. But they both said 21½°C. so there couldn't be warmth coming out of the material. For a long time we were puzzled and couldn't solve the mystery ... where was the warmth coming from? Then Penny tumbled on the truth (we think!). The warmth coming from your hand hits the face of the cube and bounces back to your hand. So the material doesn't contain heat, doesn't soak up or absorb the heat it throws it back. Our teacher says the name for such a material is an insulator. He then put our long iron poker in the fire and we felt the heat coming up to the handle. Iron must take up heat, not reflect it, so we learned that it is a conductor.

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Now we decided to find out if any heat at all will pass through polystyrene. So we set up sheets of polystyrene in front of the stove, where it is very warm.

Next we hung a thermometer on each side of the sheet of polystyrene. After 5 minutes A read 31½°C, B read 22½°C. Suddenly I realised it wasn't a good experiment because A thermometer was nearer to the stove than B, and so we couldn't tell how much heat the polystyrene really stopped.

We hung both thermometers on the side of the polystyrene away from the stove, but only one shielded by the material and the second one much higher and with nothing to protect it from the heat of the stove.

We did this experiment with ½" [half inch], ¾" and 1" sheets of the material and these were the results.

I expect the air round the stove would be warmer than anywhere else in the room, so that will account for the one degree higher readings on thermometer B. But apart from that it looks to us as though polystyrene is a very good insulator, not soaking up any heat nor letting heat pass through it. Out of curiosity, we got our teacher to open the stove damper to make more heat come from the stove, and we put the three sheets of polystyrene through the same tests against more heat.

The B thermometer stayed at 22½°C though A rose and rose. We were amazed to find that the thinnest sheet of polystyrene kept the heat in just as well as the thickest sheet.

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676. Art is both a form of communication and a means of expression of feelings which ought to permeate the whole curriculum and the whole life of the school. A society which neglects or despises it is dangerously sick. It affects, or should affect, all aspects of our life from the design of the commonplace articles of everyday life to the highest forms of individual expression.

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677. The beginning of the revolt against formalism occurred in the realm of pictorial art. In the late 1920s the influence of Marion Richardson began to be felt and by 1939 a considerable number of schools had broken away from the old tradition and were trying something new. The old tradition consisted of the careful copying of objects - flowers, twigs, fruit, geometrical forms and sometimes pictures - usually in black and white and usually with a hard lead pencil. If colour was introduced, it was to fill in outlines, and crayons were much commoner than paint. If paint was used, it was cheap water colour. There was little in this tradition to commend. It encouraged neither vision nor invention. The close observation and careful recording that might have been its merits were disappointingly absent from the work of the majority of children, for whom the demands made were quite inappropriate. The essence of the new approach was to let children use large sheets of paper and big brushes, requiring larger movements of hand and arm, more suitable to their age than the fine, delicate movement required by the old tradition. Powder colour in plenty and free brush work were introduced from the earliest moment and the children were allowed to paint 'what they liked'. Little attempt was made to teach them perspective or techniques, but certainly Marion Richardson and those close to her did much to arouse children's powers of observation.

678. The immediate result of the inter-war approach was the production of vast quantities of childlike pictures, boldly executed, usually aglow with colour, often showing freshness and originality of vision and sometimes a remarkable power of organising two-dimensional space. This stage of almost complete freedom from teaching of techniques was necessary. It was probably the only means of breaking away from the arid formalism of the tradition, but it was only a stage, and good primary school art has developed considerably beyond it in recent years.

679. There are many more teachers now than there ever were with an appreciation of painting and other arts and an understanding of their value for children. They still do little teaching of techniques, but do much more than those of 30 years ago to stimulate children's vision, to develop the 'seeing eye', to multiply the possible sources of inspiration and to enrich the school environment. They supply the better art books and magazines and make use of everyday objects of good design from this country and others, as well as of the resources of the past. The subject matter, the treatment and the media of children's painting show a much greater variety than those of the thirties. The primary schools have, indeed, participated to the full in the more general flourishing of art in the whole community. Some primary schools encourage close observation of the detail and subtleties of colour and texture to be found in bark, stones, shells, plants and seaweed. Many delightful coloured and black and white drawings are acutely observed and lovingly executed. Much that was banished in the thirties, and rightly banished because it was feebly conceived and inadequately provided for, has now returned to its rightful place, infused with life and assisted by the use of better tools and media.

