A Learning Relationship

Teaching in the Primary School
Teaching in the Primary

School
A learning relationship
Edited by Neil Kitson and Roger Merry
London and New York

First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.
© 1997 Neil Kitson and Roger Merry, selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the
contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Teaching in the primary classroom: a learning relationship / edited by Neil Kitson and Roger
Merry.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Education, Elementary–Great Britain. 2. Elementary school teaching–Great Britain. 3.
Child development–Great Britain.
I. Kitson, Neil. II. Merry, Roger.
LA633.T44 1997 96–31848
372.941–dc20 CIP
ISBN 0–415–14814–6 (Print Edition)

ISBN 0-203-13715-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-18578-1 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
List of illustrations vii

Introduction: teaching – a learning relationship 1
Neil Kitson and Roger Merry
1 Just for fun? The child as active learner
and meaning maker 9
Janet Moyles
2 Children’s development 3–7: the learning relationship
in the early years 27
Linda M Hargreaves and David J Hargreaves
3 Cognitive development 7–11: the learning relationship
in the junior years 48
Roger Merry
4 Children with special educational needs:
supporting the learning relationship 65
Sylvia McNamara
5 Keeping track: observing, assessing and recording
in the learning relationship 85
Susan Cavendish and Jean Underwood
6 Primary culture and classroom teaching: the learning
relationship in context 102
Maurice Galton
7 Look back and wonder: the reflective practitioner
and the learning relationship 118
Neil Kitson
8 Classroom talk: communicating within the
learning relationship 139
Martin Cortazzi
vi Contents
9 Managing primary schools: facilitating the learning

relationship 157
Paul Ryan
10 Back to the future: the learning relationship in initial teacher

training 172
Mark Lofthouse
Index 188
Illustrations
FIGURES
1.1 Environmental Geography 21
5.1 An extract from the SPOC Observation Coding Sheet 94
5.2 An example of a simple observation schedule 96
6.1 Typical arrangement of a European classroom 103
6.2 Typical arrangement in Singapore school

for Grade 1 classes 103
7.1 The four stages of action research 131
7.2 The action research model extended to include

replanning of the action 132
7.3 The ‘action research spiral’ 132
7.4 Elliot’s action research model 133
8.1 A diagram of the teacher–pupils exchange in

Transcript 2 as it might have been 144
8.2 Examples of I-R-F patterns
8.3 The structure of a common classroom exchange 150
10.1 Paradigm shifts which occurred during the 1960s and 1970s 178
TABLES
1.1 Teaching strategies for active learning 20

2.1 Summary of process of language development 31
Introduction
Teaching – a learning relationship
Neil Kitson and Roger Merry
Precisely what is to be learnt, what it is to be a learner, what it is to be a teacher, are not separately pre-
specifiable, but emerge from the particular situations created by a set of reciprocal relationships. This
is clearly at odds with those current approaches to curriculum planning which increasingly demand
that all such things are carefully defined in advance. Clarity of purpose is thereby conflated with pre-
set standards and goals, which run across and obscure the demands of real learning.
(Bonnett 1994: 179)
Over the past few years, radical government reforms have meant that, for better or worse,
primary education in Great Britain has come much more into line with that of most other
countries in the world. Ironically, the establishment of the British National Curriculum came
at a time when many countries, including some of our nearest neighbours, were looking
critically at their educational systems and were seriously contemplating a shift away from
such central government control (Merry 1991). Even if many British teachers were not
necessarily opposed to the idea of a National Curriculum, most felt that they had not been
properly consulted and that the whole thing had been thrust upon them, so that until quite
recently they might have been forgiven for thinking that there was little point in reflecting
about what went on in their classrooms.
Yet it is crucial that such reflection should take place not only in British schools but also in
countries where different sorts of changes are being considered. If teachers anywhere feel so
deprofessionalised and disempowered that they no longer reflect on their practice, they really
will have become nothing more than deliverers of somebody else’s curriculum. In Britain,
hopefully such reflection was encouraged by the five-year moratorium on change and the
post-Dearing attempt to restore at least some of the emphasis on teachers’ own professional
judgement in both teaching and assessment. In the so-called ‘emerging’ countries, reflection
of a different sort is increasingly important, as they consider their changing educational
needs, moving from subsistence societies to play their part in the technological revolution.
Our starting point here must be to look at what actually goes on in classrooms. So, what sorts
of things do we find if we look at the curriculum as it is set down for teachers and children?
2 Neil Kitson and Roger Merry
Even at primary level, the British National Curriculum, like most others, is based on a
rationale of ‘teaching subjects to children’. This may seem to be reasonable enough, and
indeed the only common-sense way to proceed, but the assumptions behind that simple and
apparently innocuous phrase are important ones. The emphasis is on content and delivery –
on traditional academic subjects and on what the teacher does, and on children only to the
extent that they are rather passive recipients of it all. Yet the assumption that what is learned
is necessarily identical to what is taught is a dangerous one, and most psychologists and many
teachers now recognise that the successful learner is an active participant in a learning
relationship with others, including teachers. This notion of learning relationships is,
therefore, a central one for this book, which is divided for convenience into two sections. The
first section emphasises the child’s contribution, and the second the teacher’s contribution, to
their learning relationship.
As Sotto (1994) succinctly puts it, ‘It makes no sense to decide how one is going to teach,
before one has made some study of how people learn’, and cognitive psychologists have long
been interested in that which children bring to learning situations. However, they have tended
to study it in isolation, often in rather artificial conditions which are deliberately closer to the
science laboratory than to the home or school settings in which learning normally takes place.
Such research has certainly advanced our understanding of what might be going on in
children’s heads, but it has rarely been used directly by teachers and has more recently come
under criticism from psychologists themselves. The highly influential work of Piaget, for
instance, has been attacked for portraying the child as a solitary little scientist rather than
someone learning in the rich social context of home or school. In fact, such criticism may be
unjust, in view of some recent work showing that Piaget was actually keenly aware of the
importance of social factors in children’s learning (Piaget 1995), but it is an emphasis which
has been emerging only relatively recently, along with research in ‘social cognition’ (see, e.g.,
Rogoff 1990) and an interest in the work of writers like Vygotsky (1961).
Vygotsky’s much-quoted phrase, ‘the zone of proximal development’ or ZPD (see, e.g.,
Newman et al. 1989), is one which strongly emphasises the role of teachers or other adults in
the learning relationship, and a similar role is implied in Bruner’s equally well-known notion
of ‘scaffolding’ (see, e.g., Bruner and Haste 1987). Here, learning is seen very much in the
public domain, and the teacher, far from standing helplessly by until the child is ‘ready’ to
move on to the next stage, plays a crucial part in mediating between the culturally-defined
demands of the task on the one hand and the individual child’s understanding on the other. In
such a view, successful learning depends therefore on the negotiated relationship between
child and teacher, and it is definitely not an easy option for the latter! It is a ‘child-centred’
view, to the extent that what the child brings to the relationship is recognised as crucial, but
there is more to it than that. It is also a view which not only fully recognises the social context
Introduction 3
in which individual children learn, but is also realistic about the public demands of the
curriculum.
PART I: THE CHILD AND THE LEARNING RELATIONSHIP
Chapter 1 Just for fun?
The first chapter presents this central theme of the child as an active partner in the learning
relationship. Babies and young children are natural learners, and we now know that they can
demonstrate much higher levels of thinking than was previously thought. As teachers, we
need to be careful that society’s need for formal, ‘disembedded’ schooling does not result in
children also learning to become sleeping partners in the relationship, passively giving up
responsibility to the teacher and, in the process, losing the curiosity and enthusiasm that
characterise the learning of most pre-schoolers. In this chapter Janet Moyles considers the
process by which the child acquires concepts, skills, knowledge and attitudes towards
learning and towards others, particularly through play. ‘Play’ happens in some mode or other
even in those cultures where there are few apparent opportunities for it. Many modern
learning theories are based upon the notion that children learn to make sense of the world by
building up concepts through interaction with the environment. This chapter defines what is
meant by concepts and by the related notion of schema, much in evidence in current writing
in early years education, as well as exploring the range of learning strategies which children
may adopt in different circumstances, such as the domain-specific and domain-general
strategies.
Emphasis is placed on the need for adults to relate to children’s ways of thinking, and to
acknowledge that these ways are not somehow ‘faulty’ but represent the world as the child
perceives and conceives it. The role of the teacher in understanding concept development and
schema is emphasised.
Chapter 2 Cognitive development, 3–7
This chapter is the first of two to consider the child’s contribution to the learning relationship,
beginning at pre-school level and moving through the first formal learning settings to the end
of Key Stage Two. Enormous changes take place, not only in individual cognitive terms, but
also in the social settings and learning demands imposed on the child, and therefore in the
whole nature of the learning relationships which evolve. Here Linda and David Hargreaves
offer an introduction to current perspectives on children’s development between the ages of
3 and 7 years. The two major foci of the discussion will be:
1 young children’s socio-cognitive development, which is very briefly traced through the
work of major theorists such as Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner, and the research carried out
by Donaldson, Rogoff and Lave;
2 young children’s emotional development and current interest in the child’s theory of mind.
Musical skills are briefly discussed and analysed as an example of how development occurs.
Chapter 3 Cognitive development, 7–11
This chapter continues the theme, outlining how cognitive, social and emotional
development work together to enable children to take on increased responsibility for their
own learning, so that their contribution to the learning relationship becomes not only more
skilled but also shows an increased awareness of themselves as learners and an increased
sensitivity to the thoughts and feelings of others. In this chapter, Roger Merry briefy
considers the legacy of Piaget’s work in the context of contemporary theorists, by examining
the notion that he underestimated young children’s potential and overemphasised
‘disembedded’ logical thought in older children. The chapter then goes on to explore more
recent trends in the study of child development, social cognition and the idea that social
factors are not merely a background for cognitive development but actually mediate
experience and shape learning. It considers the importance of language and the role of the
teacher in the Zone of Proximal Development, leading into the notion of domain-specific
learning and the development of ‘intelligences’, and concluding with the importance of
learning strategies and the development of metacognition in children at Key Stage Two.
Chapter 4 Children with special needs
It would clearly be misleading to present an idealised view of classrooms involving only

successful and fulfilling learning. The central notion of the learning relationship means that
totally ‘within-child’ explanations of learning difficulties are no longer adequate, and
children with special needs are increasingly seen as the responsibility of all teachers. This
chapter considers therefore not only the problems that can arise but also the sorts of learning
relationships that teachers need to cultivate in order to try to meet the needs of all their
children. Whereas those working in the field of child development are actively seeking
elements that are universal and common across cultures, the notion of special needs is more
culturally defined and specific. Sylvia McNamara looks at the concept of disability and
handicap in this chapter. The notions of the continuum and the inherent difficulties with
labeling rather than identifying are also considered. Within this consideration the importance
of feelings and how children perceive themselves are explored alongside cognitive issues.
The discussion also covers the notion of inclusion, its relation to integration, and the role of
the whole school in creating an inclusive climate.
Introduction 5
Chapter 5 Observing, assessing and recording children’s development
This chapter acts as a bridge between the two sections of the book. The first four chapters,
although they have set out some implications for teachers, have emphasised the child’s
contribution to the learning relationship. This chapter begins to shift the focus by looking at
how teachers can observe, assess and record what their children do, as a first step towards
making the learning relationship more effective. In this chapter Sue Cavendish and Jean
Underwood present a discussion of the assessment of children’s development and learning
in primary schools. There is no one perfect way to assess children’s development and
learning. In planning and managing an assessment there will always be critical decisions, and
these should be informed by considering (a) who or what will benefit; for example:
• school policy;
• the teacher’s classroom practice;
• the children;
• outside agents;
and (b) the purpose or goal of assessment; for example:
• to improve a teaching programme;

• to determine the effectiveness of a teaching programme;
• to explain why something happens;
• to find a solution to a problem.
The authors conclude by discussing appropriate methods of collecting and recording
evidence, the need to match method of assessment to goals and the differences between
measurement and evaluation of development and learning.
PART II: THE TEACHER’S ROLE IN THE LEARNING

RELATIONSHIP
The first section of this book looks at the underlying processes of learning and draws
implications from these for the teaching of young children. Throughout, the thrust of the
argument is that teaching is not something that is done to children by teachers; rather it is a
relationship for learning. The second half continues this analysis by focusing on the role of
the teacher as reflective practitioner within this complex relationship, exploring how teachers
can be empowered to learn more about their role in the classroom and as a result become more
effective practitioners.
Chapter 6 Primary culture and classroom teaching
Maurice Galton examines in this chapter the links between theories of learning and theories
of teaching. He looks at typical practice in a number of countries, both developed and
developing, in particular focusing on cultural assumptions which govern particular choices
of classroom organisation such as the use of whole-class teaching or individualised
approaches to learning. In addition he looks at the economic pressures which are leading
many countries to modify existing practice in ways that would suggest a shift from the
informal to the formal in developing countries and the opposite direction in the developed
ones.
In the second half of the chapter the ‘hidden curriculum’ of these classrooms is explored.
In many primary classrooms the apparent ‘busyness’ masks a variety of strategies designed
to reach a ‘steady state’ between the teacher’s requirements and what the pupils are prepared
to do in return. In particular, consideration is given to the problem of over-dependency by
pupils on teachers and ways of overcoming it.
Chapter 7 Look back and wonder: the reflective practitioner
It is not enough to look at how children function within the learning relationship. If the
relationship is to grow then we must consider the teacher’s role and explore strategies that will
help them to be more effective in gaining insight into their own practice. We must understand
the teacher’s relationship to their work. In his chapter, Neil Kitson considers reflection as a
key to teacher effectiveness. The ability to reflect upon present practice and make reasoned
changes to improve the work of the individual within the classroom is what marks out the
analytical and developing teacher. This is coupled with an increasing awareness that the
professional growth of teachers no longer lies with paternalistic bodies such as the old local
authorities but is now the responsibility of the individual practitioner within the school. There
has been a considerable amount of research carried out which shows how, through the
development of action planning, teachers are able to link their personal professional needs
with the development of the school.
This chapter looks at the process of action planning, and couples this with the notion of
competency-based learning for teachers. Consideration is also given to the effectiveness and
limitations of this model.
Introduction 7
Chapter 8 Teacher language and communication
Language is a central component of the classroom relationship. It is the basis for most forms
of interaction, and yet it is simply seen as a functional device. By developing a greater
understanding of the complex language structures that exist within the classroom, teachers
can be helped to gain insight into the learning relationships they create and the effects that
they have on the children’s ability to learn. Martin Cortazzi looks at the process of teaching
by considering the aspects of language which lead to effective communication. This chapter
investigates the construction of meaning through socio-cultural models of interaction,
linguistic register and through analysis of transcripts, exchange structure and its extensions.
Following up on his research, both in this country and abroad, he considers a wide range of
aspects of the communication between teacher and pupil, including:
• the function and effectiveness of teacher talk;

• cultural aspects;
• roles and context variation;
• discourse analysis;
• teacher stories.
Chapter 9 Management in primary education: a learning relationship
The broader issues relating to the school as a whole are taken up by Paul Ryan when he
considers the the relationship between the individual and the learning organisation as a whole.
He considers notions of responsibility to individuals and draws the conclusion that not only
children and teachers, but also managers, should engage in learning relationships – in the case
of managers with their colleagues. Management in the primary school, he argues, is most
effective when it is collaborative and when the learning is through shared experience. Using
a case study he illustrates this principle, showing how the development of the structure
parallels the development of the individuals within it.
Chapter 10 Initial teacher training in the primary years: ‘back to the

future’
As professionals, none of us works in isolation. We teach and think as a direct result of the
various influences upon us. Many of these influences are cultural, and this to some extent
affects our interpretation of pedagogy. This can be seen most clearly in the relationship
between the teaching process itself and the influences placed upon it by the teacher training
institutions. In Mark Lofthouse’s chapter the general discussion of initial teacher training is
separated into three main sections as he considers:
1 A brief overview of teacher training up to the 1944 Act, placing the emphasis on British
notions, how they were ‘exported’ to the Empire and how the original idea of ‘training’
teachers developed into ‘educating’ teachers with the involvement of higher education.
2 A survey of current routes to Qualified Teacher Status and how those routes are returning
to the notion of training rather than continuing the emphasis on teacher education. The
chapter looks at how and why this has happened.
3 An evaluation of this trend, with parallels between the current situation of payment by
results and those of monitoring and ‘sitting with Nellie’. Links are made to Neil Kitson’s
chapter on the Reflective Practitioner through a discussion of competencies for newly
qualified teachers, arguing that this development is a retrograde step.
REFERENCES
Bonnett, M. (1994) Children’s Thinking – Promoting Understanding in the Primary School,

London: Cassell.
Bruner, J. and Haste, H. (1987) Making Sense: The Child’s Construction of the World,
London: Methuen.
Merry, R. (1991) ‘Curriculum lessons from Europe?’, British Journal of Special Education
18, 2:71–4.
Newman, D., Griffin, P. and Cole, M. (1989) The Construction Zone: Working for Cognitive
Change in School, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Piaget, J. (1995) Sociological Studies, trans. L. Smith et al., London: Routledge.
Rogoff, B. (1990) Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sotto, E. (1994) When Teaching Becomes Learning: a Theory and Practice of Teaching,
London: Cassell.
Vygotsky, L. (1961) Thought and Language, Boston, MA: MIT Press.
Chapter 1
Just for fun?