680. We think that, at its best, primary school art is very good indeed. But there is no cause for complacency. Many schools still show too little sign of having moved far from the outlook of the thirties and although this is better than the tradition that preceded it, it is too limited in scope to be acceptable. There is

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often too little progression, and the work of the ten year olds is less developed than would be expected from what is done by the sixes, sevens and eights. This is partly attributable to a failure on the part of teachers to realise their pupils' possibilities, and partly to teachers' lack of confidence in their power to help. As long ago as 1933 some children in Wiltshire painted large murals in the school and expressed a desire to brighten up in a similar way the local station waiting room, a suggestion in which the railway company took no interest! We are convinced that the artistic capabilities of children are much greater than many primary teachers realise. This underestimate will become more serious if some children remain in the middle school till nearly 13. Too many teachers still believe that after that 'first fine careless rapture' children's imaginative powers diminish and wither. Others teachers have proved the reverse. What has to be recognised is that, as children grow, their vision and also their interests and viewpoint change. For example, although not all twelve year olds 'see' perspective in the adult sense, many become deeply absorbed in what the adult world calls 'drawing'. The form and construction of things, both natural and man-made, are of consuming interest to some boys and girls of this age. If the school can feed and satisfy this interest, all should be well. Of course twelve year olds will paint differently from nine year olds; but, if they have a full life, their work will certainly not be empty or derivative: it will be as exploratory and as satisfying to themselves as it ever was. Moreover, the impact of commercial art and the influence of the camera, particularly through television, must be recognised. The school has to manage these forces tactfully. In both there is something stimulating and good as well as bad, and the discerning teacher will know how to guide his children's emerging powers of criticism. A more fundamental obstacle to full development is the lukewarm attitude not only of the public but also of many teachers and many schools, especially grammar schools, to the importance of art in education. If the word 'frill' is not now often used of it, the attitude that it implies is still widespread. We shall return to this point later, and will only say here that we are ourselves satisfied that the practice of art by children is a fundamental and indispensable part of their education.

681. Craft in the elementary school was traditionally separated from art. For the boys it meant woodwork, cardboard models and geometrical drawing and for the girls needlework and knitting. Certain other crafts, notably basket-making, bookbinding, weaving, block printing and occasionally pottery became common in the senior elementary schools in the thirties, but the primary schools were not much affected. Latterly a much greater variety of crafts, including wood-carving, clay-modelling, dyeing and block-cutting, have come into the primary schools and the distinction between what is done by boys and girls has partly disappeared. Except possibly for the oldest children, it is quite artificial and unhelpful: boys enjoy stitchery and girls can benefit from work in wood and metal.

682. The basis for much of the best work done in the primary school has been the willingness of many infant teachers to make materials and tools of good quality available to young children. There has been a welcome trend away from didactic to natural materials and to those whose use is rooted in our tradition. Clay has replaced plasticine, the well-kept 'piece box' has taken the place of the hessian mats and school knitting cottons, and wood

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and waste materials have been substituted for paper as a medium for three dimensional models. Children need to experiment with a wide range of materials, natural and man-made.

683. The connection of art and craft with the rest of the curriculum is of paramount importance. The development of sensitivity and the growth of techniques come partly as the result of play and experiment with materials. But, just as in mathematics, techniques are learnt most easily when they are needed for the purposes children have in mind.

684. At its best, the craft of English primary schools is outstanding. We have seen work of extraordinary beauty and technical perfection which we could hardly have believed had been produced by young children had we not watched them doing it; but here, equally, there is much still to be done. There is far too much mechanical and repetitive work, especially in needlework, far too much dull and tasteless craft, far too widespread an acceptance of poor standards, far too little integration of the craft into the curriculum as a whole. If children stay in the middle school for an extra year, more account must be taken of their growing concern to know how things work and how to do a job 'properly', almost to pursue a technique for its own sake. There must be a more workmanlike and ambitious outlook for the older children. Some girls will certainly wish to make simple outfits for themselves. They should be given opportunity to discriminate between the fabrics which are suitable for their purpose and for their degree of skill, and should be helped by frequent discussion. Guidance should be given in the ways of holding and manipulating tools and materials, and the sewing machine should have a place. Many of the crafts associated with textiles, block printing, tie dyeing, embroidery and weaving appeal to boys and girls alike. An over-academic emphasis in the work of the abler streams in the grammar schools and the neglect of craft in their education has left its mark on the great majority of teachers in primary schools. Some of the colleges of education have done splendid work in the correction of this lopsided education, as also have some of the advisers to local authorities. Exhibitions of children's work have also provided much stimulus, but a considerable upheaval in the educational world and the world in general will be needed before art and craft take their proper place in the education of the young.

685. For most of their history the English people have shown at least as much genius as any other for the creation of a physical environment suitable for human living. The eighteenth century town, the village, the country house, the parkland, the cottage garden, the farm with all its appurtenances - the ages which produced them could be criticised for their inequality, their poverty, their squalor and their harshness, but not for their taste and craftsmanship. The industrial revolution saw a decline in many things aesthetic, a decline which became steeper as the nineteenth century advanced, though we are beginning to perceive achievement even in the worst period. The results of this decline are about us, above all in our large towns, and the schools of the period are characteristic. Until recently people had become accustomed to the idea that schools were ugly and dark places surrounded by dreary stretches of asphalt without and painted dark brown within, though some teachers worked wonders by the environment they created inside the school. Opinions will differ about contemporary school buildings, but it is generally

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agreed that they represent an advance in lightness, spaciousness and convenience, and anyhow in aesthetic good intentions. But much of the rest of the environment, rural as well as urban, in which children grow up is all too evidently the product of a crude indifference to aesthetic values and of an insensitiveness to many of the deepest human needs. We should like to see the schools becoming, much more than most of them now are, places in which the children are surrounded by many examples, old and new, of taste and discrimination - furniture, clocks, fabrics, ceramics, pictures and books. It should be the object of every school to do all in its power to add to the beauty of its equipment and environment, in exactly the same way as a householder with a sensitive eye for beauty will make such constant additions, improvements and adaptations as his means allow to the house and garden in which he lives. In recent years the public have become familiar with the interiors of many great houses which were once closed to all but a privileged few, and which are now worth seeing because their former owners had taste, thought their own surroundings important and took trouble with them. We should like to see schools set out on the same course, so that in time every school in England is worth visiting, not only for what goes on in it, but for the surroundings it gives to its children and the example it sets of civilised living. Much of the beauty in the school environment should be created by the children themselves and by the care taken in the display of their work. There are schools which already do much and which are showing others the way. Though opportunities and circumstances are very unequal, every school could do something and in the aggregate the schools could become a strong, perhaps a decisive, influence on public taste.

686. Music had a place in the elementary schools from their earliest days, though until the second third of the 20th century it was almost exclusively vocal. Where a member of the staff was musically educated, the singing of hymns and songs was often admirably done, but in a great number of schools, where no such teacher was to be found, standards were low. Out of tune and sometimes broken pianofortes and wheezy harmoniums were beyond the skill of even the most gifted to use well; but far too often, even if the instrument was satisfactory, the playing was wretched and the choice of music deplorable. Some large schools made a feature of massed choral singing and, at its best, this provided a good, if limited, musical experience and education for the children. The appointment of music organisers by a number of local education authorities helped to raise standards, but progress was, and still is, very slow, mainly because of the neglect of systematic musical instruction in the grammar schools and colleges of education and the consequent musical illiteracy of the great majority of teachers.

687. In the early thirties the percussion band and the bamboo pipe made a welcome innovation in infant and junior schools, but here again progress was often disappointing and for the same reasons. There was a dearth of competent teachers and, too often, the instruments provided and the music

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performed were of poor quality. Percussion bands and music were often introduced to children who were too young for them. When good progress was made in the primary schools, there was rarely any follow-up in the secondary school. This lack of continuity between primary and secondary school work is still a weakness. Non-competitive festivals became popular at this period, and did much to bring schools together for musical help and for the sympathetic guidance of experienced conductors. Competitive festivals, while helping to raise standards of repertory and performance, sometimes tended to narrow musical training.

688. Although the position today is rather better than before the war and exhibits several promising signs, it cannot be described as satisfactory. The recorder has made considerable headway in the primary school; the pitched percussion instruments, including those associated with the name of Carl Orff, as yet a much slighter one. The teaching of stringed and wind instruments by peripatetic teachers is increasing slowly, and primary school orchestras are by no means rare and sometimes very good. These influences have increased the scope of musical education. The School Broadcasting Council too have made a great contribution in providing music of quality for the schools at a time when many teachers have lacked the knowledge and skill to help their pupils. The close liaison of the School Broadcasting Council with the teachers has added to the value of its work. The greater accessibility of recorded music of all kinds since the invention of the microgroove record has given teachers one of their most valuable resources. Finally, the growth of professional orchestras, the organisation of children's concerts and the establishment of children's and young people's orchestras have increased the opportunities for listening and the incentives for music making.