The child as active learner and meaning
maker
Janet Moyles
INTRODUCTION
For the past several decades in many parts of the world, play and active learning have been
acknowledged as crucial to the cognitive and other developmental processes of children. That
the child learns through making his or her own physical and mental connections with the
world, through sensory explorations, personal effort, social experiences and the active
seeking of meanings from experiences, has been established in the theories of psychologists
and educationalists such as Froebel, Montessori, Isaacs, Steiner, Vygotsky and, later, Piaget
and Bruner. Yet it is by no means easy for teachers and other adults in schools and
kindergartens to achieve these ideals in practice, where so-called ‘child-centred’ education
and individualised learning are either logistically, pragmatically or culturally considered
inappropriate or unrealisable. Similarly, while many educators may see themselves as
providing opportunities for children to be actively engaged in their learning, how far this is a
reality will depend upon the interpretation and evaluation of these beliefs in practice.
In many countries, curricular debates have focused around the perceived imperative to
balance the needs of society for a suitably educated workforce and the needs of children to
learn at their own pace and in ways deemed appropriate to their current developmental phase.
One view would suggest that we must allow young children to revel in their childhood and
childhood experiences before we consider them to be future employees, with an entitlement
to have the needs of their particular age group met before they, in turn, must meet the needs
of an industrial society (Moyles, 1996). The whole concept of an industrially and
economically dominated curriculum militates against a curriculum based upon individual
learning needs which is deemed by many to be at the heart of effective primary school
practices (Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford 1995).
This chapter sets out to identify the basis upon which these various beliefs about children’s
active learning as both part of their intellectual development and of their rights as children are
justifiable. It also examines their substance in terms of the teaching and learning relationship
10 Janet Moyles
and how such beliefs may be translated into curricular practices in different cultural settings.
First, we explore the issue of how children perceive the world and are, in turn, perceived in
the context of childhood by the dominant adults.
PRIMARY CHILDREN MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD
The children in the kindergarten were told by the adult that it was nearly time to
go outside for outdoor play. It was a beautiful, hot, sunny day though Anna, aged
4 years, moved towards the coat-racks and asked the adult to help her put on her
coat. The adult laughed, saying, ‘You don’t need your coat It’s too nice out there.
Go and feel how hot it is.’ Anna stood on the steps outside the nursery door and
was seen to stretch out her arms and then pinch her fingers and thumbs together
in a ‘feeling’ action.
As an example of ‘intelligent’ behaviour, the reader may wonder what on earth Anna was
doing. But looked at from the child’s perspective, Anna was doing exactly what she perceived
the adult had told her to do: in Donaldson’s (1978) words she was attempting to make ‘human
sense’ of what had been said to her. The fact that she so literally interpreted the action behind
the adult’s words is not uncommon in young children for it takes some time for them to grasp
the different interpretations implicit in the words and actions of others.
Children in the primary years learn directly about their immediate environment through
exploration using their senses: by attending to the world around them through touching,
listening, tasting, smelling and looking, they begin to make generalisations. By generalising
from these experiences, children begin to form the basis of lasting understandings. Without
the ability to generalise and put ‘chunks’ of learning into large wholes, we would all rapidly
become overloaded and overwhelmed with information (McShane 1991). But this very need
to generalise means that children will not always be ‘right’, for, as Edwards and Knight (1994:
21) emphasise, ‘Young children have less information on which to build new understandings
and their strategies for organising and holding information are less well developed.’ It is
interesting to note that this equally applies to adult learners in contexts which are new to them,
such as learning a second language.
Sensory learning combined with existing experience leads children to perceive the world
in certain ways which, at different stages in the child’s development, leads to different levels
of understanding being available to the child. As Merry (1995: 84) points out, ‘Perception is
not a passive taking-in of our surroundings but a highly active process in which the
information supplied by our brains is at least as important as the information received by our
senses’. Donaldson (1993: 19) also believes that
Just for fun? 11
Most of the knowledge that matters to us – the knowledge that constitutes our conception
of the world, of other people and of ourselves – is not developed in a passive way. We come
to know through processes of active interpretation and integration.
Reality from the child’s perspective
Children’s views of the world are very much human-centred: they perceive and conceive of
events and things through the experiences they themselves encounter and in which adults
offer support and models. But there are times when perception dominates children’s thinking,
and if they cannot perceive something they may well doubt its existence. Even when primary-
age children do perceive something they frequently misinterpret what the reality is by
attending only to those aspects which are immediately recognisable, adopting what Piaget
and Inhelder (1969) called ‘unscientific causations’.
From much research (see, e.g., Langford 1987, Willig 1990, Bonnett 1994) it is clear that
children bring a different kind of ‘logic’ to situations from which it is possible for the
practitioners1 to learn a great deal with which to inform primary practice. Consider the
following: after a short discussion about how they learned to read with a group of 11-year-
olds clustered around a computer, the writer was presented with the following text and asked
to ‘read’ it:
Ωηψ χαν τ ψου ρεαδ τηισ? Iτ ισ περϕεχτλψ σιµπλε – προϖιδεδ ψου

υνδερστανδ τηε λανγυαγε ανδ τηε σψµβολσ ιν τηε ϕιρστ πλαχε!
The children explained that this was how many of them had perceived reading as young
children, a series of squiggles on paper which meant very little to them but which they knew
that somehow they were intended to read. (The text, in Symbol font, actually says ‘Why can’t
you read this? It is perfectly simple – provided you understand the language and the symbols
in the first place!’)
Other instances spring to mind. Consider the child who answered ‘11’ to the seemingly
simple sequence of numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, _. Although we would immediately perceive the
answer from a numerical base as 10, this child’s interpretation was equally valid because she
was actually perceiving the numbers to relate to a social and personal (egocentric) context:
she is one of five children whose ages are 2, 4, 6, 8 and 11 years. The misinterpretation of the
context of learning needed to be understood by the adult in order for the child’s ‘error’ to be
understood.
Language proves to be no less confusing. Consider the child who has just had a large dish
of their favourite food and is asked if they would like to have some ‘more’. What will they
12 Janet Moyles
inevitably get? Well, certainly less than they had the first time! Or the child who, when asked
which out of two ribbons is the longer, the red or the yellow, confidently responds ‘The yellow
one – because I like that colour’. As Hughes (1983) points out, whereas adults would
recognise that they have insufficient information, children do not always know the
appropriate questions to ask and assume that a response is possible because the question has
been asked by an older person.
Abstraction and symbolism
As adults, we are in danger of forgetting just how abstract – and symbolic – much of what we
present to children really is. What must be recognised is that children’s thinking is not inferior
to adults, but rather that it is different in form and experience. Their thinking is embedded in
a context which has some meaning to them, whereas much school activity, such as filling in
the blanks in a workbook, is what Donaldson (1993: 19) describes as ‘disembedded’ tasks:
tasks divorced from a context in which children can see purpose and meaning and which,
therefore, make the processes of learning much more difficult. Sotto (1994: 44) suggests that
meaning emerges slowly from the learner’s active involvement in thinking through and
understanding the ‘patterns’ which underlie understanding, and emphasises that learning is
not the same as remembering. Wood (1988: 35) stresses that ‘Learning involves the search
for pattern, regularity and predictability’, and urges us to view children as ‘limited
information processors’. These findings propose a very different model of the child as learner
from the one which suggests that they are passive recipients of handed-down information and
ideas. As Bruce et al. (1995: 59–60) suggest,
Adults seize on the child’s developing ability to make and use symbols and often cannot
wait to begin to teach directly the symbols of their particular society. In some cultures this
begins at a very young age. . . . What is it that activates these important symbolic
developments in children and . . . what turns them into ever deeper levels of symbolic
learning? The key issue in answering this revolves around what kind of symbols children
are most at ease with in their early years. This will dictate what symbols they can most
readily engage with.
Bruce and her colleagues go on to propose that the development of the use of symbols in
children is most likely to take place through ‘real experiences’ and ‘a consideration of the
links among play, experience, relationships and creativity’, rather than pressure from adults
to conform to learning which is outside the children’s current potential to understand.
Just for fun? 13
It is acknowledged that, towards the end of primary schooling, children are more able to
cope with disembedded tasks as their thinking becomes more abstract. However, as primary
practitioners, we need to consider (and observe for) embedded thinking when we set out to
teach different kinds of knowledge and understanding, for, whatever the content demands of
a curriculum subject, the children need to have tasks presented to them which offer a
meaningful context in which they can bring their previous experiences and understandings to
bear and which fit in with the new experiences and patterns of understanding they are already
acquiring. As Donaldson (1993: 20) suggests, ’ . . . it is even more important to recognise that
the processes of coming to know transform us. This is particularly so when these entail
sustained, self-directed effort.’
Teaching must acknowledge the learner’s role in the essential links between teaching and
learning effectiveness. This means particularly recognising that the ability to think abstractly
about things has a starting point in action, a feature of the work of Piaget, Bruner and
Vygotsky which often manifests itself in the process we call ‘play’. It is to the links between
play and active learning that we now turn.
ACTIVE LEARNING AND CHILDREN’S PLAY
The primary classroom is carefully arranged with all materials necessary for the
morning’s session. The teacher has planned an active lesson for the children
aimed at helping them to understand the concept of electricity. Each group of
tables is equipped with a collection of bulbs, wires, batteries and switches, a new
experience this term for this class of 9-year-olds. The active learning session has
arisen because the teacher has recognised that, despite telling the children in a
class session yesterday about electricity, they still do not appear to understand
how a circuit is made.
When the children enter the room from the playground, many of them rush to
the tables and, in the teacher’s words, start ‘messing about’ with the materials
and arguing over them. It takes some time to bring the class back to order and to
gather in the electricity resources. The teacher gives out a worksheet in which the
children complete a series of sentences regarding issues to do with electricity.
Children appear to need to play regardless of whether society approves or not. Clearly this
teacher did not ‘approve’ of these children’s play, yet indeed that is what it was: play as
exploration, in this case, of resources in an effort to understand them. While feeling an
empathy with this teacher that his carefully conceived plans were not fulfilled, it is also vital
to think of the activity from the learners’ point of view. This was the first time in many weeks
that the children had been given the opportunity to play with resources which brought
14 Janet Moyles
electricity to their immediate level of engagement – which gave a direct embedded context
for their learning – and they were keen to explore the wires, batteries, bulbs and switches and
understand their patterns and purposes. In so doing they were engaging in a form of play –
exploratory play – through which they are able to learn about the properties and functions of
materials as a preliminary to being able to manipulate them for a given purpose (Hutt et al.
1989, Moyles 1994).
In Brunerian terms, in this activity children were still at the enactive stage in their learning;
they needed to learn by actively doing, whereas the teacher was expecting them to operate at
an iconic (image or pictorial) or even symbolic (abstract) stage by filling in the sentences on
a worksheet. What distinguishes ‘active learning’ from ‘play’ is to do with the processes in
which the children engage and with concepts such as ‘ownership’ and ‘locus of control’
which, in play, rest with the player but in active learning situations can be under the direction
of another person, e.g. the teacher (see Bruce 1991 and Moyles 1991).
Holt (1991: 160) raises issues to do with active learning in the following terms:
What do we do when we make learning? Well, we observe, we look, we listen. We touch,

taste, smell, manipulate and sometimes measure or calculate. And then we wonder. . . . This
process creates learning and we all do it. . . . And this is exactly what children do. They are
hard at work at this process all their waking hours. . . . They are observing, thinking,
speculating, theorising, testing and experimenting . . . and they’re much better at it than we
are!
Like Holt, Vygotsky (1978) suggests that play and play processes lead children’s
development (rather than development leading play). He suggests that play acts as a catalyst
for children’s learning and ensures that they are able to perform ahead of their current
developmental level. Children acquire concepts, skills, knowledge and attitudes towards
learning and towards others in their play and, for this reason, play should occupy a central part
in children’s lives. Play happens in some mode or another even in cultures where there are few
apparent play opportunities (Curtis 1994), and many studies have indicated how effective
play is in ensuring motivation in learning and providing the context for lasting understanding.
For example, much primary-level learning focuses around developing schema which are the
amalgamation of smaller pieces of information which have entered consciousness through
children’s active engagement in seeking meaning. As an example, children build up a ‘cat’
schema by gradually accommodating all those facets which make up a cat (body, head, tail,
eyes, legs, then sizes, shapes, breeds), until one has a full concept of ‘cat’ – the more
sophisticated the schema, the deeper one’s knowledge. Schema, in turn, enable the formation
of concepts – big ideas, which are capable of being generalised and which enable us to use the
Just for fun? 15
knowledge gained in one situation in a new context. Research by Athey (1990), Gura (1991)
and Nutbrown (1994) with children under six has shown clear evidence of schema
development in children’s play and in their representations of the world, particularly in
pictures and model-making. There is no evidence to suggest that this does not apply equally
to older primary children.
One tangible element of play is that it is an observable behaviour and, therefore, one could
argue that at least one value of play is being able to observe and assess the outcomes of the
learning process through what one sees. Schwartzman (1983) supports this view in
suggesting that children play what they know and, therefore, through play we can find out
about their deeper understandings.
Indeed, there is now a plethora of research showing that play and active learning allow
children to understand the meanings behind the symbols they create, whether it is in art, music
or pretend play (Matthews 1994). Socio-dramatic play, in particular, has been shown to be at
a level between the concrete and the symbolic where one meets the other in the child’s world
(Kitson 1994). Not only is this an important link for primary children’s developing skills in
the area of number, reading, writing and representation, but it is also believed by some writers
(see Smilanksy and Shefataya 1990) to contribute to greater cognitive gains in such areas as
verbalisation, richer vocabulary, higher language comprehension, better problem-solving
strategies, higher intellectual competence, better performance on conservation tasks and
greater concentration.
Play and learning theory
Play provides children with an active learning mode in which to
1 explore;
2 use their developing skills;
3 solve problems;
4 practise skills;
5 rehearse.
These five aspects link closely with established theories of learning, such as that developed
by Bennett and his colleagues (1984) from an earlier model by Norman (1978) which
suggests that learners need to show evidence of their ability to
1 acquire new knowledge and skills;

2 use existing knowledge and skills in different contexts;
16 Janet Moyles
3 recognise and solve problems;

4 practise what they know;
5 revise and replay what they know in order to retain it in memory.
As well as offering a sound theory, this model also offers a clear relationship to classroom
practice, in terms of both children’s play and active learning opportunities. It has been found
by many writers (see Sylva et al. 1980, Smith and Cowie 1992, Moyles 1994) that children’s
first need in learning about an object or situation is to have opportunities to explore the
properties, textures, shapes, colours, forms and soon in order to gain basic factual knowledge
and handling skills. Having done so, this then enables the child to begin to use this knowledge
and skill in ways which should eventually result in the recognition and solution of problems.
In returning to a related activity or situation at a later time, the child will be required to practise
and revise as the basis for future learning activities.
It now becomes clear that the children in the electricity cameo were attempting to acquire
new knowledge about, and skills in handling, the various materials which, in turn, would have
given them a sound basis on which to use that knowledge to develop a circuit. In completing
the circuit, they will have needed both to recognise and attempt to solve particular problems
in ensuring that a light appeared. A later return to a similar electricity experiment would afford
the children opportunity to practise and revise what they have previously learned and commit
it to memory. Memorising of ‘facts’ alone would be difficult without the developing concept
of electricity which has, in turn, been refined through further additions to developing schema.
Trial-and-error learning
One of the things which seems to be important in relation to play and active learning situations
is that, because having real, first-hand experiences is in itself motivating to children, the
processes of play provide a valuable means of allowing children to learn through their own
efforts and their own mistakes. Play also increases children’s powers of concentration which,
in itself, has been found to be a good indicator of children’s potential (Keough 1982). As well
as knowledge, skills and opportunities to practise, children need to believe that they can
achieve in school: they need confidence and a good image of themselves as ‘learners’. This
is much more capable of being achieved in situations where success is not judged only in
terms of recognisable outcomes, but where making mistakes is itself valued as part of a
successful learning process.
In the process of ‘coming to know’ something it is likely that most of us will not achieve
success every time (Holt 1991). Unfortunately, many learning situations in school accept only
Just for fun? 17
‘right’ answers: mistakes are not something to be learned from but seen as a sign of ‘failure’.
Yet, as we have seen, many psychological theories over the past few decades have suggested
strongly that children’s learning occurs more effectively in the context of trial-and-error
opportunities where fear of failure is replaced with open-ended challenges which are under
the control and direction of the child and, furthermore, do not undermine children’s self-
esteem. Yet practitioners insist on emphasising right answers, particularly in countries with
a heavily dominated paper-and-pencil-based curriculum where children either can or cannot
do the tasks presented to them and are, therefore, either right or, if they do not peform
correctly, wrong. The question must be raised as to whether children should be penalised for
not understanding or whether practitioners need to rethink their practice in terms of allowing
children opportunities to learn through exploring their own understandings without fear of
failure. This leads us to examine the role of adults in children’s play and learning, to which
we now turn.
THE PRACTITIONER’S ROLE IN ACTIVE LEARNING

APPROACHES
The teacher sits down beside a group of four 10-year-old children who are
attempting to design and make a pulley system from a range of different materi-
als. The children have been having some difficulty in making their pulleys work
and concentration has begun to wane. The teacher, without speaking, manipu-
lates the various pieces of wood, pulley wheels and string under the watchful eye
of the children. One child approaches and asks her what she is doing. The
teacher replies that she has a problem in trying to make her pulley work and won-
ders if the child can think of a way of doing so. The rest of the children gather
round and make various suggestions, all of which the teacher tries until one
achieves the desired result and the pulley is made to work. The children analyse
with the teacher how success has been achieved and evaluate the outcome, then
they quickly return to their own efforts and consult with each other on producing
the desired outcome. The teacher leaves the technology table, returning around
ten minutes later to find a series of different pulleys being eagerly discussed and
experimented with by the children.
In the 1960s there was a view which still prevails today among some people in Western
societies, that children’s active learning and play should not be ‘interfered’ with by adults:
that it is somehow sacrosanct to the child and that adults cannot have a role in it other than as
providers. This is now seriously in question, since studies (like those of Bruner 1980,
Smilansky 1968, Hutt et al. 1989, and Smilansky and Shefataya 1990) have shown clearly
18 Janet Moyles
that children’s play and active learning can be significantly enhanced educationally and
academically by adult involvement (see also Clark 1988).
Can the teacher in the cameo be said to be ‘teaching’? The answer to this lies, of course, in
what perception one applies to the teaching role. In the previous section, the case for
children’s active engagement in their own play and learning has been argued in relation to
children creating meaning and making sense of the world.
Through the actions of the teacher in the cameo, the children were enabled to be successful
in their learning outcomes and to retain the ownership and control of their own play and active
learning. This is surely at the heart of good teaching when applied to the model of learning
which has been previously outlined. For children to achieve learning goals set by others and
to add to their existing schema, they need adults who can ‘scaffold’ their attempts (Bruner
1973) and allow them to use first-hand experiences within what Vygotsky terms ‘the zone of
proximal development’: i.e. the gap between what the child can currently do alone and what
he or she could do with support.
The teacher could have approached the children with a range of questions about what they
were doing or, indeed, have given directions as to what they should do to achieve the desired
outcome. This would, however, have meant that the teacher needed to understand exactly
what level each child was capable of achieving with her support – no mean feat! This approach
could also have left the children with the feeling that only someone outside of themselves
could provide the answer to their problem, rather than the answer coming from within the
children’s own intellect and experiences.
Children’s independence and adult models
With the adult operating both as model and as facilitator of the children’s own thinking and
questioning, the children were challenged to provide their own solutions rather than
generating a dependency upon the teacher. The latter has been shown by researchers to create
impossible situations in classes of thirty and more children, who are then all potentially
dependent upon the teacher for their learning actions (see Barrett 1986, King 1978, Bennett
and Kell 1989). This in itself creates environments in which, according to Galton (1995: 18),
there are often queues of children waiting for the teacher, which decreases the time that
children are able to devote to their learning tasks. Darling (1994: 4/5), in discussing
learnercentred education, proffers the Dewey view that
Just for fun? 19
Once children see education as something that other people do to them . . . they lose the
ability to take any initiative or responsibility for their own learning. . . . In particular the
kinds of enquiry that children naturally pursue are not reflected in the way traditional
schooling categorises knowledge into different ‘subjects’. It is this lack of correspondence
which accounts for children’s low motivation . . . child-centred educational theory
suggests that we could and should have classrooms where learning is largely self-
motivated and the atmosphere is fairly relaxed.
A model that perceives children as having a central role in their own learning also has to
acknowledge teachers as learners themselves, rather than as general purveyors of existing
knowledge (see Pollard and Tann 1992). This means a fundamental shift in some teachers’
thinking and in the strategies they apply to children’s learning. Dweck and Legett’s (1988)
research has indicated that, through the kind of learning support they receive, children either
develop ‘learning goals’ or ‘achievement goals’. The latter are characterised by children
attempting to gain favourable judgements from others, developing very little sense of control
and attributing success to ability rather than to effort. Children tend to avoid struggle and trial-
and-error situations. The former – learning goals – involve the children in a concern for
personal competence and ways of increasing mastery. Children are actively engaged, need to
struggle and solve problems, leading to personal standards of success. The writers emphasise,
like Bruner and Vygotsky, children’s need for support as they struggle to understand and make
sense. One might also add the children’s need to be trusted to negotiate, discuss and
understand their own learning needs and be responsible for some of the outcomes. This
requires practitioners who have a clear view of their own role.
Based upon the kind of learning model explored earlier, teachers should consider several
factors shown in Table 1.1, which will lead to the active learner retaining some control over
the learning activities and having opportunities to reflect on their own cognitive processes.
The order can be adjusted according to the task.
This model is readily applied to a range of teaching and learning situations and links with
the kind of teacher action shown in the cameo at the start of this section. The teacher’s entering
strategy was to model the kind of actions undertaken by the children in order to enable them
to understand not only the processes of their own learning but the content of the technological
activity. The children could see from the teacher’s actions what they were intended to learn
and had opportunities to reflect on her outcomes and evaluate them in terms of their own
potential achievement. The adult valued and trusted the children, giving them the
responsibility and ownership of their task by leaving them to complete it, having scaffolded
20 Janet Moyles
Table 1.1 Teaching strategies for active learning
1. Entering strategy
What will be your starting point(s)? Introduction?
2. Exploration mode
What exploration will the children undertake? What materials/resources need
to be available? How/by whom would they be set up?
3. Contents
What do you intend the children should learn? Subject and/or processes and/
or skills?
4. Ownership and responsibility
How/at what point will it be possible for the practitioner to withdraw and allow
the children ownership? How will the children know what they are supposed to
learn through their active involvement?
5. Adult value strategies
What will the practitioner role be? How will you interact/intervene in the learn-
ing and sustain/extend it? What level of support will the children require?
6. Evaluation and analysis
How/when will you observe to see what children were learning in relation to
concepts covered?
7. Reflection
What opportunities will you provide for children to reflect on their learning and
be part of the evaluation/analysis of processes and outcomes?
8. Justification
What kind of outcomes will you expect? How will the value of these be commu-
nicated to others?
their attempts. She valued and evaluated the active processes of their learning equally with
the outcomes. This is what could be termed ‘the learning relationship’.
Ownership, control and the sensitive teacher
The concept of ownership is one worth exploring a little further. Even in exploratory play
children do not necessarily have a sense of ownership: it is when they take things on board
intrinsically that ownership is established. Teachers can support this by the way they present
tasks to children within the curriculum. It can be the teacher’s idea or learning objective, but
then the children need to be persuaded to make it part of their learning. Much of the research
already discussed has shown the long-term value of programmes which are characterised by
the latter type of learning involvement and of children taking ownership and responsibility:
Just for fun? 21
e.g., the outcomes of the longitudinal High/Scope study in the United States (see Royal
Society of Arts 1994, Sylva 1994).
It is worth noting from the research that what children choose to do (even if by adults’
perceptions it is work) is still deemed ‘play’ by children and is often characterised by greater
motivation, persistence and concentration (Karrby 1989, Moyles 1989, Robson 1993).
Edwards and Knight (1994: 21) note that ‘Teaching is above all led by sensitivity to the state
of the learner. A learner’s state will include motivations, confidence and existing
understandings.’
Teachers do have several dilemmas when engaging in making this kind of learning
provision for children; large class sizes, the dictates of imposed curricula, pressures from
others (including parents) to provide paper evidence of children’s learning, to mention but a
few. Practitioners should consider, however, the outcomes of not providing appropriate
experiential learning: the result is often demotivated children, who can ‘perform’ and
conform to adult requirements but who often have little understanding of learning intentions
and little responsibility for themselves as learners (Bennett and Kell 1989). An example
would be the young child who can readily count to ten and beyond but has no concept of the
‘fiveness’ of five, or what constitutes 5 + 1. Hughes (1986) has shown clearly that, when
adults allow children to manipulate the numbers in concrete terms through having the objects
to handle and move, they are capable of much greater levels of understanding, not only of
numbers but of their own metacognitive processes.
The practitioner’s sensitivity to/empathy with the way children make sense of learning
opportunities is vital, for, as Willig (1990: 184) shows,
Teaching is about negotiation of meanings between teachers and pupils . . . skilled teachers
encourage pupils’ contributions and look for links between the knowledge children bring
to the situation and the new experiences to which they are being introduced. The act of
learning then becomes an exchange of viewpoints where the learner works hard on the new
material, grafts it on to existing learning and comes out of the experience with fresh
insights.
– a true learning relationship.