689. The present unsatisfactory position will have to be tackled systematically and resolutely. Perhaps the first requirement for this is already in being. Music of all kinds is now almost universally 'available'. The population in general are much more aware of its possibilities than they were 30 years ago. It is accepted as a source of pleasure for all, especially in recent years when the popularity of the guitar has brought with it mass interest in music amongst the young. The climate is more favourable to musical education than ever before.

690. It is to the musical education of the teacher that attention must first be given. By this we do not mean the education of the music specialist. Provision for the latter exists and has recently been expanded. Large numbers of young musicians are being trained in the colleges of music and their musical competence may be assumed, though they may lack training in how to teach young children. Comparatively few primary schools, however, can, for some time to come, expect to have a music specialist as a full-time member of the staff and it is even doubtful whether a specialist responsible for most of the teaching is desirable. It is the musical education of the non-specialist which, in our view, is the key to the problem. This education takes place mainly in the secondary schools and in the colleges of education, and until both these institutions regard a music course as part of their obligation to all their students and particularly to intending teachers, progress will continue to be slow. But in the meantime much can be achieved by the use of peripatetic teachers and private teachers and by the development of short and extended

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courses for teachers in service. Music centres such as are being established could provide in-service training for teachers and also opportunities for gifted children.

691. Next, we think that all authorities should look to the musical equipment in their schools, which is often still inadequate in quantity and quality. Pianofortes are probably better in quality and better kept than they were, but there are not always enough of them, while other instruments are often woefully scarce and, when found, frequently of poor materials and workmanship. The Committee set up by the British Standards Institution is publishing a useful series of booklets on the qualities to be sought for in musical instruments of all kinds. There is some tendency for the hymn chart, so common before the war, to reappear. It is a poor substitute for hymn books with music. A thorough review of the musical equipment of most primary schools is overdue and should result in a drastic 'turn-out' and generous restocking.

692. As for what goes on in the classroom, we put forward the following points for the consideration of all who teach music:

(a) In many schools mass instruction is given in music, and in music alone, to whole classes or even combined classes: little is attempted in groups or by individual methods, and teacher direction persists in this field even in schools where it has almost disappeared in language, mathematics and art. Massed hymn practice and massed festival songs sometimes dominate the scene in both infant and junior schools, and the musical merits of teachers tend to be judged on the basis of their capacity to direct, and accompany on the piano, such choral activities.

(b) The principle of individual progression is seldom consistently and successfully carried into the musical sphere. In schools where progress in language is carefully checked, the achievements expected in music of older pupils as compared with younger ones are often ill-defined and vary enormously from school to school. This is a frequent ground of criticism from specialists who take over the children in the first year of the secondary school; there is, however, another side to the question - the secondary specialist often does not know how to link up with what has been taught.

(c) The importance of musical literacy is not fully understood. Without it, independent effort, progression and discovery are impossible, and unfamiliarity with musical notation breeds the kind of suspicion that verbal illiteracy usually brings in its train. Some teachers believe that learning to read music increases difficulties and diminishes enjoyment, whereas the contrary is true. Literacy must however, be closely related to active music-making; it must be functional, not theoretical.

(d) The planning of music as a creative subject lags behind work in language and the visual arts and crafts. There are two aspects of musical creativity - the making of original patterns in sound (extemporisation, composition) and the re-creation of patterns already devised by a composer (performance, interpretation). The latter is easier to control and direct, is usually more in line with the teacher's own musical training, and as a rule gives more pleasing results to outsiders than the former. Nevertheless, a balanced musical education should allow scope for both:

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(i) Exploration of sounds in their raw state is a useful first stage in independent creation, a first stage which many infant schools have reached, but the need for control, selection, discipline and technique soon arises if the work is not to become static and repetitive. It is easier to start improvisation than to continue it into the junior and secondary stages. Not enough is yet known about how to develop children's creative powers in music. Here, research is needed.

(ii) A valuable teaching situation is often produced when teacher and children work upon the basis of material already 'processed' - for example a simple folk tune - and add their own ideas to it, perhaps through the use of percussion instruments, instead of by taking over a ready made arrangement.