The final topic in this chapter concerns the provision of an appropriate curriculum for this
type of learning
Figure 1.1 Environmental geography

22 Janet Moyles
PROVIDING FOR AN ACTIVE, PLAY-BASED CURRICULUM
A teacher, new to the Infants School, was presented with a series of headings
under which each term’s curriculum was to be presented to the children in differ-
ent year groups. The first-year children were to undertake some of their work
based on the subject of ‘Environmental Geography’. The teacher had some con-
cerns as to how she could develop this into an appropriate scheme of activities
for these 5-year-olds. She decided to ask the children at discussion time what
they understood of ‘environmental geography’ and, despite great keenness on
the children’s part to explore all kinds of things to do with their homes, toys, fam-
ilies and so on, her own concerns were confirmed when children appeared
unable to offer any explanation of the subject. However, some time later, Leigh
came to her with a drawing which the child explained showed ‘environmental
geography’. When asked to describe what she had drawn, Leigh said ‘This is the
whole wide world, with some people in the grass, some flowers and some trees.’
(seeFigure 1.1 )
As teachers, we are often set seemingly impossible tasks in trying to teach children about
issues which are not directly within their experience but which ‘society’ in its broadest sense,
through a designated curriculum, feels it appropriate for children to learn. It is vital that those
directly responsible for the curriculum in action in classrooms are sensitive not only to what
they must teach but to the children’s starting points in setting out to learn about different
aspects (Blenkin and Kelly 1994). As Doyle affirms, ‘tasks communicate what the
curriculum is to students’ and ‘meaning is seldom at the heart of the academic tasks they work
on’ (Doyle 1986: 366, 374).
In discussing with the children the concepts behind ‘environmental geography’, this
practitioner was able to draw from at least one child what her perception of the subject
involved, and was, therefore, able to evolve activities within the curriculum which would
operate from the basis of the children’s existing knowledge and understanding.
In fact, learning experiences were planned which involved considering the earth beneath
the children’s feet and the things which grew upon it and lived underneath. The activities were
within the children’s understanding, with scaffolding from the teacher. While the child’s
interpretation of environmental geography may, by adult standards, be very incomplete and
rather naive, as we have seen earlier in this chapter practitioners need to relate to children’s
ways of thinking and to acknowledge that these are not somehow ‘faulty’ but represent the
world as the child perceives and conceives it. This must be the starting point for any active
learning curriculum, for how can any child actively engage with something about which they
have no schema, or, as Sotto (1994) suggests, no ‘model inside the head’? Sotto goes on to
state:
[I]f I do not have such a working model, I find I may understand the individual words said
to me, but I do not really understand their full meaning. The result is that I begin to lose
track of what is being said to me . . . until I am actively engaged [in developing this model]
I do not really learn.
(Sotto 1994: 33)

Just for fun? 23
In observing and evaluating children’s approaches to activities, practitioners gain a clear

understanding of how to match curriculum intentions to children’s learning. For, as Bruce
(1991: 87) suggests,
It is not in children’s best interests to give them successes with lowlevel activities, because
these leave them without the ownership and the self-esteem to believe in themselves as
creators. They deny them control, and discourage them from the effort of struggling . . .
play is an example of the way that children apply, use and integrate the inputs of first-hand
experiences.
So the curriculum, as it is imposed upon the children from outside, needs also to be considered
in terms of what is developed through the kinds of learning experiences which match with
children’s capacity to understand and make sense of the world at any given time. Broadly it
could be said that the curriculum is everything the child experiences in the context of
schooling which is intended to foster learning. The curriculum must acknowledge the central
role of the learner and have a relationship to the child’s life, otherwise the learning will be
sterile and will not create opportunities for the child to make sense. Curriculum activities
should ensure that children are motivated and want to try and to succeed. Above all, what
children can do alone and with support, evidenced in their attempts to make sense of the world
and gain meaning from their experiences, must be the starting point, rather than what they
cannot yet do alone. The curriculum has its own processes which can be seen to link
effectively with learning processes if one conceives of it in this way. The curriculum is the
medium through which children should be enabled to think, feel, do, acquire knowledge and
skills, solve problems, investigate, apply knowledge, practise, revise, cooperate and
communicate.
What practitioners will be attempting to do is to ensure that all of these processes are
engaged in by children during most of the school day. The interaction between the teacher,
the child – the learning relationship – and the curriculum is crucial. McAuley (1990: 89)
rightly emphasises that
[I]t is the teacher–child interaction that is at the heart of the educational process and it must
always be about something. That ‘something’ is the task which, if it is routinely conceived
as an exercise for skills and competences rather than a problem, will devalue the teacher–
child interaction. The latter will become demonstrational, instructional, transmissional
rather than the exploration of making sense and figuring out.
SUMMARY
The Piagetian emphasis on learning through doing which instigated ‘activity’-based learning
methods in the UK and other countries has formed the focus of this chapter. Through looking
at children’s active engagement in abstracting meaning from their environment and their
interaction with others, it is possible to evolve a series of models which support practitioners
in understanding how children’s learning develops, how children construct their own
24 Janet Moyles
meanings and how teaching and curriculum links can be made. These ideas perhaps involve
a concept of childhood which is new to many practitioners, one in which children are not
necessarily thought of merely as ‘adults in waiting’ (Dowling 1988) but as young people with
a contribution to make to our understanding of different perceptions and conceptions of the
world. Only if we offer children the opportunities to create their own meaning and understand
their own learning through play and active engagement at a developmentally appropriate time
in their lives are we likely to ensure our future citizens have the necessary adaptability,
flexibility and clarity of understanding to be the source of technological innovation so
necessary for economic survival.
NOTE
1 I have used the term ‘practitioners’ throughout in the belief that not all those who work
with primary children, particularly younger primaries, will be qualified teachers.
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(ed.), Cognitive Psychology and Instruction, New York: Plenum.
Nutbrown, C. (1994) Threads of Thinking, London: Paul Chapman.
Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. (1969) The Psychology of the Child, London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Pollard, A. and Tann, S. (1992) Reflective Teaching in the Primary School: A Handbook for
the Classroom (2nd edn), London: Cassell.
Robson, S. (1993) ‘Best of all I like Choosing Time. Talking with children about play and
work’, Early Child Development and Care, 92, pp. 37–51.
Royal Society of Arts (1994) Start Right (The Ball Report), London: RSA.
Schwartzman, H. (1983) ‘Play as a mode’, Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 5, pp. 168–9.
Siraj-Blatchford, J. and Siraj-Blatchford, I. (eds) (1995) Educating the Whole Child,
Smilansky, S. (1968) The effects of Socio-Dramatic Play on Disadvantaged Preschool
Children, London: Academic Press.
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Cognitive, Socio-Emotional and Academic Development in Young Children,
Gaithersberg: Psychosocial and Educational Publications.
Smith, P. and Cowie, H. (1992) Understanding Children’s Development (2nd edn), Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Sotto, E. (1994) When Teaching Becomes Learning, London: Cassell.
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Biology of Play, London: Spastics International.
— (1994) ‘The Impact of Early Learning on Children’s Later Development’, in Royal Society
of Arts, Start Right (The Ball Report), London: RSA, pp. 84–96.
Sylva, K., Roy, C. and Painter, M. (1980) Childwatching at Playgroup and Nursery, London:
Grant McIntyre.
Tizard, B. and Hughes, M. (1984) Young Children Learning: Talking and Thinking at Home
and at School, London: Fontana.
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Chapter 2
Children’s development 3–7

The learning relationship in the early years
Linda M Hargreaves and David J Hargreaves
INTRODUCTION
Children aged between three and seven are passing through a rich and fascinating period of
development in which they experience a great variety of learning relationships. For most
children this period includes the major transition from the typically small network of
relationships with family, family friends and neighbours to the wider world of pre-school
groups and school, in which they meet adults and other children who are not known to their
parents. In other words, the child’s sphere of potential learning relationships undergoes a
radical change during this period. Psychologists have been particularly interested in the
cognitive development of children in this age group, but recently this interest has broadened
to take in:
• the role of the social world in shaping and supporting children’s learning;
• children’s understanding of how the people around them think and feel;
• the importance of real-life contexts;
• the concept of development throughout the life span.
This chapter will look, therefore, at studies of young children in their homes and with their
families, at their friendships, and at the more formal relationships set up in classrooms. It
begins with brief sketches of three major cognitive theories of child development, namely
those of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner, followed by Bandura’s social learning theory. We shall
consider children’s language acquisition, sibling relationships and the development of
gender role identity. Children’s acquisition of singing will be described to exemplify
development in a very specific domain, and to demonstrate parallels with the development of
drawing. We shall move on then to look at children’s informal learning relationships with
family and friends as compared with the formal learning contexts typical of schools. The
chapter ends with the possibility of a better understanding of the importance of social learning
28 Linda M Hargreaves and David J Hargreaves
relationships for children’s achievement in and adjustment to school. Several of these themes
will be taken up again in the following chapter.
THEORIES OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT
In the next few paragraphs we look very briefly at the main ideas of three important
developmental psychologists, Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner, whose work is described at
length in widely available books on developmental psychology (see, e.g., Smith and Cowie
1991, Berryman et al. 1991, Butterworth and Harris 1994, Lee and Das Gupta 1995; see also
Wood 1988, who looks specifically at their contributions to children’s thinking and learning).
Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
Jean Piaget is probably the best known and most influential of developmental psychologists,
who, after making detailed and careful observations of his own children’s development,
proposed the existence of four developmental stages in children’s cognitive growth:
1 sensori-motor (roughly from birth to two);
2 pre-operational (from about two to seven);
3 concrete operational (from about seven to eleven);
4 formal operational (from about eleven onwards).
For Piaget, children’s thinking develops through the dynamic interaction of two processes –
assimilation, in which new information is taken into their existing concepts, and
accommodation, in which these concepts change to fit new information. Among other things,
he claimed that young children are egocentric in their thinking – that they cannot see things
from another person’s point of view – and that they lack conservation. This refers, for
example, to the ability to recognise that things do not change in number when re-arranged, or
that a liquid does not change its volume when poured into a differently shaped container.
Children begin to appreciate these constancies as they approach age seven.
These two features of Piaget’s theory have influenced a good deal of thinking in
contemporary developmental psychology, in particular his conceptions of developmental
stages and the critical role of interaction between child and environment in development.
Piaget’s work has been criticised, however, on the grounds that the rather artificial and
Children’s development 3–7 29
socially awkward situations in which he observed children led him to underestimate

children’s thinking. Donaldson (1978), for example, showed that young children’s sensitivity
to such social contexts as those found in Piaget’s studies has a strong influence on their ability
to succeed in conservation tasks. Very recently, however, newly translated work provides
strong evidence of Piaget’s recognition of the role of social encounters on development
(Smith 1995).
Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934)
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist whose work was not available in the West until the
1960s, when Jerome Bruner (see below) was asked to review Vygotsky’s book, ‘Thought and
Language’ (Vygotsky 1961). Vygotsky proposed that children develop through social
interactions, particularly those involving language, which they then internalise to form their
own concepts. Teachers and other adults, therefore, play a major role in collaborating with
children in learning relationships. One of Vygotsky’s best-known developmental concepts is
what he called the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD), which refers to the difference
between what children can do alone and what they can do with help from an adult or an older
child (see Wood 1988 for more information about Vygotsky). We shall return to this concept
later in the chapter.
Jerome Bruner
The ideas of the American psychologist Jerome Bruner are similar to those of Piaget and
Vygotsky in many ways, though Bruner was particularly keen to develop a theory of
instruction as well as a theory of development. He described three increasingly powerful
ways of representing the world (Bruner 1966):
• enactive representation, in which thought is based only on actions;

• iconic representation, in which the child can form and use images of objects without the
actual objects themselves having to be present;
• symbolic representation, in which the child can use and think in terms of symbols such as
words, which do not necessarily have anything in common with what they represent.
The idea of the learning relationship is also important for Bruner because adults can provide
valuable temporary behavioural ‘scaffolding’ which consists of words and actions to support
children’s learning through the ZPD (see Wood 1988).
The learning theory approach to child development
The theories of Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner are referred to as cognitive or socio-cognitive
theories of development. Another way of explaining development has been through
behaviourism. The most prominent behaviourist theorist is Burrhus F. Skinner, who assumed
that intellectual growth involves the formation of associations between stimuli and responses
as a result of reinforcement. Thus the behaviourist view is that children learn language, social
behaviour and their understanding of the physical world through the rapid, continuous and
often unconscious accumulation of associations, which are strengthened or weakened
throughout the child’s waking hours. Simple behaviourist theory, however, cannot explain
common but complex behaviours such as imitation and demonstrations of empathy, both of
which involve internal representation, and which occur without apparent reinforcement.
Social learning theory, however, overcomes the problems of simple Skinnerian behaviourism
by incorporating cognitive constructs, notably identification and imitation, which enable it to
deal with more complex developmental phenomena such as sex typing.
Social learning theory was put forward by Bandura and Walters (1963) and their
colleagues. In a well-known series of experiments, children watched an actor, or a filmed
cartoon character, behave aggressively towards a large, inflatable, self-righting ‘Bobo’ doll.
After an intervening session in which the children were frustrated by not being allowed to play
with some desirable toys, Bandura then observed the children while they waited in a room
which contained a similar Bobo doll. The children imitated, very precisely, the aggressive
behaviour they had seen, even though there was no reinforcement provided for that type of
behaviour. Bandura found that the aggressive behaviour was learned, and could be
strengthened when, for example, the aggressive model was a cartoon character, or the child
was rewarded for aggression. Thus Bandura revealed a very powerful mechanism of social
learning.
Now we shall go on to see how these established theories try to explain development, first
in the context of the home and family, and then as the child’s world expands in school and
beyond. We begin with language, because this is a medium which can link the people
encountered in a familiar place with those in a new and unfamiliar one, and which can be used
to transfer stories about events which occurred in one place to another. It enables children to
bring their widening world into the security of home.
DEVELOPMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF HOME AND FAMILY
Language development, 3–7
[I]n fact by the age of five children from all cultures understand and use most of the
grammar rules of their language, communicate effectively with peers and adults and
demonstrate inventive ways of expressing themselves in words.
(Smith and Cowie 1991: 281)
Smith and Cowie’s comment on the remarkable, universal and rapid rate at which children
acquire language might explain why psychologists and linguists have a special interest in
understanding the origins of language development, and the relationship between language,
thought and social development.
The process of language acquisition goes through a similar series of phases regardless of
the actual culture or language learnt, and these are summarised in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1 Summary of process of language development
Age Form of Example

communication
Birth Cries and grunts Cries of hunger, anger and pain
can be identified by parents
Cooing ‘ooo’ sounds, in ‘conversations’ with
parent
Pitch and stress variations
‘Vocal play’ More vowel sounds and some
consonants
6 – 9 months Babbling Repeated sounds: ‘mumumumum’
Echolalia Social turn-taking (Snow 1977)
12 months First ‘words’ With intonation and stress – sounds

like language
18 months 20 words First words generalised to classes
of objects e.g. ‘gam’ = foods: jam,
21 months 200 words ketchup, porridge; ‘jus’ = drinks
18 months – 2yrs Telegraphic speech First two-word sentences, e.g.

‘allgone jus’
2 3yrs 3 – 4 word sentences Negatives: ‘not daddy work’

Grammatical rules Questions starting with ‘wh-’
applied Word order becoming conventional
3 – 5 yrs 1000 words; more 4-year-olds used simpler sentences

complex sentences for 2-year-olds than for adults
but cannot yet (Gelman and Schatz 1977)
understand passive
Show sensitivity to
listeners’ age
5 – 9 yrs Adult language forms Not until 9 years old can children
Complex semantics answer reliably whether a blind-
understood folded doll is ‘easy to see’ or ‘hard
to see’ (Chomsky 1969 )
Theories of language acquisition
There are three main ways of explaining how children acquire language. These are based on:
(a) behavioural psychology; (b) biological programming; and (iii) social interaction.
The behavioural explanation, developed by Skinner in the 1950s, suggested that parents
reinforce and shape their baby’s early vocalisations by rewarding those that sound like words
and ignoring those that do not. Gradually, as words are learned, certain combinations are
rewarded if they fall into patterns resembling sentences. Language develops further as
children imitate their parents’ talk and are rewarded for doing so in the appropriate situations.
Although this theory is intuitively plausible, it cannot explain why children produce
sentences that they have never heard before, nor why they make ‘virtuous errors’. For
example, if a child says, ‘ I eated my biscuit’, she is applying a rule which states that adding
‘-ed’ to a verb produces the past tense. If she was imitating her parents, however, she would
be more likely to say, ‘ I ate my biscuit’, since ‘eat’ is an irregular verb. The prevalence of
virtuous errors in young children’s speech suggests that they are able to apply rules and
generate new language forms which they have not heard before.
Noam Chomsky, also writing in the 1950s, rejected Skinner’s theory of language
acquisition. He argued that children would not have heard enough language to be able to
produce the complex grammatical rules which they are able to apply and understand simply
on the basis of imitation. Chomsky suggested that human beings are biologically pre-
programmed to generate language and to communicate through it. He postulated the
existence of a biological structure, which he called the ‘Language Acquisition Device’
(LAD), to explain young children’s ability to use complex rules.
Chomsky’s theory takes little account of social interaction, however, and yet the purpose
of a language within the species must be for communication. The role of social interaction in
language acquisition is the basis of the third type of language acquisition theory, which sees
language development as an aspect of cognitive and/or social development, and is concerned
with the relationships between language and thought. Piaget, as the first proponent of this
view, argued that thinking precedes language, or that cognitive development precedes
linguistic performance. Vygotsky, on the other hand, emphasised interaction between
language and thought as complementary processes in the child’s cognitive development. He
suggested that talking about events plays a crucial role in the development of thinking.
Jerome Bruner, however, has been most influential in developing a social interactionist
theory of language development which takes account of babies’ pre-verbal social skills, such
as:
• turn-taking in ‘conversations’ with a parent (Snow 1977);

• ‘joint attention’ as a baby follows its mother’s gaze to see what she is looking at;
• pointing and reaching behaviour which tell a parent that the child wants a particular object.
Bruner suggested that parents and infants structure language development together through
social exchanges, which he refers to as the ‘Language Acquisition Support System’ (LASS)
(Bruner 1983). Gradually the LASS gives way to language which is a more effective form of
communication. However, while Bruner saw these pre-verbal exchanges as essential
precursors to language development, infants in some cultures, such as South American
Mayan children, experience no LASS-type social interaction, but still acquire language (Pye,
writing in 1986 and cited by Bancroft (1995)). It may be, therefore, that Bruner’s language
precursors assist language development without being essential to it.
Before we move on to consider studies of children’s language experiences at home and in
school, we shall take a brief look at an area which is sometimes called a universal language –
namely, music. Hargreaves (1986) provides a detailed examination of children’s musical
development, an important part of which is the development of singing, which spontaneously
emerges in young children. In many cultures, singing is also an important learning medium,
used, for example, to help children learn a basic vocabulary such as numbers, days of the week
and parts of the body, through rhymes and action songs, or to pass on historical or moral tales
to younger generations.
The development of song in children
Singing, like language, appears to go through several stages in its acquisition. It has some
revealing parallels, also, with developmental stages in other artistic domains, such as drawing
and writing (Hargreaves and Galton, 1992). The work of Dowling (1984) and Davidson et al.
(1981), for example, is based on the idea that cognitive schemes exist which determine the
nature of songs at different ages within the pre-school period. These studies have been
typically conducted by obtaining rich and detailed information over long periods of time from
a small number of individual children. The ‘babbling’ singing of the young infant, in which
pitch and phrasing are as yet unstable, is analogous to the scribbles which children make with
pens on paper and which gradually become more organised and predictable. At the age of two
or so, babbles give rise to what have become known as ‘pot-pourri’ songs, or coalescences
between the child’s spontaneous babbles or improvisations and songs in the culture. Elements
of nursery rhymes and pop songs from the media are incorporated into the child’s own song
creations, and numerous examples of these have been collected. These songs might be
considered to be characterised by global schemes, in that the overall shapes of the songs can
be identified but the precise tonal details within them are as yet not established. In the later
part of the pre-school period, interval relationships, phrasing and melodic construction
become more regular and schematic, so that the child’s songs become more recognisable. The
songs of the five-year-old might be thought of as ‘first draft’ songs which only become fully
operational with respect to musical conventions later in childhood. Full-scale development
of intervals and scales in singing, along with analytic recognition of keys and the
development of sensitivity to musical styles and conventions, gradually becomes established
between the ages of eight and fifteen or so, although there are considerable individual
variations according to training and experience.
In comparison with oracy, literacy and drawing, children’s musical development has been
comparatively ignored, but the above outline does show some interesting parallels. However,
we now return to an emphasis on language development, with a focus on the role of social
behaviour. This leads us to look at children’s linguistic experience as they become more
proficient linguistically around the age of four. In particular, we shall look at Dunn’s studies
of young children in their homes, and later, at Tizard and Hughes’ (1984) comparisons of the
language of four-year-olds at home and at nursery school.
Young children at home
Judy Dunn and her colleagues have explored children’s developing social understanding and
have also examined the relationship between children’s actual social behaviour at home and
their performance on tests and measures of social and emotional understanding (Denham
1986, Dunn et al. 1987).
Dunn has carried out detailed observations of pre-school children in their homes with their
families. She and her colleagues observed and analysed the conversations of children aged
three and four with their mothers, siblings and friends, and then analysed episodes which were
especially likely to reveal children’s social understanding, such as arguments, jokes and
pretend play. The analyses showed that children with advanced understanding of other
people’s minds were more likely to have:
• engaged in pretend play more when they were two years old;
• more ‘connected’ interactions with friends at age three;
• taken part in conversations about why people behave as they do;
• witnessed an intense relationship between two other family members.
One interesting finding was that the same children used different arguments about the same
issues with different people (e.g. mother and friend). This is particularly surprising if we recall
Piaget and Inhelder’s (1956) finding that the young children who did the well-known ‘three
mountains’ task seemed unable to take the perspective of another person. Piaget and Inhelder
found that they could describe their own view of a model of three mountains but, when asked
to say what a doll sitting on the opposite side of the model would be able to see, the children
once again described their own view, and could thus be described as ‘egocentric’. However,
Dunn’s observations suggest that, far from being egocentric, young children could not only
respond to, but also anticipate or even pre-empt, what the other person might say or do. An
important difference between Piaget’s and Dunn’s studies is that Dunn’s were purposeful
interactions which took place in a natural context. Piaget’s task, while its subject matter would
be familiar and relevant to Swiss children, did not provide them with real reasons to adopt
different perspectives. Dunn and her colleagues have shown that children’s emotional
understanding shown in social relationships at age three is related consistently to their
understanding as measured by tests at age seven. (This developing awareness of other
people’s thinking is taken up again in the next chapter.) Dunn suggests that
[I]f we are to make progress in understanding children’s development we should surely

include a focus on the relationships within which that development takes place.
Naturalistic studies have a special value for such research in childhood.
(Dunn 1995: 346)
This developing awareness of other people’s thinking is taken up again in the next chapter.
The role of play in social and cognitive development
A widely-held view in nursery schools and pre-school play groups is that ‘children learn
through play’ (Moyles 1989, and Chapter 1 of this book). This is supported by several well-
established theories, of which the most prominent is that of Piaget (1951). Since Piaget first
formulated his theory, a good deal of experimental research has been carried out which has
looked in more detail at the precise function of play in promoting problem solving, creative
thinking and social development. Generally speaking, different studies have shown that there
are positive gains in all of these dimensions, although some studies have methodological
limitations and the typical timescales of experience claimed to promote particular cognitive
effects could be as little as ten minutes (Smith 1984). It would seem safer to conclude,
therefore, that ‘play is one way to learn’; that different kinds of play promote different kinds
of learning; and that we must be careful in attributing too many cognitive and social advances
to free play per se. In other words, we need to be more precise about what kinds of play
promote what kinds of learning.
The development of gender role identity
One characteristic of play behaviour in children aged three to seven is the existence of gender
differences. In North American and European homes, boys typically engage in larger-scale
physical activity, whereas girls are more likely to be engaged in quieter activities, perhaps
playing with dolls or doing domestic activities. This is a clear manifestation of the
phenomenon of gender role development in the pre-school period. Slaby and Frey identified
three stages in the development of gender roles (see Smith 1986). The first stage is gender
identity and labeling, which occurs when a child can reliably label his or her own gender and
the gender of other people. Children can usually do this by the ages of two to three years. The
second stage is that of gender stability, which refers to a child’s knowing that they were, are,
and will be a girl or a boy. Gender stability is usually reached by about four to five years.
Finally, when children are aged seven to nine, they achieve gender constancy, that is, the
understanding that boys stay as boys and girls stay as girls regardless of changes of clothes,
contexts and situations.
Gender identity and gender constancy involve the way children see themselves, and there
are different explanations as to how gender role identity develops. The focus on self-concept
with respect to gender is a central part of a cognitive developmental explanation (Kohlberg
1966). In this explanation, the child is thought to have a generalised concept of gender role,
and the specific attachments with fathers for boys and mothers for girls follow the
development of the generalised concept. In contrast, in the social learning theory explanation
of gender role development, generalised gender role identity follows on from the individual
attachments which are initially formed with parents and other significant figures as a result
of the reinforcing power of these models. As we saw earlier, social learning theory builds on
basic principles of reinforcement in incorporating cognitive concepts such as imitation and
identification, and gender role identity is one clear and basic example of this. The idea has
been developed further in Sandra Bem’s gender schema theory which adapts contemporary
ideas about social cognition to the issue of gender role development (Bem 1981).
It is also very clear, for the four to seven age range, that girls tend to be more advanced than
boys in many intellectual activities, such as reading. There are various possible reasons for
this. One is simply that girls mature physically more quickly than boys up to the age of six or
seven, although this physical difference then diminishes. Another is that pre-schools and
nursery schools tend to be dominated by female staff, and the feminine atmosphere which this
creates could serve to exaggerate further the advantage that girls possess. Another suggestion
is that boys’ play is more object-oriented, involving impersonal, mechanical and scientific
interests, whereas girls’ play is more person-oriented, involving empathetic relationships
with their peers. There is a good deal of empirical support for this idea, but it is not quite so
clear that sex-typed play styles in children necessarily lead on to sex-differentiated patterns
of attitudes and personality in adult life. However, the notion that masculine and feminine
styles of behaviour may have their origins in styles of early play is an interesting one which
is developed further by Archer (1984) in his proposal that ‘development pathways’ exist. This
proposal involves seeing gender roles in a lifespan perspective in which pre-school play may
form an important early part, and which may lead on to differences in school achievement in
different subject areas and in adolescent interests and career choices.
Widening the sphere of learning relationships: from home to school
The evidence presented so far suggests that children about to enter school are ‘logical but of
limited experience . . . are actively trying to make sense of their world, and use encounters
with significant other people as a means of doing so’ (Hughes 1991: 147). In contrast to this
view of young children as skilful and active learners, Hughes reported that reception teachers,
when interviewed, consistently described new children coming to school as
egocentric, immature, lacking in confidence, over-dependent, and lacking in basic skills

and knowledge . . . unable to socialise . . . with little evidence of any social training in the
home . . . and frequently bad-mannered, disruptive and disobedient. . . . spoken language
was commonly singled out for criticism and [was] often seen as being the cause of other
problems, such as aggression. . . . they were unable to give explanations . . . and there was
a reluctance to ask questions, discuss stories or relate experiences.
(Hughes 1991: 148)
This gap between psychologists’ and teachers’ perceptions of young children suggests that
children’s learning relationships in school may be very different from those that they
experience at home or out of school. In the next section, we shall look more closely at how
these different views might arise.
LEARNING RELATIONSHIPS IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL
In this final section of the chapter we review the child’s development in the specific context
of the school. The transition from home to school, pre-school playgroup, nursery or
kindergarten is marked (a) by a substantial increase in the number of children and adults, (b)
by making new acquaintances often unknown to the child’s parents, and (c) by an increase in
extended periods of time spent away from the home. It requires young children to enter into
formal learning relationships not only with adults called teachers, but also sometimes with
other children. In order to develop these relationships, the children may have to compete for
the teacher’s attention, within the formal setting. They will have to learn also to distinguish
between informal and formal learning relationships: (a) with peers, in play situations; (b) with
peers in work situations; (c) with teachers and other adults in school; and (d) with the same
adults who might be family friends out of school.
Are schools the only effective places to learn? Are teachers the only
people who can teach?
One way to investigate the effects of formal schooling on development is to study learning
and teaching situations in a variety of different cultures (Wagner and Stevenson 1982).
Stevenson (1982), for example, investigated the performance of Peruvian children on a series
of cognitive tasks involving memory skills, spatial representation and concept learning. The
sample included children of the same age, some of whom attended school and some who did
not. Stevenson concluded that schooling made a significant independent contribution to
children’s performance on cognitive tasks even after the effects of sex, location, parental
education, home quality and home teaching example had been removed (see also Chapter 9
in this book for a discussion of school effectiveness). Other studies of this type which have
tested children’s performance on standardised tests of cognitive ability, and report similar
results (Wagner and Stevenson 1982), have usually found that schooling is associated with
enhanced test performance, but this type of study does not consider how the learning or
teaching takes place. Furthermore, many of the tests used are designed to be insensitive to
cultural differences, and may be limited indicators of learning outside the school context. We
shall look next, therefore, at two studies which have focused on children’s development in
non-school settings.
Learning and teaching out of school
Greenfield and Lave (1982) compared children’s learning in three different contexts which
represented increasingly formal instructional contexts. They were:
1 young Mexican weavers learning to weave in their homes;

2 children as apprentice tailors in Liberia;
3 children learning in school.
Analysis of the learning relationships in each case showed that carefully scaffolded learning,
cooperative learning and graded task setting did take place within the more informal settings,
thus contradicting the idea that it is only in school that children are exposed to a variety of
teaching and learning strategies. The more naturalistic situations also provided rich learning
relationships. Rogoff (1989) provides a review and discussion of research on scaffolded
learning, or ‘guided participation’, of different types, e.g. with verbal versus non-verbal
emphasis, in relation to several cultures.
Making ‘human sense’
One aspect of learning outside school is that what is being learned is usually of some intrinsic
value in the child’s life. Donaldson (1978) used the term ‘human sense’ to discriminate
between tasks which have a purpose and make sense in everyday life, and those which are
‘disembedded’ from real or human contexts, such as school tasks. For Donaldson, the issue
of whether a task makes ‘human sense’ explains the discrepancy between Piaget’s findings
and those of Sinha and Walkerdine, who in 1977, reported an investigation in which they
made Piaget’s standard conservation of volume task active. In the standard task, children are
asked to say whether the amount of water in a tall, thin glass is the same, or more, or less than
it was when it was in a short, wide glass. Piaget found that children under the age of seven
typically reply that the amount of water has changed. Sinha and Walkerdine changed the
standard task slightly. They asked the child to shout ‘Stop’ when both the child and the adult
had ‘exactly the same amount to drink’, as the adult poured orange juice from a jug into two
differently shaped glasses. Seventy per cent of the five-year-olds who failed Piaget’s task
succeeded in shouting ‘Stop’ at the appropriate point. Similarly, children could conserve
number at younger ages than Piaget’s theory suggested, when a ‘naughty teddy’ altered the
array of counters (McGarrigle and Donaldson 1974), or when the task did not involve asking
the child the same question twice (Rose and Blank 1974).
All of these tasks have been modified so as to make more ‘human sense’, such that the child
is either actively involved in the task or can identify reasons for what happens. In contrast,
many school learning tasks appear to be ‘disembedded’ from any real context. For the child,
the difference between embedded and disembedded tasks signifies the difference between
informal and formal learning relationships, which must be recognised. This difference has
been explored by Tizard and Hughes (1984) in their study of four-year-olds in conversations
at home and at school.
Conversations at home and at school
Tizard and Hughes recorded 30 four-year-old girls’ conversations with their mothers at home,
and with their nursery teachers at school, and analysed the language and learning in these two
highly influential learning relationships. The results contradicted the common assumption
that ‘what teachers do in a classroom is ipso facto educational while what a mother does is
only “upbringing or child-rearing”. Parents themselves often accept this view . . . ’ (Tizard
and Hughes 1984: 17). They found not only that the girls asked a significantly larger number
of questions at home, but also that the adults’ answers were much more frequently ‘adequate
and full’ at home than at school. The girls asked three main types of question. About a quarter
of the children’s questions were business questions, concerned with carrying out activities,
e.g. ‘Where are the scissors?’. Curiosity questions, such as ‘What’s that?’, ‘How do you do
that?’, ‘Why is it . . . ?’, made up two-thirds of the girls’ questions to their mothers. Challenge
questions, such as ‘Why?’, ‘Why should I?’, which challenged the relationship between
mother and daughter, accounted for only about 10 per cent of the children’s questions, but
these seemed to have particular educational importance in eliciting informational content in
the mothers’ answers. In addition, Tizard and Hughes identified what they called ‘passages
of intellectual search’, that is, conversations in which the child asks a sequence of questions
which take account of the adults’ answers, often finding them unsatisfactory and so actively
pursuing understanding. Formal school or nursery settings, however, specifically discourage
children from asking challenging questions, or from persisting in their questioning, and, in a
serious challenge to the effectiveness of teachers, Tizard and Hughes concluded that
‘children’s intellectual and language needs are much more likely to be fulfilled at home than
at school’. In school, ‘the puzzling mind of the four-year-old has no outlet in a setting where
the child’s basic role is to answer and not ask questions’ (Tizard and Hughes 1984: 255–6).
Children learning together: friendships and groupwork
Before they start school, children are likely to have some regular play-mates or companions
with whom they may have made a variety of discoveries about physical, social, emotional and
environmental matters. Once in school, children are often expected to work with other
children on common tasks, such as making a model or making up a story, for, as we saw earlier,
Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner all suggested that learning relationships between peers can be
particularly powerful. In the final part of this section, we shall consider peer learning in
informal relationships, such as children’s friendships, and then in formal learning
relationships, such as cooperative groups.
Children’s friendships
Hartup’s (1992) review of the literature on children’s friendships concludes that ‘we can
better argue that friendships are developmental advantages than argue that these relationships
are developmental necessities’ (p. 201). Friendships provide children with relationships
which might be called egalitarian, symmetrical or horizontal, in contrast to the
assymmetrical, vertically structured relationships which they have with adults. Hartup
summarises five stages in the development of relationships, including friendships. These are:
• acquaintance;
• build-up;
• continuation;
• deterioration;
• endings.
Among young children, the first stages depend on physical proximity, successful social
overtures, the occurrence of complementarities, and smiling, laughing or other indications of
positive affect (Howes 1983). The middle stage is characterised by stability in interactions
and awareness of commitment, although children younger than ten or eleven do not
necessarily mention commitment and their friendships do not always develop this far: many
younger children’s friendships end as they simply drift apart or cease to interact. Hartup
points out, however (Hartup 1992), that research on younger childrens’ friendships, and on
the endings of friendships in childhood, is lacking.
Hartup’ s review shows that friendships have several functions, some of which depend on
childrens’ developmental stage. Friends typically interact more with each other than non-
friends and, among pre-school children, social behaviour with stable friends was more
competent, led to more successful group entry, more complementary and reciprocal social
play, and more engagement in pretend play. Thus, those children who have the social skills to
obtain and maintain stable friendships also have more opportunity to extend and practise their
social skills of communication, cooperation and conflict management. Quarrels, too, are an
important part of friendship. ‘They illuminate the “fit” between individuals, i.e. by
demonstrating when the skills, interests and goals of two children are not concordant as well
as by marking relationship boundaries’ (Hartup 1992: 190). Conflicts and disagreements also
vary with age and context. Friends had fewer disagreements in open contexts such as
playgrounds, but disagreed more often and more intensely than non-friends in closed
situations where they could not change partners or activities. The implication for teachers is
that, as the gap in social skills widens between friend-makers and others, teachers may need
to teach children strategies for how to make friends (see, e.g., McNamara and Moreton 1995,
and related discussion in Chapter 4 of this book).
Friendships enable children to learn about themselves, others and the world. According to
Hartup, children not only teach one another in many situations but also use methods
‘remarkably similar to those employed by adults in teaching children’ (Hartup 1992: 186).
When set problems to solve, for example, Newcomb and Brady (1982) found that boys who
were friends explored the situation more, conversed with more vigour and connectedness,
and could remember more about the problem afterwards. Research needs to be done on the
effects of friendship groupings on the effectiveness of collaborative and cooperative learning