(iii) 'Musical appreciation' has lately fallen a little into disrepute, partly because what used to be done under that name was often ineffective and partly because, rightly in our opinion, the best way of learning to appreciate music is to make it. But there is a place for listening to good music whether played by the teacher or a visitor or heard by means of recorded sound. Young children's listening powers are usually exhausted fairly quickly and the choice of music, the occasion for listening and the duration of the performance all call for great judgement on the part of the teacher. There can be a link here with other branches of the curriculum. A medieval hymn such as 'A great and mighty wonder' that the children sing at Christmas, the dances and madrigals of the 17th century, the Water Music of Handel, the Hebridean Overture, can all be illuminated by, and can themselves illuminate, non-musical material.

693. It has been suggested to us that the most musically gifted children cannot be properly provided for in the ordinary schools and that special schools of music should be set up for them, a question to which we return in Chapter 22. The USSR and Hungary have done this and in this country a school has been recently established to give to especially talented pupils of both primary and secondary age a musical and general education. It is self-evident that the musical education of children thus segregated will benefit and we are far from opposing experiments of this kind in the private or indeed in the public sector; but they will always be exceptional and care has to be taken that the general education and development of children are looked after when they are in separate schools. However that may be, we are clear that it is the musical education of the generality of children that most needs critical examination and reform and it is to that need that our attention has been chiefly directed.

694. If the upper age limit of the primary school is extended to 12 some fresh problems will result but there will also be new opportunities. As far as boys are concerned, many of their voices will be at their best, and singing of high quality, which should include singing in parts, will be possible at the primary stage. With earlier maturing, however, some boys and not a few girls of this age will be passing through a phase of uncertainty, and it may be advisable to reduce the amount of singing expected from some children, to limit the register range of what they sing and to provide other means of practical music making.

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695. Those who have begun the study of instruments may by this time have developed considerable facility and will need expert guidance and opportunities for playing together. Where the existence of outstanding talent is suspected, the schools should feel a responsibility for fostering it and consult with the local education authority's advisory staff or anybody else who is qualified to help on such cases. The proliferation of musical activities at this period greatly increases the need for planned accommodation for group and individual tuition and for the storage of instruments.

696. The primary school bears the main burden of responsibility for sending out pupils who have had a wide range of musical experience, are familiar with the idioms of sound in pitch, time and timbre, and able to help themselves in creating and re-creating music by interpreting and using the visual symbols of conventional notation. The schools have an excellent starting point in children's enjoyment of music and rhythm, but much work remains to be done.

697. The '1933 Syllabus of Physical Training for Schools' forms a useful starting point for this section of the report. It was in preparation at the time of the 1931 report and the two publications must have had a common source of reference in the newer ideas and developments to be seen in various parts of the country during the previous ten years. The term 'physical training' was still in general use for one aspect of physical education, and the 18 'lessons' and 42 'tables' of exercises in the Syllabus were so planned as to form a common scheme for infants and juniors, and even for older pupils, in schools all over the country during the 'physical exercise lesson'. Teachers were trained in and expected to adhere closely to the nine tables of exercises drawn up for each year in the primary school. The first half of each lesson consisted of localised exercises for different parts of the body, arranged and applied in an anatomical sequence; formal commands and formal class arrangements were recommended and many of the exercises had remedial or corrective objectives. There were, however, signs of a break with formality in the introductory activities in the form of games and in the greater emphasis given in the second part of the lesson to individual and group practices and to games.

698. For some years after 1933, the main effort in the initial and in-service training of teachers throughout the country was directed towards putting the Syllabus into practice, although, almost from the time of its publication, progressive teachers and schools were experimenting and extending their work beyond what it defined. The retraining of teachers was achieved by the widespread appointment of local education authority organisers and advisers in physical education. The importance of gym shoes and suitable clothing, which were often a charge on parents, had to be pressed, and in the poorer areas some opposition was encountered on the grounds of modesty as well as on those of economy. But by 1939 much progress had been made.

699. During the war and in the early years after the war, several influences combined to produce simultaneous developments in different parts of the

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country. The interplay between new concepts of primary education and a reappraisal of the purpose and nature of physical education brought about innovations corresponding to those to be found in other aspects of the curriculum. When improvements in material conditions and in the supply of equipment were made after the war, further progress was made and the momentum still continues.

700. The introduction of large climbing apparatus into infant and junior schools had begun before 1939. Scrambling nets, which formed part of the training of army commandos, were adapted for use in schools. When supply became easier after 1945 there was a rapid increase in the use of all kinds of apparatus including climbing frames, ladders, bars and ropes. Children were encouraged to explore the possibilities of such apparatus rather than required to practise specific activities, an approach which had for some time been typical of nursery and infant schools and which spread upwards into the junior schools and beyond. The increased provision of playing fields and, more recently, of learner swimming pools has been a further help to a fuller and more varied programme.