in school, a topic to which we now turn.
Cooperative learning in school
In cooperative learning, children work together on some common task. In English schools,
the Plowden Report (1967) had advocated groupwork as a cost-effective use of teacher time
when compared with the use of individualised programmes. Teachers who use it argue that it
not only contributes to higher achievement levels but also promotes social development and
raises children’s levels of self-esteem. What is the theoretical basis for this classroom
organisation strategy, however?
Piaget’s theory suggests that cognitive development is more likely to occur when children
work with peers than when they interact, either with older children or adults, or work by
themselves. This is because development, or adaptation, is brought about by conflict between
what the child already knows and what, Piaget suggested, he or she perceives in a situation.
Whereas children are likely to give way if an adult or older child’s interpretation of an event
differs from their own, they would expect friends of their own age to agree with them, and
therefore would be more likely to argue with friends or peers. The existence of disagree ment
will force the children to attend to aspects of the event which they would have missed if
working alone. Thus, the conflict will create disequilibrium in the children’s minds and so
motivate reconstruction of their understanding of the event, thus moving them towards a new
developmental stage. Vygotsky and Bruner, on the other hand, stressed that development
occurs through social cooperation rather than through conflict. Development will take place
when a more experienced child, parent or teacher guides the child’s participation in a task, or,
in other words, scaffolds the child’s progress through the ZPD. By learning from more
experienced members of their social group, children absorb cultural expectations,
approaches, and methods as a natural part of the learning process (Tharp and Gallimore 1991,
Rogoff 1990). In schools, however, structured peer groupwork has been associated with
higher achievements (Johnson et al. 1981).
‘Cooperative groupwork’ has many meanings and purposes, including working together
in small groups as well as the more circumscribed technique of ‘peer tutoring’, in which a
more able or experienced child works with a less able or experienced child. There are also
different cultural interpretations. Topping (1992), for example, has contrasted the ‘extremely
rigid, rule-bound and prescriptive’ North American approaches to cooperative groupwork
with the British ‘warm, fuzzy and comfortable’ ones (see also Galton and Williamson’s
(1992) review of research on groupwork in the primary classroom, and Chapter 6 of this book
for a discussion of general cultural differences). While structured groupwork appears to be

more effective for cognitive gains (Slavin 1990), it can also lead to social and affective
developments, and be used specifically to promote teamwork and cooperative attitudes. Peer
tutoring, used particularly as a strategy in the teaching of reading, has shown gains in attitudes
and achievement across gender, race and social class divisions, especially for the ‘tutors’
(Topping 1992). Studies of the effects of cooperation on self-concept, self-esteem and self-
image have tended to have only slight or neutral effects, however, despite positive anecdotal
claims about their benefits (Osguthorpe and Scruggs 1990). Finally, positive social benefits
have been found in studies of cooperative grouping in multi-ethnic classes. These included
improved social relationships, liking for others, more cross-race and cross-gender preference
choices and reduced negative stereotyping (see, e.g., Sharan 1990).
The social world of children’s learning
One of the aims of this chapter, in keeping with the central theme of learning relationships,
has been to emphasise young children’s social development, a field which has become
increasingly prominent in developmental psychology. Pollard (1996), in a unique and
original longitudinal study of five children’s first years in school, has attempted to bring
together evidence about their social lives with friends, family and teachers, their learning
experiences and their formal school achievements. Using case study data, he has derived
frameworks to facilitate analysis and synthesis of the social influences on the children’s self-
identity and approaches to learning. He has concluded that the children who learned most
effectively could manage their classroom identities so as to derive support from both teacher
and peers. The children could be effective learners when ‘their self-confidence is high, the
classroom social context poses manageable risks and they receive sufficient appropriate
instruction and support. The need for suitable social conditions in classrooms complements
the necessity for appropriate levels of cognitive challenge’ (Pollard 1996: 311). Pollard’s
analysis provides some explanation of, and a way forward from, the yawning gap portrayed
by Hughes (1991) between young children’s capabilities and teachers’ perceptions of them.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has considered several aspects of children’s development between the ages of
three and seven. While cognitive development has a central place in most research on child
development, we have emphasised the complementary role of social development, focusing
on the child’s widening circle of social relationships. Each of these is potentially a new
learning relationship for children’s understanding of themselves and of their social and
physical worlds. The recent attention to the social world in the psychological literature in
recent years is one that educationists are now beginning to assimilate.
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Chapter 3
Cognitive development 7–11

The learning relationship in the junior years
Roger Merry
INTRODUCTION
For whatever reasons, there has been rather less written about the cognitive development of
children from around the age of seven onwards than from birth to six. Part of the explanation
could lie in the nature of development itself. The changes that take place in the first few years
of life are enormous, crucial and fascinating, especially since advances in electronics and the
ingenuity of psychologists over the last twenty years have allowed us to make inferences
about the thinking of even very young babies. It could also be that we as adults are simply
programmed to be more interested in young and dependent children – we certainly see them
as more cute than their older siblings, as the declining number of family photographs of a
growing child at different ages shows.
The changes taking place in children’s thinking between the ages between around seven
and eleven may be less dramatic, but they are certainly there, and it is just as important for
teachers to have thought about them. This chapter, therefore, will consider some of these
changes and their implications for teachers.
A GENERAL SHIFT IN THINKING
One important legacy from Piaget, mentioned briefly in the previous chapter, was the notion
that during this period most children begin to make a transition from being able to think only
in concrete terms to being capable of more abstract thought – what Piaget called the transition
from concrete to formal operations. Although it is now clear that there are times when many
seven-year-olds can think in an abstract way, and times when many eleven-year-olds (and
even adults) do not, Piaget’s general idea still seems to be valuable, and Bruner for instance
proposed a similar development from ‘iconic representation’, with a need to use mental
Cognitive development 7–11 49
images in order to think, to the ability to use purely ‘symbolic representation’. (See Chapter
2; for a detailed discussion of these theories, see Wood 1988.)
More recently, Donaldson (1992) characterised children’s thought as moving from ‘point
mode’ to ‘line mode’, ‘construct mode’, and finally to ‘transcendent mode’. In ‘point mode’
the infant is restricted to thinking in the here and now, whereas with ‘line mode’ the child’s
thoughts can move backwards and forwards in time. With ‘construct mode’ there is
generalisation taking place, though still in concrete terms, until finally with ‘transcendent
mode’ the limitations of space and time are overcome. Perhaps an example will make this
abstract idea clear, by putting it in more concrete terms.
POINT MODE: ‘I want to watch my favourite TV programme right now but my brother
is watching something else and he won’t let me.’
LINE MODE: ‘The same thing happened yesterday, but I’ll make sure I’m there first
tomorrow.’
CONSTRUCT MODE: ‘My brother always decides what we watch because he is bigger
than me.’
TRANSCENDENT MODE: ‘Brute force and size usually win – life isn’t fair!’
Piaget’s interest in the universal development of thought is also at odds with more recent
views suggesting that children’s learning develops at different rates in different areas or
‘domains’. A domain might be, for example, chess or mathematical learning, so that a child
could reach a much higher Piagetian level in one domain than in another, rather than
development occurring in a smooth and universal way (Moran 1991).
This is particularly important for the learning of older children, because cognitive
development must always interact with learning demands. As children grow older, these
demands in school become based much more on different subjects. In most countries by the
time they are eleven, children are expected to be able to think in a mathematical way or in a
musical way according to the lesson. On the other hand, during these years, schools also
require increasingly ‘disembedded’ thinking which is not tied to any particular set of
circumstances. Children are therefore expected, for example, not only to be able to multiply
given numbers, but also to recognise a multiplication problem embedded in any context.
The different domains of thinking are, of course, not restricted to school subjects. Other
psychologists have come up with the idea of ‘scripts’ or ‘scenarios’ which children have to
learn about and which shape their thinking across a whole range of situations, such as going
to the cinema or going to a restaurant (Hudson 1993). They learn what sort of behaviour is
expected of them and can predict what others are likely to do. Behaviour in school is
obviously one such general area, but the increasing importance of different subjects towards
50 Roger Merry
the end of primary education means that children may have to learn to carry out a series of
steps predetermined by the teacher to get the right answer in one lesson, then be willing to
discuss publicly their innermost anxieties with that same teacher a few minutes later! Under
these circumstances, the notion of the learning relationship at the heart of this book changes
not only when the child goes to school, as outlined in the previous chapter, but becomes
increasingly complex and differentiated as the child moves through the later primary years.
One of the most popular and influential discussions of different ways of thinking, one
which has once more come to enjoy popularity, was proposed by Gardner in 1983. Gardner
suggested that there might be seven such intelligences: linguistic, musical, spacial, logical-
mathematical, bodily-kinaesthetic, inter-personal and intra-personal. However, he was
careful to point out that ‘these intelligences are fictions and most useful fictions – for
discussing processes and abilities that (like all of life) are continuous with one another’
(Gardner 1983: 70).
The general shift in thinking, therefore, does not happen smoothly, but is much affected by
the context of each particular situation and the sorts of thinking involved. Bearing this in
mind, we can now look more closely at some more specific cognitive changes which tend to
occur in the 7–11 age range.
STRATEGIES
Confronted with an apparently simple problem like the need to remember a short list of words,
it is clear that many seven-year-olds simply don’t know what to do. Close studies of eye
movements using electronic equipment show that younger children tend to behave in the
same way whether they are asked to remember the words or simply to look at them. Similarly,
if they forget some of the words and are asked to try again, they will probably look equally at
all the words and not pay any special attention to those they forgot. (For a review of this area
of research, see Simmons 1994.) As adults, we may find this quite surprising, since we would
tend to use a variety of strategies without even thinking about them. (You might like to pause
for a moment to think what you yourself would do, given a list of a dozen words and half a
minute to remember them, in any order.) For instance, we would almost certainly say the
words over to ourselves several times, and repeating out loud is a common technique used in
classrooms all over the world to learn things by heart. We might well do other things too, of
course. Without even realising it, we would probably try to picture the items in our mind’s
eye, and bearing in mind the general shift in thinking mentioned above, it is significant that
abstract words such as ‘hope’ or ‘revo lution’ are harder to remember than words which we
can image easily, like ‘door’ or ‘feather’.
But that isn’t all. We might also note any links between the words, so that if, say, some were
names of fruits, we would tend to remember them together rather than in the order in which
they had been presented. And if we had been asked to recall the words in order, we would
almost certainly use different strategies, perhaps linking the items together in some sort of
story.
The years roughly between 7 and 11 mark the start of a transition towards this more adult
use of strategies. Repetition (sometimes called ‘rehearsal’ or ‘rote’ learning) tends to be the
first strategy to appear, and by the time they are 10, about 85 per cent of children are able to
use it, though they may not always do so without being reminded (Kail 1990). This basic
strategy helps because, if we don’t use it, things disappear after a few seconds from our short-
term memory. Repetition literally ‘represents’ the material before it can disappear, and
enables it eventually to become part of our long-term memory, but on its own it isn’t a very
efficient strategy, and other, more powerful techniques are also beginning to emerge during
this period.
Unlike straightforward repetition, these other strategies don’t simply prolong the
information for a few seconds, but transform or elaborate on it, enriching it and linking it to
things we know already. Thus, forming visual images for words might seem to be making the
task more difficult by increasing the amount to remember, but it brings into play the very
powerful visual memory system and makes it much more likely that the items will be
retrieved. If the order of words isn’t important, re-grouping into categories forges links
between the items, so that recalling one makes it likely that it will remind us of the others in
that category. If on the other hand the word order was important, linking the words in a
different way in order to preserve the sequence, for example in a story, similarly makes it
much more likely that each item will be remembered in turn. Imposing structure or meaning
seems to be the key.
Without such strategies, we would be able to remember very little – indeed, McShane
(1991) says that ‘much of development can be seen as the construction of efficient
representations and procedures to overcome the resource limitations of the information
processing system’ (p. 342). In fact, there is still some disagreement about whether the child’s
actual thinking capacity increases with age or whether it is simply that better use is made of
the same capacity (Halford 1993, Meadows 1993), though most psychologists probably
52 Roger Merry
incline towards the latter view, and there is certainly considerable interest now in how these
strategies develop in older children.
METACOGNITION
But simply having strategies available isn’t enough to guarantee improvements in learning,
and there are at least two other sorts of cognitive skills that children need to develop. Both of
these require an ability to reflect on your own thinking, and therefore come under the general
heading of what psychologists call ‘metacognition’.
First, they need to be able to recognise when a strategy is appropriate and must generally
be able to control their use of different strategies to choose the best ones. To do this, of course,
they need to be able to compare new problems with familiar ones and to transfer or generalise
from previous experience. Thus, for example, a successful learner with the metacognitive
skills to recognise that they have forgotten some items or are finding others difficult will
concentrate more on those items than on the rest. Such self-checking begins to emerge as a
very important general strategy, applicable across a wide range of problems.
In this respect, apparently ‘negative’ information can be just as useful as ‘positive’, though
younger children may not always appreciate this in their desire to get ‘the right answer’. For
instance, some children are very reluctant to practise the valuable skill of estimating the
answer first in case their estimate is wrong, not realising that the error can provide useful
feedback. Similarly, Holt (1984) describes how he used to think of a number between, say,
one and 100 and his children would try to guess it. They eventually developed the strategy of
asking questions like ‘Is it more than 50?’, but they tended to be disappointed if the answer
was negative, apparently not realising that this gave just as much information as a positive
answer! So children need not only to have a range of strategies available, but also to develop
skills in deciding which strategies are appropriate, and in making use of feedback to monitor
their success.
It is obviously difficult to obtain information directly about children’s metacognitive
skills, and the best we can hope for is to design studies which allow us to make inferences
about their thinking or ask them to ‘introspect’ – to talk to us about what goes on inside their
heads. McShane (1991) is rightly cautious here. He notes that children may have such skills
without necessarily being able to describe them to someone else, and points out that a
correlation between improved learning and reported use of metacognitive skills could mean
that either one could be the cause of the other. In spite of potential problems with
methodology, however, a great deal of research has been generated, and it is clear that the
growth of metacognition is a major factor in children’s development which affects not only
their success in school but also enables them to feel increasingly involved in and responsible
for their own learning (see, e.g., Galloway and Edwards 1991).
ATTITUDES AND EMOTIONS
Even this isn’t really enough, however, because it suggests that children are rather passive
learners, simply waiting for problems to come along and presumably doing nothing in the
meantime. In contrast, successful learners are good at recognising problems in the first place,
and actively seeking them out for themselves. As Karmiloff-Smith (1992: 88) says:
Children are not just problem-solvers. They rapidly become problem generators and move
from successful data-driven actions to theory-mediated actions that are often not
influenced by environmental feedback.
Cognitive development should not be considered in isolation, however, and this active
‘search after meaning’ also implies certain attitudes towards problem-solving, such as a
willingness to admit that you don’t yet know the answer or that there may be a better solution
than the one you’ve just thought of. Successful learners are not afraid of failing, and do not
feel threatened by it – on the contrary, they may relish finding apparently pointless problems
to solve, or insist that they do not want to be told the answer even when it is readily available.
If this sounds rather odd, you have probably never done a crossword puzzle or read a mystery
novel! Moreover, such positive attitudes towards potential problems go hand-in-hand with
positive attitudes about yourself as a learner, and there has been considerable research into
the importance of self-esteem in successful learners (See Chapter 4 of this book).
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
Another general criticism of Piaget was that he tended to see the child as a rather solitary
thinker, developing in isolation, and therefore did not pay enough attention to the social
contexts in which learning takes place, though the previous chapter has suggested that such a
view of Piaget may now be inaccurate. Vygotsky and Bruner, whose work was also very
briefly outlined in Chapter 2, are recognised as being much more interested in these social
factors and in the role of the adult in facilitating children’s cognitive development. A whole
new area of research, ‘social cognition’, has now emerged, linking the work of social and
cognitive psychologists and emphasising not only the immediate social situations in which
learning takes place, but also the wider cultural context which shapes all thinking (see, e.g.,
Rogoff et al. 1989).
54 Roger Merry
Most developmental psychologists would now accept that the child is not a solitary
thinker, though many would still be wary of suggesting that an emphasis on social factors
implies a passive view of learning. As Halford (1993: 470) says:
The child is not simply a repository of socially and culturally provided information, like a
file cabinet. The child actively selects, observes, codes, stores, interprets, and, where it is
inconsistent with experience, rejects, information about the world.
The years between about 7 and 11 are therefore particularly interesting, because these social
and cultural factors are beginning to interact with the child’s metacognitive skills referred to
earlier. In Gardner’s (1983) terms, two sorts of intelligences are therefore involved – ‘intra-
personal’ and ‘inter-personal’. The former refers to the emerging sense of self and the
detachment from the here and now which are needed in order to reflect on your own thinking,
and the latter to the growing awareness of and sensitivity to other people needed to develop
as a successful and valued social being.
COGNITIVE, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

COMBINED IN ‘THEORY OF MIND’
Although the first part of this chapter has considered cognitive, social and emotional factors
separately, they are clearly all linked together in the way children actually develop. A
particularly interesting area of recent research which illustrates this interdependence nicely
concerns children’s development of a ‘theory of mind’ or understanding of other people’s
behaviour, thoughts and feelings (see, e.g., Perner 1991).
Some ingenious experiments have shown that quite young children can have a surprisingly
sophisticated understanding of the views of others, in contrast to Piaget’s emphasis on
egocentric thought at this age. Thus, studies which use a ‘false belief’ paradigm put children
in a situation where they know something that someone else doesn’t know, and ask them to
predict what the other person will think or do. In a typical experiment, the child watches while
Person A puts something in a box and then leaves the room. Person B then removes the object
and hides it somewhere else. Person A returns, and the child is asked not where the object is,
but where Person A thinks it is, even though that belief is false and not shared by the child. By
the age of five, most children respond correctly, though those diagnosed as autistic are a
notable and revealing exception. Even this is not the end of the story, however, and children
continue to develop an increasingly sophisticated theory of mind as they grow older,
including ‘second order’ mental states which involve an understanding of other people’s
understanding of other people! The fact that you may have to re-read the previous sentence to
grasp it properly shows how complicated it can get.
Because of the inseparable nature of thoughts and feelings, a developing theory of mind
involves not only an understanding of what other people may or may not know, but also an
awareness of their emotions. Terwogt and Harris (1993), for example, asked children aged
six, eleven and fifteen if it was possible to hide your feelings from others. (Before you read
what happened, you might like to exercise your own theory of mind by predicting what the
children in each age group said.) In fact, about two-thirds of the six-year-olds said it was
possible, while the rest didn’t know, and all the eleven-year-olds were confident that they
could hide their feelings. But some of the fifteen-year-olds had their doubts, apparently
because they realised that someone who knew them well might not be fooled.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING IN THE WIDER CULTURAL

CONTEXT
The dynamic interplay between self-awareness and social awareness has long been apparent
in contrasting philosophical views about the whole nature of learning. Bonnett (1994), for
example, compares the traditional Rationalist emphasis on publicly agreed knowledge and
rules with the Existentialist notion that the only true or ‘authentic’ understanding is that of the
individual. She concludes that the two are not incompatible but can be combined into what
she calls ‘poetic’ teaching, which both ‘respects the integrity of the self of the learner and the
nature of the things to be learnt’.
Such potentially contrasting views are manifested in different ways in different cultures.
In most Western societies, for example, the individual’s sense of self is seen as particularly
important because successful members of society are expected to act with a high degree of
autonomy. This can be apparent in many ways, including the educational aim of encouraging
children to take responsibility for their own learning, and the promotion of self-advocacy for
those with special needs who would otherwise depend largely on others. In contrast, some
other countries place more value on the needs of society in general, and see it as more
important to be a good citizen than a successfully competitive individual. In turn, these
differences will be reflected and promoted by differing educational systems using different
methods of teaching and learning, sometimes to the bafflement of other societies. British
teachers tend to be disbelieving when they hear that their Chinese counterparts successfully
teach classes of 50 children, and to be dismissive of methods involving rote learning, while
Chinese teachers may find it hard to understand a system which, for many years, seemed to
them to leave children to their own devices and to the mercy of the personal whims of their
teachers. We can certainly learn from each other, but our learning needs to recognise
underlying differences in aims and ideology.
56 Roger Merry
These differences are equally crucial when we consider not just different systems, but also
how children may develop in the social context of the school. Several writers have contrasted
children’s learning at home and in school, often to the detriment of the latter. While agreeing
that the comparison is not entirely justified, Wood (1991) describes classrooms as contrived
learning situations in which the child’s learning depends on the teacher, while, in contrast,
parents teach their children spontaneously and naturally, depending on the child’s needs. To
be fair, most parents would probably prefer not to be faced with thirty children who are
replaced every year (or every forty minutes in secondary schools), nor to have the pressures
of a compulsory curriculum, regular assessments, league tables comparing them with other
parents, visits from teams of inspectors, or the need to produce policy statements and to state
their prior objectives every time they played with their child.
The contrast, of course, lies not in differences between teachers and parents but between
the child’s home and the need for developed societies to set up formal systems of education,
and it is a contrast which has only occasionally been examined directly by psychologists
interested in children’s learning. Carraher et al. (1990) carried out a particularly interesting
study of Brazilian child street vendors who were very adept at calculating costs and giving
change when selling snacks and sweets, but could not do exactly the same calculations written
down in a classroom context. To use Donaldson’s (1978) term, the latter tasks were
‘disembedded’ rather than set in a real and meaningful context, so the children demonstrated
a much lower level of competence.
In contrast with the open, informal and largely successful experience which was seen in
the previous chapter as being apparently characteristic of young children’s learning before
they go to school, formal attempts to teach in a school setting seem, to some writers, to be
doomed to fail. Thus, Holt (1991) claims that real learning is not the result of teaching but the
product of working things out for yourself.
The first few sections of this chapter looked at some cognitive, emotional and social
factors in the development of children between the ages of about seven and eleven, while
recognising that they cannot really be separated in practice. This section has emphasised the
wider cultural context in which children’s learning develops, seeing it not just as a
background, but as being inextricably bound up with the complex development of each
individual. Classrooms have not emerged as being necessarily ideal places to learn, but the
situation is hopefully not as gloomy nor the solution as radical as the de-schoolers suggest,
and the final section of the chapter will take up the main themes discussed so far and consider
some of their implications for teachers.
REVIEW
The general shift in conceptualisation, moving away from a need for concrete experience
towards an ability to deal with more abstract ideas. This shift has been discussed by various
writers, and although they are not directly comparable, some of the key terms mentioned in
this chapter are:
• Concrete operations
Formal operations
• Enactive and iconic representation

Symbolic representation
• Point and line modes

Construct and transcendent modes
• Embedded, contextualised
Disembedded, decontextualised.
Whichever way the changes are expressed, they clearly represent such major conceptual
shifts that the teacher’s role is going to be a complex and long-term one. What are some of the
things that teachers can do to encourage such development?
One of the most straightforward things that teachers can do is simply to give children more
time to reflect and respond. Teachers understandably feel uncomfortable and even
pressurised by a lack of immediate response, and Rowe (1986) found that the average ‘wait
time’ for teachers was very short. Some children, therefore, learn to avoid having to think by
simply keeping quiet, knowing that the teacher’s nerve will almost certainly break first and
that they will either ask an easier question or move on to plague someone else. Rowe found
that simply waiting for a few seconds improved not only the number of responses, but also the
quality of what the children said. Other writers have made similar suggestions. Sotto (1994),
for example, suggests that teachers should ask a question and, having got an answer, not
immediately evaluate the response or ask another question (which would seem the obvious
thing to do), but instead simply smile and wait, looking round for further responses and
shifting the responsibility and centre of attraction away from themselves on to the class
(‘teacher talk’ is discussed in detail in Chapter 8 of this book).
Changes like this imply a conceptual shift for teachers, and certainly suggest different
sorts of roles which are more in line with the views of children’s learning and development
proposed by writers like Bruner, Vygotsky and Feuerstein. Bruner’s notion of ‘scaffolding’
(see, e.g., Bruner and Haste 1987) requires teachers who make suggestions, corrections and
amplifications, and use questions to offer reasonable challenges rather than to check on the
58 Roger Merry
acquisition of facts. Vygotsky’s much-quoted ‘zone of proximal development’ (see, e.g.,

Wood 1988, Rogoff 1990, and Chapter 2 of this book) has the teacher in a very similar role,
enabling the child to cope with problems which they could not manage alone. Similarly,
Feuerstein sees the teacher as a crucial figure, providing ‘mediated’ learning experiences,
particularly for children who find it hard to make sense of the world for themselves (Sharron
1987).
What all these approaches have in common is that they portray the teacher as a facilitator
of children’s learning, rather than as the source of the knowledge to be passed on. In turn, this
of course means that the teacher must also be willing to reflect on their own practice, as
outlined in Chapter 7 of this book. What is certainly not implied is a parody of ‘child-centred’
education, in which children are left to their own devices to learn what they like as best they
can. In fact, the teacher’s role becomes a complex one involving what Rogoff (1990) calls
‘guided participation’, combining support and challenge to construct the learning
relationship which is at the heart of this book.
The development of strategies represents another sort of shift, from having little idea of
what to do when confronted with a problem, through the emergence of rehearsal, to the
development of elaborative strategies which enrich and transform the stimulus and enable the
learner to relate it to previous knowledge.
Overall, attempts to teach children directly to use more effective strategies have met with
mixed success. (For a debate about the value of teaching children strategies, see Howe 1991
and the peer reviews which followed his article.) In the short term, it has certainly proved
possible to improve children’s learning by showing them how to use various sorts of
mnemonic strategies, but the long-term results are often disappointing, with children failing
to apply the same strategies spontaneously when confronted with similar problems later on
(Levin 1993). This is why earlier discussion in this chapter emphasised the need, not only to
have strategies available, but also to be able to select them appropriately and monitor their
use.
Ashman and Conway (1993) suggest five levels at which the teacher may intervene to help
children towards independent and successful use of strategies, in a sequence which is very
much in line with Vygotsky’s view of thought as internalised language:
1 teacher models the strategy;

2 teacher gives instructions as child carries out the task;
3 child instructs him/herself aloud;
4 child whispers the instructions;
5 child uses internalised (possibly private) language for self-instruction.
Another factor which is likely to help children to take strategies on board for themselves
is the use of feedback to demonstrate that the strategies really are effective. Thus, McShane
(1991) compares experiments which succeeded in teaching children to rehearse for
themselves with experiments that failed, and concludes that such feedback is the crucial
variable.
A rather more controversial area of related research concerns the question of whether
‘knowledge-free’ materials develop skills more effectively than materials involving actual
curriculum materials. Feuerstein, for example, deliberately advocates the use of ‘content-
free’ puzzles to develop specific cognitive skills in children who may associate familiar-
looking materials with failure (Sharron 1987). On the other hand, as we saw earlier, growing
research evidence suggests that much learning is domain- or content-specific, supporting
claims that the most effective materials will be very closely related to actual curriculum
demands (Howe 1991). The SPELT programme, described by Andrews et al. (1989) is one
example, while the Somerset Thinking Skills course (Blagg et al. 1988) is an attempt to apply
some of the ideas of Feuerstein more directly to the curriculum.
Metacognition, or the ability to reflect on your own mental processes, is clearly linked to
strategy development, and among other things allows the child to select the best strategies and
to monitor their success, as discussed earlier. In general, the teacher’s task will be not so much
to instruct as to intervene in the child’s cognitive processes (Adey and Shayer 1994), to try to
bring these processes out into the open, and ultimately to enable the child to take on
responsibility for their own learning. Language will obviously be crucial here, but
unfortunately there could be a potential conflict for teachers:
What appears to be the dominant teaching register, involving frequent teacher-directed

questions, may be effective in achieving certain managerial and instructional ends, but it
seems unlikely to provide good conditions for developing children’s powers as narrators,
informants and, perhaps, self-regulating learners.
(Wood 1988: 145)
Clearly, a different sort of learning relationship, with a different sort of language, is called for,
taking us back to one of the oldest teaching techniques – Socratic dialogue. Meadows and
Cashdan (1988) discuss the effectiveness of this approach, where the teacher talks the pupil
through the problem with the ultimate aim of enabling the child to become ‘self-running’.
Similarly, ‘conferencing’ uses one-to-one discussion, partly to help children become more
self-aware and partly as an informal assessment device for teachers. The Primary Language
Record (CLPE 1988) is one of the best-known British examples.
For experienced teachers, a problem immediately springs to mind, of course. Where is one
supposed to get the time to have one-to-one dialogues with thirty children? One possible
60 Roger Merry
solution is to use the children themselves as ‘talk partners’, while another is to carry on the
dialogue in written form, allowing the teacher to communicate with each child when the
teacher chooses. A particularly lively example of this technique is described in ‘The Thinking
Books’ (Swan and White 1994). Each child simply wrote down something they had learned
that day, plus any questions they wanted to ask, and the teacher wrote a brief response.
Significantly, the children found it far from simple at first, and their comments and questions
provided the teacher with some valuable insights about what they really had (or had not)
learned. Moreover, encouraging the children to reflect on their own learning seemed to have
long-term benefits which were still apparent eight years later.
Attitudes and feelings have been seen as inextricably bound up with cognitive
development because successful problem-solving requires not only appropriate strategies,
but also positive attitudes both towards the problem and towards yourself as a problem solver.
So exactly what sorts of positive attitudes should teachers try to encourage, and what sorts of
negative attitudes should they be aware of as potentially damaging? At risk of parody, the
attitudes of good and poor learners after a few years’ experience of school success or failure
can be briefly summarised:
• Successful learners don’t mind if they don’t yet know the answer – indeed they will often
relish not knowing and feel confident that they will find out eventually, to the extent that
they may prefer not to be told the answer even if it is readily available. They will also run
the risk that a line of thought may prove wrong, and be willing to try other solutions when
they already have one. They have an ‘internal locus of control’ which attributes success
largely to their own efforts, and prefer tasks which are moderately difficult, in line with the
previous idea of ‘comfortable challenge’. They see themselves as good learners and have
high self-esteem.
• Unsuccessful learners may latch on impulsively to the first answer that seems reasonable
and to persist with it in the face of contrary evidence. They attribute success to external
factors, including pure luck, and see their learning as the teacher’s responsibility, often
acting in helpless or passive ways. They may develop strategies for avoiding tasks on the
grounds that, if you don’t try, you can’t fail, and they prefer tasks which are either very easy
(thus presenting no challenge) or impossibly difficult (so that no-one can blame them for
failing). They see themselves as poor learners and have low self-esteem.
Developing a classroom climate and learning relationships where positive attitudes can
flourish is clearly a long-term task and, again, the teacher’s willingness to act as a model can
provide a starting point, demonstrating not only appropriate learning strategies but also
showing the child that not knowing something is acceptable. Allowing children to experience
success is one apparently obvious way, though we do need to recognise that success can
actually be a threat to children who see themselves as failures. Equally, however, we should
perhaps not try to avoid failure at all costs, since it is only through experiencing failure that
children can learn how to cope with it, and deciding not to get involved in a new learning
situation may sometimes be the right decision (Claxton 1996). The ideal is therefore to
present children with an appropriate challenge, but in a secure context. Chapter 4 of this book
describes a range of classroom techniques which encourage self-esteem and develop social
skills, often using the support of the peer group, which becomes increasingly important as
children reach puberty (see McNamara and Moreton 1993 for more detail.) Conversely,
preparing something for younger children may help those in the junior years by emphasising
what they do know and enabling them to help others for a change.
The social context of learning has also been seen not just as a background, but as
inextricably involved in individual cognitive development, in both the general context of the
child’s culture and in the immediate social situations of family or classroom which reflect that
culture. Indeed, many of the ideas already mentioned imply a learning relationship which
shifts both adult and child away from the traditional teacher and pupil roles. Such a shift will
not be easy, particularly in cultures which themselves seem to require the teacher to maintain
an authoritarian role, and, even in apparently ‘progressive’ classrooms, the teacher must
retain social control in order to manage the class. Nor would it be sensible to emphasise
individual cognitive processes and strategies at the expense of culturally-defined knowledge,
since clearly both are involved in learning if that learning is to be both meaningful and useful.
Ideally, as teachers, we would like children to learn for themselves what we just happen to
have planned for them.
Bearing this in mind, it is still possible for teachers to encourage the sorts of cognitive
development discussed in this chapter, within the social constraints of the classroom. As
suggested earlier, teachers can model good practices themselves, for instance by admitting
(or even pretending) that they don’t know something and demonstrating how they find out, in
line with the notion of ‘apprenticeship’. Reading in class is another example, and ideas like
USSR (uninterrupted sustained silent reading) or ERIC (everyone reads in class) propose that
the teacher should sometimes read silently at the same time as the children, showing that
adults read too and that reading is not just something that children have to do out loud for the
teacher. Similarly, Waterland (1985) proposes a whole approach to reading based on the
notion of the child as apprentice.
The role of the teacher as mediator between child and culture has already been mentioned,
and is emphasised by writers like Rogoff (1990) who are interested in the whole process of
social cognition. (Significantly, Rogoff called her book Apprenticeship in Thinking.)
Successful teachers use what she calls ‘guided participation’ to involve the child at ‘a
comfortable but slightly challenging level’ . Writing as a philosopher rather than a
62 Roger Merry
psychologist, Bonnett (1994) uses the term ‘empathetic challenging’ in a very similar way to
denote a teacher role which is both accepting and demanding. The comfortable, accepting
side of the role acknowledges the existing understanding of the child, while the challenging,
demanding side recognises culturally-defined needs for certain knowledge and skills.
Such shifts in role can be subtle and even temporary, rather than radical and permanent,
though it is important for teachers to signal when they wish to change from being
unapproachable autocrats to sympathetic mediators! Simply changing the seating
arrangements can help, and devices like ‘circle time’ encourage other sorts of learning
relationships. Nor is it purely a matter of teachers teaching differently, since getting children
to help each other is very much in line with the other suggestions in this section. (Chapter 4
discusses the value of genuine cooperative groupwork, as opposed to children sitting in
groups but ignoring each other.) Rogoff (1990: 22) sees peer interaction as ‘especially
important in its encouragement of children’s exploration without immediate goals (as in play
or curious fooling around), its motivating nature that channels children’s choice of activities,
and its availability.’ Similarly, Boden (1994) regards peer cooperation and discussion as
crucial in developing cognitive as well as social skills.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has briefly discussed some of the major developments which take place in
children’s learning between the ages of about seven and eleven. The beginning of a general
shift towards more adult ways of thinking obviously involves cognitive changes, like the
ability to select, use and monitor a wider range of strategies, but appropriate attitudes and
social awareness are equally vital during these years, as formalised schooling plays an
increasingly important part in what children learn. In turn, this means that psychologists, if
they are to have anything directly useful to say to teachers, must also continue to further our
understanding of the wider cultural context in which schools function and in which children’s
learning develops.
REFERENCES
Adey, P. and Shayer, M. (1994) Really Raising Standards: Cognitive Intervention and
Academic Achievement, London: Routledge.
Andrews, J., Peat, D., Mulcahy, R. and Marfo, K. (1989) ‘Developing social competence
within regular classrooms through a cognitive strategies approach’, in C. Violate and A.
Marini (eds) Child Development: Readings for Teachers, Calgary: Detselig Enterprises.
Ashman, A. and Conway, R. (1993) Using Cognitive Methods in the Classroom, London:
Routledge.
Blagg, N., Ballinger, M. and Gardner, R. (1988) Somerset Thinking Skills Course Handbook,
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Boden, M. (1994) Piaget (2nd edn), London: Fontana.
Bonnett, M. (1994) Children’s Thinking: Promoting Understanding in the Primary School,
London: Cassell.
Bruner, J. and Haste, H. (1987) Making Sense: The Child’s Construction of the World,
London: Methuen.
Carraher, T. N., Carraher, D. W. and Schliemann, A. D. (1990) ‘Mathematics in the streets and
in schools’, in V. Lee (ed.) Children’s Learning in School, Milton Keynes: Open
University.
Claxton, G. (1996) ‘Integrated learning theory and the learning teacher’, in G. Claxton, T.
Anderson, M. Osborn and M. Wallace (eds) Liberating the Learner: Lessons for
Professional Development in Education, London: Routledge.
CLPE (Centre for Language in Primary Education) (1988) The Primary Language Record:
A Handbook for Teachers, London: CLPE.
Donaldson, M. (1978) Children’s Minds, Glasgow: Fontana/Collins.
— (1992) Human Minds: An Exploration, London: Penguin.
Galloway, D. and Edwards, A. (1991) Primary School Teaching and Educational
Psychology, London: Longman
Gardner, H. (1983) Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, London:
Heinemann.
Halford, G. S. (1993) Children’s Understanding: The Development of Mental Models,
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Holt, J. (1984) How Children Fail, Harmondsworth: Penguin
— (1991) Learning all the Time, Ticknall: Education Now.
Howe, M. J. A. (1991) ‘A fine idea but does it work?’, British Psychological Society
Education Section Review, 15(2), 43–6.
Hudson, J. A. (1993) ‘Script knowledge’, in M. Bennett The Child as Psychologist: an
Introduction to the Development of Social Cognition, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Kail, R. V. (1990) The Development of Memory in Children, New York: W. H. Freeman.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992) Beyond Modularity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levin, J. R. (1993) ‘Mnemonic strategies and classroom learning: a twenty-year report card’,
Elementary School Journal, 94(2), 235–44.
McNamara, S. and Moreton, G. (1993) Teaching Special Needs, London: David Fulton.
64 Roger Merry
McShane, J. (1991) Cognitive Development: An Information-Processing Approach, Oxford:

Blackwell.
Meadows, S. (1993) The Child as Thinker: The Development and Acquisition of Cognition in
Childhood, London: Routledge.
Meadows, S. and Cashdan, A. (1988) Helping Children Learn: Contributions to a Cognitive
Curriculum, London: David Fulton.
Moran, A. (1991) ‘What can learning styles research learn from cognitive psychology?’,
Educational Psychology, 11(3/4), 239–45.
Perner, J. (1991) Understanding the Representational Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Rogoff, B. (1990) Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context,
New York: Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B., Gauvain, M. and Ellis, S. (1989) ‘Development viewed in its cultural context’, in
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Learning to Think, London: Routledge.
Rowe, M. B. (1986) ‘Wait time: slowing down may be a way of speeding up!’, Journal of
Teacher Education, 37, 43–50.
Sharron, H. (1987) Changing Children’s Minds: Feuerstein’s Revolution in the Teaching of
Intelligence, London: Souvenir Press.
Simmons, P. R-J. ( 1994) ‘Metacognition’, in T. Husen and T. N. Postlethwaite International
Encyclopedia of Education (2nd edn), Oxford: Pergamon.
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Swan, S. and White, R. (1994) The Thinking Books, London: Falmer.
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Chapter 4
Children with special educational needs