701. Another major development was the abandonment of formal class teaching. This arose partly from a general change in the relationships between adults and children and consequently between teachers and pupils, and partly from a recognition that marks for standing still and team marks for the straightest line limited the activity that physical education was intended to provide. Formal commands, formal class arrangements and the performance of exercises in unison gave way to informal, conversational teaching and to an acknowledgement that individual children needed to work at their own rate and at their own level of ability and, therefore, to have scope for individual practice. The level of performance came to be regarded as more important than ability to respond to a command or to conform to a class rhythm; localised exercises ('head, arm, leg, trunk' is a sequence that will be recalled by older readers) gave way to movements of the whole body with an emphasis on activity, agility and skill.

702. A third development, the most significant so far, has been the adoption of general principles of movement training and their application to different aspects of the physical education programme. Various systems of gymnastics and eurhythmics have attempted a generalised training in movement, but their concern has been predominantly with the structure and anatomical parts of the body rather than with the process of moving based on a comprehensive analysis of movement. More recent developments derive to a large extent from the teaching and writing of Rudolf Laban, and from a growing acceptance of the analysis and principles of movement enunciated by him. Laban's early work was related to the theatre and to dance, but he was interested in all aspects of human movement and when he settled in England in 1936 he established connections with industry and education as well as with the stage. His early influence in schools, mainly in secondary schools for girls, was through the medium of Modern Educational Dance, but his principles have been increasingly adopted for their value in all aspects and stages of physical education.

703. In the primary school, a harmony was recognised between the general approach to movement and current educational ideas and ideals. With new

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emphasis on the building up of a child's resources in movement and their extension into many different situations, and with scope for individual exploration, choice and practice, physical education made a more significant contribution to educational development.

704. An associated development has been the increasing recognition of the place of expressive movement in primary education. Children have a great capacity to respond to music, stories and ideas, and there is a close link through movement, whether as dance or drama, with other areas of learning and experience - with speech, language, literature and art as well as with music. In the USA, modern dance has led to a highly developed theatre art form but it has had little or no influence in the elementary schools whereas, in certain parts of England, there has been a flowering in the primary schools which, at its best, reaches a high standard. Anyone who has visited schools or seen films of the work cannot fail to be impressed by its quality and by the pupils' total absorption and involvement in it.

705. All these developments were already in evidence in 1952 when the 1933 Syllabus was replaced by the Department's 'Moving and Growing' (Part I of 'Physical Education in the Primary School'; Part II of this publication 'Planning the Programme' became available in 1953 and deals more specifically with the organisation and planning of lessons). This publication, with its wealth of illustrations, relates these various developments to the needs of the children. It has been influential in shaping the philosophy of physical education in the primary school in the last 12 years and it prepared the way for a further recognition of the value of expressive movement. It refers to 'the movement period' instead of the 'physical exercise lesson' of earlier publications. In many schools and other educational institutions the mainstay of the physical education programme has come to be referred to as 'movement'. There is some misunderstanding about the use of this term and several special meanings have come to be associated with it. It should be used broadly and comprehensively and it may be concerned with agility, on the ground or on apparatus, with ball or athletic skill, or with expressive movement of dramatic or dance-like quality. In such work, exercises or techniques are unlikely to be taught; the aim is rather to develop each child's resources as fully as possible through exploratory stages and actions which will not be the same for any two children. When these ends are pursued successfully, the children are able to bring much more to any situation than that which is specifically asked of them; the results transcend the limits of what can be prescribed or 'produced', and lead to a greater realisation of the high potential of young children.

706. We welcome what is being done and lay particular stress on the need for a balanced programme. Children need activities of an acrobatic and athletic type as well as ball games, swimming, dance and drama, and to neglect any of these is to impoverish the programme. Work with the lower age groups is likely to be of an experimental and exploratory nature. Children will invent different sequences of movement and will enjoy discovering their bodily powers and capabilities. This stage cannot be hurried and time is needed to enjoy it to the full; variety also is needed. In the upper age groups, and especially with an extension into the thirteenth year, lessons and teaching will need to be more systematically planned and directed as the children's capacity for sustained and co-ordinated performance increases. With young

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children, the work will be very general and it will not always be easy to separate different modes of movement and experience. By the time they are ready to leave the primary school, however, the work and the teaching will be more closely related to specific ends: gymnastics, games, dance, drama and swimming will be the normal elements of a weekly or seasonal programme.