Supporting the learning relationship
Sylvia McNamara
INTRODUCTION: THE INTEGRATION–SEGREGATION DEBATE
Although most Western countries have put a great deal of effort into the development of
separate special educational systems (Pijl and Meijer 1991), the whole notion of segregation
has increasingly come under attack. A major effect of segregated systems was the
development of expertise in teachers, resources and special instructional methods in the
special schools, but one unfortunate consequence of this separation was the belief by some
teachers in mainstream schools that they were unable to teach pupils with special needs
because they lacked the skills to do so. Some were not motivated to acquire such skills and
saw children with special needs as being outside their remit. Integration challenged both the
idea that segregation was best for students with special needs and the idea that mainstream
teachers lacked the expertise to deal with such students.
This integration movement came about for several different reasons. Some parents and
administrators supported the pressure for change, leaving other groups of parents and
administrators defending the status quo, that is to say the segregated, specialist settings.
Those who were against integration wanted separate specialist resources and provision for
children with special needs, while those who were for integration did not want children
stigmatised, labeled and separated from their peers in the immediate community. There were
also strong moral and human rights arguments voiced for social cohesion, social equality and
social equity (Welton and Evans 1986). In addition,
analysis of the outcomes of students of special educational provision, together with first-
hand accounts of the experience of special educational treatment, provide a dissenting
view of the benefits of the traditional assumptions and practices of special education.
(Slee 1995: 33–4).
In summary, the rationale for integration is that segregation is damaging for people because
they have at some stage in their lives to live in an integrated setting, and neither group of
66 Sylvia McNamara
people, special or main-stream, will have had much practice in dealing with each other. It is
also damaging because of the stigma of separation. It is an argument which states that any
gains which can be had from the centralisation of specialist resources are actually outweighed
by the social losses (Dessent 1987).
With the 1988 Education Act, the introduction of competition, market forces and value for
money, integration has come to mean more in the UK than the right of access and entitlement
for the child with special needs. As Fish and Evans (1995) point out, parental choice means
that parents expect to be able to choose between two sets of provision, special and
mainstream. This duplication of provision has serious financial implications, as has been
outlined by the Audit Commission (1992), but for some teachers and administrators, it has led
to a situation where the challenge is now to produce such an attractive combination of peer
support, local schooling and progression in academic work in the main-stream setting that the
special provision will dry up due to lack of clients.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
The most recent development in the special needs debate has been the notion of inclusive
education. While this word may have different meanings in different countries, and while the
classroom practice of one inclusive setting may be very different to that of another, even
within one country, let alone between countries, it is still helpful to examine the US
explanation, as there are parallels with classroom practices in other settings.
Inclusive education is an umbrella term used in the United States to describe the
restructuring of special education to permit all or most students to be integrated in
mainstream classrooms through reorganisation and instructional innovations (e.g. co-
operative learning, collaborative and instructional innovations and team teaching).
(Ware 1995: 127)
The Warnock Report (DES 1978) in the UK drew a useful distinction between locational,
social and functional integration, and inclusive education could be said to be an illustration
of the last of these.
Locational integration is where, for example, a special unit exists on the same site as the
mainstream school and the children share facilities but rarely meet or play with one another.
Social integration is where children will eat or play together but attend the majority of their
lessons separately. Functional integration is where children with special needs are able to
access the curriculum fully and maintain good social relationships with their peers.
Some would argue that locational integration exists when children with special needs are
in the mainstream classroom but are given different work, have the almost constant help of a
Children with special educational needs 67
welfare assistant or a specialist special needs teacher, but may be excluded, shunned or
dismissed by their peers. In such situations, it is felt that inclusive education rather than
integration should be the goal.
Rather than thinking about how to bring pupils with SEN into the ordinary school system
why have an education system which presumes exclusion? This point was firmly stated in
the Declaration of the 1994 UNESCO World Conference on special needs (UNESCO
1994).
(Wedell 1995: 100)
The similarities, both in terms of policy legislation and changes in systems in the UK and the
USA, are identified by Croll and Moses (1994). They highlight four major themes: inclusion;
extension of the concept of special educational need; integration; and individualisation;
although they point out that the legislation in both countries concentrates more on systems of
identification and assessment than on methodology.
However, as Chapter 6 of this book implies, the concept of integration, like other important
educational issues, is based on cultural values which are in turn interpreted by social
institutions. Thus, in much of the Western world, there is an emphasis on the rights and
entitlement of the individual, while elsewhere the emphasis is more on the contribution which
the individual can make to the community. It may also be the case that, in some countries, the
priority of education has, for economic reasons alone, focused on education for ‘normal’
children, specialist schools for those who are ‘mentally handicapped and have sensory
impairment’, with little or no provision for those with learning difficulties:
Despite substantial progress in reaching and teaching children with learning difficulties
less than one per cent of those with significant learning disabilities attend any form of
school in most developing countries (UNESCO 1995). The rest remain at home, often
leading lonely and isolated lives.
(Mittler 1995: 105)
This is the case in China, for example, where the categories used to assess special needs are
hearing and speaking disabilities, visual disability, mental disorder and multiple disabilities.
There has been a dramatic increase in provision for these categories in recent years. For
instance, for children categorised as mentally retarded, the provision had increased from 131
special schools and 599 special classes in 1987 to 856 special schools and 2,651 special
classes by 1990 (Potts 1995). Despite the enormous drain on resources of such an expansion,
there has also been a clear attempt to integrate those in the mental retardation category. Potts
cites a project of peer tutoring to support children with IQs of 60 on her visit in 1992, for
example.
68 Sylvia McNamara
Ashman also indicates that developments in special education in China may follow similar
lines to those in the UK:
Where the expertise of Chinese Special Education has been long and where there has been
constant contact with overseas education and research (as in hearing and visual
impairment) programmes and techniques are much the same as in other countries. In the
area of intellectual disabilities and speech and language disabilities however the process
of programme and curriculum development may have to pass through a similar
evolutionary process to that which has occurred in the West.
(Ashman 1995: 56).
In order to understand this evolutionary process, the next section will look at how it
originates in a ‘traditional’ view of special needs education.
THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF SPECIAL NEEDS
The traditional, or ‘within-child’, view is based on the ‘psycho-medical paradigm’ (Clarke et

al. 1995: 76). That is to say it is a view of special needs that locates the problem with the child
and their difference. Thus, a child is seen as having a problem because she is blind. She is not
normal, and we must either do as much as we can to make her as normal as possible, or we
must lower our expectations of her because she is blind. But this concept of normality and the
attendant educational strategies that accompany it have been challenged by some of those
who are disabled and have been on the receiving end of such an approach.
Hearing impairment presents an interesting illustration of some of the issues. In the
Western world there is a furious debate that continues among both the hearing and the
hearing-impaired communities. Those in the ‘deaf world’ insist that they should be allowed
to sign, because signing helps those who are deaf to communicate. Many parents and teachers
think that children should not be taught to sign but made to speak, because signing makes
them different. So there are ‘non-signing’ Local Education Authorities which have a hearing-
impaired support service of experts who are banned from signing.
In the traditional paradigm, the identification of children with special needs and the
placement of them in an appropriate educational setting depends on testing, and particularly
on IQ testing. For many Western and Pacific rim countries, there is a clear relation between
IQ and special provision. Thus, moderate and mild learning difficulties will usually be
defined by IQs of 50–75, severe learning difficulties will be 20–49 and profound and multiple
will be below 20 (Ware 1990). In contrast, in the UK a statement of need based on a multi-
professional assessment is used. This will probably contain an IQ score, but will also contain
a profile of strengths and weaknesses.
For some workers in the field of special education, progress towards integration and
inclusion was accompanied by a more positive view of special needs. There was a move away
from explaining poor academic achievement in terms of low intelligence, towards a more
optimistic view emphasising a pupil’s capacity for learning. This was accompanied by a
questioning of the usefulness of the IQ test as an assessment tool, summarised by Thomas and
Feiler:
Intelligence was supposed to be inherited, uninfluenced by teaching, could be measured

accurately, and was unchanging over time. . . . It is now widely accepted that intelligence
quotients do not remain constant over time and that performance on such tests is
influenced by cultural and educational factors (Clarke and Clarke 1976).
(Thomas and Feiler 1992: 35)
From the traditional view of IQs developed programmes of work:
These were based on the idea that academic skills such as reading and writing depend on
the existence of a core set of sub-skills. It was proposed that if one could measure a child’s
ability in these underpinning areas it should then be possible to identify deficits, present
the children with suitable programmes to compensate for these weaknesses and therefore
improve the academic outcome.
Unfortunately, research evidence has shown that, while children do get better at the sub-
skills such as visual sequencing, there is no carryover into academic skills (Newcomer and
Hammill: 1975).
THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH
A related but slightly different instructional methodology that is a hallmark of the traditional
view is the behavioural approach. This has spawned a number of different teaching strategies,
including teaching to objectives, small steps, task analysis and individual programmes. There
are obviously some advantages to such techniques, summarised by Burman et al. (1983):
1 They help teachers to know where to begin with new children and facilitate smooth
progression between classes within the school.
2 They are useful for assessing progress.
3 Structured curriculum means that teachers no longer need to worry about what to teach and
can spend time deciding how to teach.
4 They promote parent–teacher cooperation.
5 They imply a positive, optimistic approach.
70 Sylvia McNamara
The testing of children to work out where they are and where they should begin on a
programme is a key element here, and screening and diagnostic tests of reading or maths
difficulties become vitally important. The person who regularly administers such tests
becomes familiar and expert in them and rapidly assumes the mantle of special needs expert.
Thus, many assume a connection between knowledge of tests and special needs expertise
about programmes that can be devised once the results of such tests are revealed. There is not
necessarily such a connection, and there are several problematic assumptions underlying
objectives approaches.
One such assumption is that the tests tend to see cognitive development in the skills of
reading and maths and science as sequential and hierarchical. This may not be accurate and it
may not be the best way for all children to learn. Gardner’s work on multiple intelligences has
led to the creation of some interesting projects in the USA in which children are being taught
a particular subject, such as maths, in a way that fits their particular intelligence strength, like
music for instance (Gardner 1993). Certainly there is a renewed interest in both the US and
the UK on teaching styles that match the learning styles of children (Goleman 1996).
Another assumption is that people with severe or multiple learning difficulties can be
taught social and cognitive basic routines through repetition, reward and ‘chunking’, in other
words breaking a piece of curriculum down into small enough pieces for the person to master
the skill before moving on.
Early research findings indicated that people with severe learning difficulties did not learn
things incidentally in the way that non-handicapped children did, but that they could
acquire skills previously thought to be beyond them if the task was broken down into small
steps and carefully and specifically taught (e.g. Clarke and Herman-Fleiss 1955, Gold
1973, Horner and Keilitz 1975).
(Ware 1990: 159)
INDIVIDUAL EDUCATION PROGRAMMES
The result of this rationale has been an emphasis on individualised learning programmes to
the point where special education is almost synonymous with individual programmes in the
UK and Europe. Indeed, the guidance accompanying the Code of Practice, the latest
legislation on special needs in the UK, specifies the production of Individual Education
Programmes (IEPs) for all children who are identified as having Special Educational Needs.
These programmes are designed for an individual, based on the diagnosis of where that person
is on a given set of skills.
They can, however, lead to another assumption: that is that, since the expertise resides in
special schools which cater for the ‘most severe’, then mainstream teachers who wish to
integrate children with special needs will need to adapt and use the approaches and
instructional methods from special schools. This means using individual educational
programmes for some in classes of thirty or more, which most classroom teachers regard as
exhausting and therefore unfair on both themselves and the other children in the class.
There is also an assumption about age-related development norms. In the UK, this
assumption is combined with a pedagogy which is child-centred and purports to use a
combination of individual exploration and collaborative groupwork approaches to teaching.
British teachers try to cope in various ways:
1 They try to protect the child from the bad feelings of failure associated with doing the work
the ‘rest’ are set, so instead they give the children different work to do. A problem with
such ‘differentiation by task’ is the danger of low expectations. It is interesting to note that,
in the first few years of the SATs tests in the UK, children with special needs at all key
stages usually did better on the national SATs than on teacher assessment. OFSTED and
HMI have highlighted low expectations, especially for children with literacy difficulties,
for the past fifteen years.
2 Teachers ask for another adult to work with the child in the classroom, either a support
teacher or a classroom assistant, a welfare assistant or an ancillary. The problem with this
solution is to do with learned helplessness and attribution theory and low self-esteem,
which are discussed later in the chapter.
3 Teachers try to be all things to all children, suffer stress and get burnt out. Many teachers
in the UK are currently leaving the profession after only three or four years, or taking early
retirement at fifty.
4 To protect themselves from burn-out, the teachers send the child to a special unit or school
and pass on the responsibility to others whom they regard as more ‘expert’.
5 The child is effectively punished for having special needs and is permanently excluded
from school if the associated behaviour problems become severe.
However, if the instructional technique uses rote routines and learning in hierarchies in the
mainstream classroom, there will be less of a problem in terms of adapting and
individualising work for individual children. In this case the work is already delivered in an
objectives, sub-skills approach to the whole class, though it does require extra effort from the
teacher. In some countries this emphasis on the individual with problems comes down to
offering more teacher attention and more reinforcement in order to get the child to produce
work of a similar nature to the others in the class.
Reynolds (1995) notes that countries like Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong are very
successful in reducing the standard deviation or range of their pupils’ achievements. They do
this by getting all their children through the hurdles of basic skills acquisition by age eight or
nine.
72 Sylvia McNamara
In our schools within Hong Kong and Taiwan, this success is brought about at the cost of
formidable investment of teacher effort in the education of children with special
educational needs.
(Reynolds 1995: 123)
He goes on to describe teachers walking up and down the rows, giving almost all of their
attention to such children, the children attending extra catch-up classes, having more
homework than other children, and ending up not differing from their peers as much as those
with special needs in the integrated system in the UK.
However, there would probably be arguments against adopting the Taiwan and Hong
Kong approach in the UK. For example:
1 The teacher would be spending time almost exclusively with the children with special
needs and virtually ignoring the rest. In a child-centred culture, this would be viewed as
helping children with special needs at the expense of the rest, and would be unacceptable.
Alternatively, another adult must be brought in to focus on one of the two groups, each of
which is actually getting different treatment.
2 The children with special needs are getting extra – and therefore different – tuition during
the day.
3 The children with special needs are getting extra – and therefore different – homework.
In the UK, this would add up to something close to a segregated provision under the guise of
locational integration.
SELF-ESTEEM AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
As has already been suggested, there are clear advantages for teachers in using objectives
approaches and related techniques. They facilitate planning and record keeping, and there is
evidence of success in terms of the specific goals, even if generalisation to academic success
is rare. On the other hand, these advantages emphasise the views of the parent and the teacher
more than those of the child. The more that one is interested in child involvement, the more
that teaching to objectives needs to incorporate an element of discussion, negotiation and
child-identified target setting.
The disadvantages centre mainly on the issue of motivation. Many children with learning
difficulties also have associated behavioural difficulties, which result in them refusing to do
tasks which have been identified as being within their grasp. The reasons for these
behavioural difficulties seem to be linked to some of the psychological motivation theories,
such as self-esteem, attribution theory and learned helplessness, and it is to these that we now
turn, beginning with self-esteem.
There have been a number of studies relating self-esteem and academic achievement,
showing a strong, persistent link between the two (Purkey 1970). These research results have
since been replicated with numerous studies covering countries throughout the world and all
phases of education (Piskin 1996). Skaalvik and Hagvet (1990) provide a recent example.
Burns (1982) also noted the powerful correlation between low academic achievement and
low self-esteem:
Where tests of general self concept were used most studies found a consistent relationship
of about 90% of the variance common to the two measures. When a measure of academic
self was used about 30% of the variance was common to both measures; correlations of
between 0.5 and 0.6.
(Burns 1982: 209)
If the sense of self-worth is so powerfully linked with academic achievement, and there is
no clear causal relationship, then it is possible that a focus on raising self-esteem instead of a
focus on sub-skills and hierarchies could provide an increase in academic achievement.
Moreover, approaches using objectives, small steps, individual programmes and
differentiation by task may actually reduce self-esteem by accentuating differences. For
example, Wade and Moore (1993) interviewed a number of students from all phases of
education in both the UK and New Zealand – one of the few studies which actually consulted
the customer. They asked students with special needs their views on the following issues:
teachers, lessons, parents and school, changing schools, feeling different, friends and
enemies, fun and games, getting into trouble, being assessed and tested. Their sample
expressed more negative views about testing than about any other category. Given that testing
is the backbone of the objectives approach, this does not bode well for a strong sense of self-
worth, and ‘responses to the questionnaire and sentence completions suggest that the self
concept of our students was unacceptably low’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 161).
They also found that the students generally expressed positive views about their teachers
– ‘they liked helpful, understanding teachers who were fair, had a sense of humour and made
lessons interesting’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 40).
Like other groups, the students with special needs were more negative about lessons,
finding some enjoyable, but worrying about difficulties with work. ‘Very few students had
strategies of self-reliance when faced with problems, and few sought the collaboration of
classmates. Students in difficulty either stewed in inactivity or worry or relied on their
teachers for help’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 56).
They were anxious about their parents, although these anxieties varied from not enough
help with homework to wanting more love and care, while their views about changing schools
revealed a ‘split between those who were positive about making a change and the majority
who focussed on worrying about losing and making friends’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 85).
74 Sylvia McNamara
In relation to feeling different, many appeared to view themselves negatively and ‘a