707. Between the ages of 11 and 13 girls and boys are at their most agile and responsive and a blend of vitality, inventiveness and control can lead to high accomplishments. They need space and apparatus to challenge and extend their powers. Lessons must be planned with skill and understanding, and response guided by knowledgeable and perceptive comment. In spite of differences in physique and aptitude, no child's effort should be inhibited by fear of failure or ineptitude. Later attitudes and achievement will derive to a large extent from the bodily resources built up at this stage.

708. Early play and free practice with balls, bats and sticks, which will begin in the infant school, will lead to simple games in association with partners and against opponents. Girls and boys at the top of the primary school will be acquainted with the rudiments of the main national games - netball, hockey and tennis for the girls, football and cricket for the boys. For their future progress as well as for their current enjoyment, girls as well as boys need a firm foundation for their games in the primary school. But the range of ability is wide, and care is needed to relate the teaching and coaching to the ability and 'readiness' of the performers. Some 12 year olds enjoy and respond successfully to the complexities of a full team game, others need a much simpler organisation. We hope that the approach to games training will emphasise the essential nature of the game and the true spirit of play. The establishment of sound attitudes is important from the start.

709. Swimming and athletics also appeal to juniors - in fact, many infants may have learnt to swim and in any case enjoy movement in water. In recent years, the building of indoor shallow water swimming pools has enabled many young children to be introduced to swimming. The older juniors respond enthusiastically to taxing demands and strenuous routines and their full potential is seldom realised. We hope that under wise guidance the maximum number of juniors will develop and enjoy their powers to the full, but we believe the first priority is rightly placed on teaching the highest possible number of young children to gain confidence in water and to swim; we have been impressed by recent efforts in this direction. Running, leaping and throwing are a natural part of a child's activity and are often stimulated by a desire to run faster, jump higher and throw further of more accurately than others. A well equipped primary school offers ample scope in the open air for these activities from which athletic events will later take shape, and we welcome their inclusion in the programme. But whilst juniors will practise and compete with zest in running, jumping and throwing contests, a more specific introduction to athletics is more appropriate to the secondary stage of education.

710. The marked post-war development of outdoor pursuits in education has not passed over the primary school. As more older pupils in secondary schools embark on mobile camping, sailing, canoeing and mountain activities, many junior schools and local education authorities are recognising that nine is a good age to introduce campcraft and country activities in general. The

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competence and pleasure with which some schools organise their own camps lead us to hope that many more children will be able to enjoy similar opportunities.

711. We have stressed the need for a balanced programme, and have considered some of the activities included in it. We would also stress the importance of good quality in performance. Exploratory and experimental stages are essential - so also are skill and mastery. How something is done matters as much as what is done. At a time when in some fields notability is rather easily won, this is especially important. Children have the capacity for high level performance, an eagerness to learn, an urge to explore, a hunger for skill and a thirst for adventure. At the top of the primary school, they readily identify themselves with stars of the games field, of the athletics track and of the stage. Some will show a flair for technical accomplishment. All will apply themselves with intense and unselfconscious effort unless their interest is dulled.

712. There are some obvious dangers, and some not so obvious, in the situation. The achievement of some children may lead to their being introduced to techniques before they are ready for them and to their being submitted to an adult conception of sport and personal performance. Techniques are necessary and the technical ability of some top juniors is impressive, but if patterned movements are introduced too soon they may quench the ability to play creatively. Competition clearly has a place, but it can be overdone and we think it sometimes is, in the form of inter-school leagues and championships.

713. What is desirable in modern primary physical education will only be nurtured, and what is dangerous avoided, if the arrangements made for training teachers are satisfactory. We have been told that in the upper forms of some secondary schools, little time or attention is given to physical education; in others the pupils are allowed little freedom to choose the type of activity they wish to pursue. The result may be that physical education is too infrequently chosen as a subject by students in colleges of education. In some colleges the curriculum course in physical education is optional. We do not wish to see specialist teaching of physical education in primary schools, though an advisory teacher with a specialist qualification would be invaluable in a large school. There is however some danger of a dearth of young teachers whose training has fitted them to teach physical education. We hope that all primary teachers will take an adequate curriculum course in this subject, which they will be expected to teach regularly.

714. We have felt some reluctance about including a section on sex education in our report. It rarely appears on the timetable of a primary school. In many schools it receives little mention, while in others it is treated, if at all, in biology or in general talks between the class teacher and his class. But it is a matter to which we have given consideration and on which we have something to say. As it is one on which teachers may feel a need for guidance, it seems simplest to treat it separately here.

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715. We have no doubt that children's questions about sex ought to be answered plainly and truthfully whenever they are asked. Some questions will be repeated over the years and on each occasion the answer must satisfy. What is a proper and full answer for a six year old will not do for him four years later. The answers given must provide an acceptable and usable vocabulary for the child. This raises a difficulty. The 'popular' vocabulary, the four-letter words, is the one that the children will use clandestinely or openly among themselves. It is less 'taboo' than it used to be, but most people would probably still consider it unacceptable for use in schools. Its associations are still too powerful. The circumlocution ('the little nest inside mummy') is often confusing, tends to be purely personal and has a sentimental, shamefaced sound. The scientific terms are really the only ones available.

716. We are unanimous that, if they are able to do it, the proper people to answer children's questions are parents. Young children often find the facts of sexual intercourse incredible. They associate their sexual organs with excretion and that they are also instruments not only of reproduction but of love is difficult for them to believe. When the information is given in the context of a happy home by loving parents it may be more acceptable than if given by someone else, however well intentioned. The fact, however, is that not all homes are happy and some parents still find it embarrassing to discuss the physical details of sex with their children. Who, in such cases, ought to answer the questions and in what circumstances?

717. If the parents make their own arrangements there is no problem. If they approach the head teacher of their child's school, he must fit their request into the general pattern. The simplest plan seems to be for the school, though not necessarily all the teachers in it, to undertake to answer questions, though making sure that the parents agree with what is being done. Any tendency to specialise, or to import a specialist, destroys the spontaneity of question and answer. The questions may arise at any time - in the scripture lesson as well well as in biology. Ideally, questions should be answered then and there, though some are best answered individually. Not all teachers will feel equally comfortable in tackling questions and this is something to which the colleges of education must give some thought. Every school must make the arrangements that seem best to it and should have a definite policy, which, in consultation with parents, covers all the children. It is not good enough to leave matters vague and open, hoping for the best.

718. Some primary school heads feel that a regular course of instruction ought to be given to fourth year pupils and, when the extra year is added on, this number may increase. We have been impressed by the care and sincerity with which this work is done and we should be the last to condemn it. On the whole, however, we feel that a more informal method is to be preferred and that the essential questions will all either crop up or be easily stimulated without any systematic course being initiated. Now that an increasing number of girls are beginning to menstruate while in the primary schools, it is important that the facts should be explained early to them and that proper arrangements should be made for them in schools. There are a number of excellent books on human biology which are suitable for juniors and some of these should find a place in the school or class libraries.

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719. So far we have been thinking mainly of the more or less strictly biological aspects of sex, of those which are essentially present in the mating of animals as much as in that of human beings. But human sex involves relationships, and relationships involve ethics; although this side of the matter seldom directly affects primary school children, at least to any depth, it will be there, implicitly or explicitly, in many of their questions. Direct questions must be answered as honestly as possible, with due regard for parental opinion, but a great deal will depend on the general human relationships that exist in the school. We return to this in Chapter 19. The foundation for good sexual ethics can be laid in a school in which the children learn to respect and appreciate each other as personalities, to treat everyone with consideration and never to make use of human beings or treat them callously or contemptuously and where they find in adults the same attitude towards each other and towards themselves.

720. From time to time teachers in primary schools will come across manifestations of what is often called 'an unhealthy interest in sex'. It may take such forms as the passing round of indecent pictures, the sending of obscene notes, graffiti in the lavatories or elsewhere, various Peeping Tom practices and sometimes what in adults is known in law as 'indecent exposure'. All this is clandestine. It is probably a good deal more frequent than some teachers believe, and, when it is discovered, is often an occasion for moral indignation and severe punishment. We feel quite sure that such manifestation should not be taken too seriously. In the sort of atmosphere described above they are a good deal less likely to occur than in a repressive one. They represent much more a response to adult attitudes than any undesirable sexual precocity. If dealt with rather as breaches of good manners, and even then without too much solemnity, rather than as grave moral delinquencies, we think that their true weight will have been accorded to them and the tension that produced them largely dispersed.

721. A society in which the mass media are preoccupied with the physical aspects of sex and seem unable to put them into perspective must not be surprised if its children are affected. It would be unfair to look to the schools to cure this sickness, but they can make a beginning.