summary of responses indicated that students do not feel different so much as not so good
academically’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 101). As for friends and enemies, ‘students who were
fully integrated have stronger friendships although they argue more’, and ‘many students
perceived that others disliked them because of differences emanating from their disabilities
or special educational needs’ (Wade and Moore 1993: 116).
The students in the sample had positive attitudes to fun and games, but the majority were
not happy at playtime, being bored, lonely, uncomfortable or unhappy (Wade and Moore
1993: 130).
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Attribution theory shows that those with high self-esteem have realistic and accurate
explanations of success and failure: ‘I got a low mark in that test because I did not revise,’ or
‘I do well in French because I enjoy the subject and I spend time learning the vocabulary.’
Those with low self-esteem, however, are more likely to attribute success to luck or
chance, and failure to their own lack of ability. ‘I got high marks in my science test because I
was lucky with the questions that came up,’ or ‘I got low marks in maths because I am no good
at maths.’
This may start to account for the reason why some children with special needs aggressively
refuse to carry out tasks that the special needs teacher has carefully planned by identifying
sub-skills and breaking these into smaller steps. Some children become verbally aggressive
to other children, and are the ones most disliked by their peers (Wade and Moore 1993). Other
children destroy the work set, or simply refuse to do it. Still others seem to show or experience
no sense of pride when they receive help from other adults to carry out the work. This then
means that the welfare assistant, who is often the ‘extra resource’ provided for the child with
special needs, cannot perform a helpful function.
Other children seem totally unable to get started on a task without an enormous amount of
adult help and support. This is known as Learned Helplessness.
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Learned Helplessness is the term used when people stop trying things for themselves because
they believe they cannot do them. It is the belief that stops them, not their actual ability
(Abrahmson et al. 1978, Craske 1988). This was articulated by the chess player Kasparov
when he played against a computer (1994). The computer won, but, when interviewed,
Kasparov said that he did not think the reason he lost was because the computer was actually
so fast, and therefore better than him. He thought he had lost because he was afraid that the
computer would win.
Craske (1988) noticed that children with poor academic self-concept appear to be
particularly susceptible to learned helplessness. Abrahmson et al. (1978) found that a state of
learned helplessness is reached when an individual perceives that he lacks control in
obtaining his desired outcome. The type of explanation (attribution) that an individual makes
for his lack of control determines the features of his helplessness.
Craske separated out a population of primary school children who were failing at maths
into two groups: those whose deteriorated performance after failure is a consequence of
Learned Helplessness, and those whose performance is motivated by Self-Worth
considerations. She carried out an attribution retraining programme with all of the children
and found that, while the Learned Helplessness group did respond to retraining, the Self-
Worth group did not. This supported the findings of Dweck (1975). There are, however,
different programmes which can be carried out to increase self-esteem (Lawrence 1973,
1988; Borba and Borba 1978; Gurney 1988; Mosley 1993, 1994; McNamara and Moreton
1993, 1995, in press).
These two theories seem to shed light on the reactions encountered when working with a
child as a support teacher or when ‘withdrawing’ youngsters, for example for extra help with
handwriting or spelling. It sometimes seems as if the problem is not so much that a pupil
cannot do the work, but more that they do not want to do it. It is as if they refuse to
acknowledge that other adults know that they have difficulties and that the task is one that has
been set especially for them and is within their capabilities. Their tactics of either total
withdrawal, aggressive refusal or clowning about, seem to be avoidance tactics because they
believe that they cannot do the work. It seems that it is better for them to pretend that they do
not care about the work because the risk of failure is too painful. In addition, some pupils seem
to behave badly in order to deflect the cause of failure from lack of skill, so that both the
teacher and the child can attribute the poor academic progress to the bad behaviour.
Approaches to special needs which pay attention to these theories of motivation will
probably encompass the following:
It is most important that
(a) children with special educational needs feel they have something to contribute to
develop their self-esteem;
(b) their motivation is increased by being treated as partners in their own learning;
76 Sylvia McNamara
(c) we obtain sufficient feedback (including feelings and attitudes) to help us properly
direct our contributions, interventions, and provisions;
(d) we maximise the potential of every child by consultation, partnership and interaction;
(e) we avoid creating handicap, and treat pupils with special educational needs as normal
(and according to the 1981 Education Act’s concept of a continuum).
(Wade and Moore 1993: 11)
Wade and Moore, in common with the authors of several chapters in this book, emphasise
the social context of learning, and it is obviously equally important to recognise this context
when examining children’s learning difficulties. The next section, therefore, turns to the
ecological model, which is perhaps particularly relevant to special needs education.
THE ECOLOGICAL MODEL
This is the model which says that the child’s needs are special in relation to their environment.
It is a relative view, challenging the idea of normal ity. It suggests that the first step in the
identification of a child’s needs should not be to administer an IQ test or some assessment to
see where they fit into a given programme, but instead to observe the context in which a child’s
learning difficulties take place. The second step is a review by the teacher to see if any of that
context can be changed.
The ecological model is a synthesis of the individual-centred and the context based
understanding of situations. It takes as its starting point the fact that a child’s behaviour
cannot be separated from the context in which it occurs. Given such a simple starting point,
it is not discordant with models which have traditionally been separated by wide
differences both on methodology and content.
Sheila Wolfendale (1987) also outlines an ecological model for primary schools.
In summary, then, this approach states that if a child acts up in the classroom and the
parents say that this is not happening elsewhere, maybe the problem is not with the child but
with the context of the classroom, which does not suit the child’s needs. Given that it is
teachers who are in charge of the classroom and actually create the context, then maybe it is
us!
In this case, the imperative to examine teaching and learning styles is powerful. How can
we make schools more effective?
THE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS VIEW
The effective schools argument takes the ecological model one step further than the
arrangements in the classroom, arguing for changing whole school ethos and management
systems. It notes that, although integration has been espoused in the Western world, the
incidence of children with special needs actually learning alongside their peers and
interacting as equals is small (Ainscow 1994).
The argument then focuses on changing the school system, the teaching arrangements, the
pedagogy, the teachers’ ability to work in teams, the leadership and vision in the school, with
different authors emphasising different aspects. Thus Clarke, Dyson, Millward and Skidmore
(1995) argue that it is virtually impossible that teachers will never reach a point where there
is a common ethos, but Ainscow (1994) focuses particularly on in-service training and has
developed a pack of materials to try to bring about this change, while Hopkins (1995) argues
that effective teachers are ones who use a range of teaching styles appropriately.
This author has developed a strategy for increasing the range of a teacher’s styles so that
the teaching methodology takes into account the motivational issues outlined above, and the
ecological considerations, and also incorporates a skills approach. The approach differs from
previous training programmes, however, because the skills training focuses not on the child
with special needs, but on ‘the rest’ – the child’s peers in the classroom. It is based on the
principle that the difficulty is not the child and the child’s difference, but the others in the
group. This programme is called ‘Inclusion Skills Training’
CLASSROOM ORGANISATION – SKILLS TRAINING FOR INCLUSION
Inclusion skills involve a method of teaching the curriculum to ensure that every member of
the group has a healthy self-esteem; it is a specialist pedagogy (McNamara and Moreton
1993). The skills training approach builds on the premise that what is needed in the classroom
is not necessarily an extra adult as a support for the pupil with special needs, but more urgently
a change in teaching and learning styles (Slavin 1983; Johnson and Johnson 1975; Ainscow
1991, 1994; McNamara and Moreton 1993, in press; McNamara et al. 1996).
This change means giving more power and control to the students, teaching them to
manage themselves and others. It also means a classroom that has much more pupil talk and
much less reliance on reading and writing, or on worksheets – differentiated or not (Vygotsky
1962; DES 1975; Tough 1977; Wells 1985, 1986; DES 1989).
The starting point then is oracy – that is to say, ‘talk’. For many children and adults with
special needs, talk is a way of learning that takes away one of the major impediments, i.e.
reading. This is not to say that children should not learn to read, but rather that they should be
freed to learn about other aspects of the curriculum while they are still learning to read. This
78 Sylvia McNamara
oracy work raises achievement for all, because it enables all children to clarify and build on
their conceptual understanding, as already happens in many middle-class homes (Vygotsky
1962).
GROUPWORK SKILLS
The development of inclusion skills is based on the ideas embedded in groupwork skills
training (Johnson and Johnson 1975; Schmuck and Schmuck 1977; Stanford 1977; Kingsley
Mills et al. 1992). Many teachers have found that, when they try groupwork, the children
appear to have difficulties with it, the task is not completed, the children are negative and
disruptive to each other and chaos ensues. Not surprisingly, teachers are then reluctant to use
groupwork in future. But groupwork progress can be analysed in the careful way that reading
progress is, and a small-steps approach can be applied to the groupwork problems that
children usually have, such as the inability to:
• take your turn;

• share ideas;
• build on previous contributions;
• include silent members;
• share out tasks.
A programme similar to that advocated in this chapter would probably then be devised by
many practitioners. Such attention to group process skills, however, is rare, as many teachers
assume that the choice of a suitable task is sufficient to ensure that the kinds of interaction they
expect will happen automatically. This means that teachers are unlikely to get to the stage of
cooperative groupwork, and witness the learning that children go through in this setting. This
learning has been well documented (Slavin 1983; Jaques 1984; Sharan and Kussell 1984).
If teachers could be persuaded to engage in a skills training approach to groupwork, they
could start to reap some of the benefits documented by others who have used it successfully
to integrate and include students with special needs (Thousand and Villa 1991; Thousand et
al. 1994; Stainback and Stainback 1992, 1995).
These benefits are summarised below:
1 Groupwork helps each person to feel that they are a part of what is going on, and
individuals begin to feel genuinely integrated.
2 Working as part of a group ensures that each person has access to the same broad and
balanced curriculum. Differentiation by outcome can then be built in through the
assessment procedures and these can be shared with individuals and groups in an open
manner.
3 Groupwork allows children to increase their ability to include everyone and to make
statements about themselves. It facilitates a more constructive system of feedback for the
student with special educational needs than feedback based on academic ability.
4 There is a potential to increase children’s self-esteem by encouraging them to identify
positive qualities in one another and to find constructive ways of giving negative feedback.
Realistic feedback raises academic self-esteem (Burns 1982; Coopersmith 1967).
5 There is a clear link in the research between academic self-esteem and academic
achievement (Hamachek 1986; Burns 1982). It is possible, therefore, that groupwork may
well be more effective in getting academic improvements than direct one-to-one teaching
by adults (Lawrence 1988).
For a more detailed programme of teaching these techniques see McNamara and Moreton
(1993, 1995, in press).
COOPERATIVE GROUPWORK
Cooperative groupwork is a more sophisticated development of basic groupwork. As

Johnson and Johnson (1975) point out, the skills needed for cooperative groupwork are
numerous. McNamara and Moreton have found in their own teaching that it does takes time
to teach these skills – about three weeks for three-year-olds, three months for five and six-
year-olds, nine months for ten and eleven-year-olds, and eighteen months for fifteen and
sixteen-year-olds. However, their experience showed that, once the youngsters are proficient
in these skills, cooperative groupwork is relatively easy for them.
The evidence of student-improved achievement through cooperative groupwork is
voluminous. Slavin produces reviews of the research evidence about once every five years,
and there are always hundreds of studies that have been carefully structured with control
groups which show that, provided you teach pupils the skills for groupwork, set group goals
and demand individual participation within the group, the pupils of all abilities will achieve
better academic results then when working alone (Slavin 1995). This is particularly true for
pupils with special educational needs in mainstream classrooms (Slavin et al. 1991; Smith et
al. 1994; Slavin et al. 1994).
PEER TUTORING
Peer tutoring is a powerful tool for enabling those with special needs to receive help in a way
that does not emphasise their difference so much. It also enables them to give help to others
80 Sylvia McNamara
and so experience the rise in self-worth that usually accompanies such an act. In the peer
tutoring example in China quoted on page 68, for example, the tutor was the bright and able
child. Topping’s research shows that, while both tutor and tutee gain from the pairing, it is the
tutor who gains most, and peer tutoring therefore has enormous potential for enhancing both
self-worth and academic achievement for the child with special needs. Many of the typically
‘special needs practices’, such as teaching a phonics approach to reading, target setting, or
breaking the task into small steps, can be used by students with special needs to teach to
younger pupils or those whose difficulties are more profound than their own.
The problem with the small steps approach is usually that of motivation, but in peer
tutoring the motivational issue is overcome by the fact that the two children decide together
the approach they will take.
It is also the case that children who themselves have experienced difficulties in reading
over a long period are often ‘experts’ in reading strategies, because they themselves have
experienced every possible technique. For example, in one school an eleven-year-old boy
with a sight vocabulary of thirty words came running back from his first peer tutoring session
in the nursery shouting, ‘Miss, miss, we’ve got to do a phonic puppet show – they don’t know
their sounds!’
When pupils start to teach other pupils they give each other attention instead of demanding
it from adults, and the need for more adults starts to be reduced. In addition, peer tutoring
research shows that children are often better than adults at structuring the learning for one
another (Topping, 1988; Goodlad and Hirst 1989).
CONCLUSION
The evidence from some small-scale research carried out by this author is that, when these
skills training programmes are put into place and the self-esteem of all pupils – but especially
those with special needs – starts to rise, the support teacher becomes someone in great
demand. In this situation it is possible to imagine all the students in the class as a matter of
course identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, target setting around those areas of
weakness and, in peer tutoring pairs, writing their own individual education programmes
using the consultative help of class teacher and special needs support teacher. This is a very
different job description to the one currently envisaged by many support teachers, faced with
a workload of twenty and more IEPs to devise as part of their weekend’s work.
In any one country or district, or even in any one school, there are likely to be different
approaches to the education of children with special needs, but the traditional view is still
largely predominant and is working with varying degrees of effectiveness. The challenges to
this traditional view give rise to innovatory practices, often resulting from school-based
research projects. Meeting special educational needs demands creative responses, but when
such responses are developed into new teaching styles and strategies, we get the best practice,
not just for those with special needs, but for all our children.
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Chapter 5
Keeping track
Observing, assessing and recording in the
learning relationship
Susan Cavendish and Jean Underwood
Assessment encompasses ‘all methods customarily used to appraise performance of an individual

pupil or a group. It may refer to a broad appraisal including many sources of evidence and many
aspects of a pupil’s knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes; or to a particular occasion or
instrument. An assessment instrument may be any method or procedure, formal or informal, for
producing information about pupils: e.g. a written test paper, an interview schedule, a measurement
task using equipment, a class quiz.’
(DES 1988: Preface and Glossary)
INTRODUCTION
A key aim of this chapter is to support the reflective approach to teaching and learning which
is discussed more fully in Chapter 7. In this we are encouraging teachers to move away from
a competency-based or technician model of teaching towards a model which stresses the need
for practitioners to monitor their own teaching behaviour and the ways in which that
behaviour affects the pupils in their classrooms. Such reflection, we would argue, is best
supported by the collection of evidence from the classroom.
ASSESSMENT
Decision-making is central to teaching, whether it is viewed as an art or a science. It includes

decisions about what to teach, how to teach it and how to assess the effectiveness of our
teaching strategies in relation to our initial teaching and learning goals. Assessment requires
either measurement or evaluation, or both. The use of a spelling test to assess how many
words a child has learnt is measurement. As a teacher, you may go on to reflect upon whether
a particular child has performed as well as or better than you had expected: that is, you will
86 Susan Cavendish and Jean Underwood
evaluate their performance. However, evaluation need not always be based on measurement.
We make ‘value’ judgements, such as ‘Jane is not working well this morning’, about
individual pupils every day. It is not wrong to make such intuitive evaluations, and informal
observation of our classroom is valuable. If, however, we view teaching as a decision-making
activity, then the more information we gather the better, and measurement provides us with
key information on which to make better-informed decisions in the future.
The assessment process has three key steps:
1 elicitation of evidence;
2 interpretation of that evidence;
3 actions consequent upon those interpretations.
A classroom is a complex place in which many individuals with different preferences and
abilities work to accomplish a variety of personal, social and imposed goals. There is no one
perfect way to assess children’s development and learning. In planning and managing an
assessment there will always be critical decisions, and we can begin by asking two basic
questions – why are we assessing, and what are we assessing?.
Why is the assessment needed?
To inform classroom practice
Finding the starting point is one important role of assessment in education. It is recognised
that teaching should start where the child is and develop onwards from that point. Another
important role of assessment is to inform the teacher of the success or otherwise of their
teaching, to help them to reflect on and review the strategies they employed.
Assessments of pupils are not, nor can they be, statements of absolute ability. They are
statements about achievements within the framework of educational opportunities that
have actually been provided. In some degree every assessment of a pupil is also an
assessment of the teachers and of the school.
(Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 1982: 82)
Such formative assessment is that which provides information which influences the
organisation and structure of learning for both the individual and the whole class.
Keeping track 87
To inform the learner
Feedback to the pupils can take many forms. Whether the feedback is through praise or
encouragement, comments on written work, or by giving a mark or grade, the effect is to
inform the learner about where their future effort should be directed and enable them to
become more autonomous. Hewitt and Bennett (1989) have argued that motivation and the
feeling of ownership of learning are improved when pupils take responsibility for their own
learning, understand what is required of them, set their own realistic goals and evaluate their
own performance in the light of them.
To inform school policy
All schools need to develop clear, coherent educational goals and to evaluate their
effectiveness in achieving those goals. Such summative evaluation focuses on outcome
measures, such as the end of course or year exam results, and can act as a stimulus for staff
development.
To inform outside agents
Teachers are being made increasingly accountable for pupil progress, and schools have to be
aware of their performance in comparison with other schools, and to make that performance
more public. In England and Wales, Standard Attainment Targets (SATs) have been
developed to fulfil this role.
What are we assessing?
The relationship between the objectives of teaching and learning and their assessment is often
taken as self-evident. The teacher teaches, the learner learns, and then we assess how much
of the ‘knowledge’ the learner has acquired. But it is not as simple as that. Even if our
objective is the acquisition of a body of knowledge, concepts and skills, the choice of
measuring instrument may affect our results. For example, you could assess children’s
spelling by asking them to write down a standard list of words presented orally by the teacher,
but you might get very different scores if children were asked to reproduce those words in a
story. Measurement becomes even more complex if we not only want children to acquire
knowledge, concepts and skills, but also to show an ability to apply them in new situations,
or if our goal is to cause a shift in attitudes. (See Chapter 3 for a discussion of these issues.)
If we as teachers really want to reflect on the effectiveness of our practice, it is vital that
we clearly specify our objectives. In our everyday teaching we measure children’s
performance using a range of formal and informal measuring instruments, from standardised
reading tests through to creative writing exercises, but how can these instruments tell us
whether or not our practice has been effective if we don’t know what our objectives are? If our
goal is to encourage children to transfer problem-solving skills, there is little point in
developing a test instrument that merely replicates the original learning experience.
The form and method of assessment should vary with the activity and the type of
information sought. How can we, as teachers, assess the effectiveness of our teaching and
learning programme unless we know what the intended outcomes are? Equally, how can we
select a measuring instrument if we cannot state what the outcomes of our teaching should
be? The prerequisite of any assessment must be a clear definition of what is to be assessed,
though in practice it is often easier to identify a high-quality piece of work than to say in detail
why it is good. Assessment should be a continuous process of gathering and reviewing
information, in order to help pupils succeed in the classroom.
Information can be collected by various means, including tests, questioning, written work
and observation. Each of these methods has its own limitations. Using the end product of
children’s work, for example, may not be indicative of what they can do. Celia Hoyles et al.
(1985) description of children programming in LOGO is a classic example of how the end
product of a working session can sometimes reveal very little about the child’s thinking. She
noted that one pair of boys had produced a wonderful spiral across the computer screen. They
were very proud of their efforts. When she returned again they had a second complex pattern,
and this continued for several lessons. However, although the patterns were stunning, it
became apparent that the boys had borrowed the initial short program from the boys working
on the next computer. They had not created the program themselves. The wonderful patterns
were a result of simple changes in the number of sides or the angle of turn in their program.
The end product of such changes was spectacular, but the thinking behind it was very low
level. The general conclusion is, therefore, that there should be more than one source of
evidence for assessment purposes.
Types of assessment in the classroom
Bearing in mind the two questions of what and why are we assessing, we can now consider
what types of assessment are available to teachers. According to Thomas (1990), there are
three main forms of assessment used in primary schools:
• informal assessment;
Keeping track 89
• formal assessment;
• summary assessment.
Informal assessment is that continually undertaken during the normal course of the teaching
day. The teacher monitors the children’s performance and gets an impression of the successes
and difficulties of each child. The learning relationship here may become one in which the
child is constantly attempting to understand what the teacher requires of them and to react and
behave accordingly. Feedback to these children is by means of the teacher’s smiles, nodding
of head and use of praise.
Formal assessment may take the form of tests produced by the teacher, or published
‘standardised’ tests which provide information on the child relative to other children of the
same age. Observation may also be a formal measure if structured observation methods are
employed. The role of the teacher here is that of a formal ‘tester’ and, as such, the relationship
with the child changes. Here, the child has to work by itself, without the support normally
available from the teacher. In schools where formal testing is commonplace the children
become accustomed to this change in relationship and do not even attempt to initiate
interaction with the teacher. However, where formal testing is not so common, the children
may be rather bewildered at the sudden independence they have in their work. It is not
surprising, therefore, that familiarity with the testing situation can exert some influence on
the child’s level of performance on the test. Feedback from these tests is in the form of a mark
or grade indicating the child’s achievement in relation to their peers. The teacher has to take
a sensitive role here, to ensure that low-achieving children do not come to view themselves
as failures. (See Chapter 4.)
Summary assessment draws together information from both formal and informal
assessments to provide a record of the pupils’ progress over a period of time. This information
may be collated in the form of a Record of Achievement (ROA), providing a profile of a
pupil’s achievements and progress, both within and outside school. A key feature of an ROA
is the involvement of pupils in their own assessment by means of dialogue between pupils and
teachers. The learning relationship between teacher and pupil here is a partnership in which
negotiated targets can be set and individual curricular needs and learning objectives
identified.
Methods of assessment
No one form of assessment is capable of providing complete information. Quite often,

teachers and researchers use a combination of methods to gather the evidence they need.
Methods of assessment may include:
• oral questioning;
• written work;
• use of tests;
• observation.
Each of these methods can be used formally or informally. When gathered informally, the
information may be largely intuitive, but because in the past many teachers have emphasised
such informal assessment, the next section will focus on formal methods.
There are several important issues to consider when deciding on the form of assessment to
use. We need to know that the assessment is valid: that is, that our assessment of the child’s
performance is a true measure of the knowledge or skill which we are intending to assess. We
also need to take account of the reliability of the measure, or its consistency. Written tests are
usually designed with high reliability, so that performance on one test is very similar to
performance on a subsequent test. Written tests of this form have led to a lively debate as to
their validity, and some researchers have argued that such tests are not useful (see, e.g., Holt
1964). Other researchers have argued that written tests can be devised to have high validity
while retaining reliability (see, e.g., Schilling et al. 1990).
Schilling et al. devised a written assessment which was built into the general work activity
within the classroom. This form of assessment can be treated as a normal part of the day’s
activities and helps to reduce the anxiety normally caused by testing. The researchers
recognised that this form of testing does have problems of its own, putting added emphasis
on the child’s comprehension skills and powers of concentration. To overcome these
problems the research team placed importance on observation as a means of assessing pupil
performance. When a teacher is dealing with a class of over thirty pupils there are obvious
advantages in using a written test for practical reasons. Yet the detail of information that can
be acquired through observation makes it a valuable assessment technique. If a child succeeds
on a written test then one can be fairly confident that the child has provided evidence of
possessing the knowledge or skill being tested. If, however, a child fails on the written test,
one cannot be sure that the child does not possess the knowledge or skill, or whether the child
has difficulties with the form of the test. One strategy that can overcome this difficulty is to
use a written test for the whole class, and on the basis of those results identify a few children
for further investigation. These children can then be the focus of observation or the teacher
can use an in-depth questioning technique (oral questioning accompanying a practical task),
such as one used by Russell and Harlen (1990) for testing primary children’s use of science
processes. One might go further, given the time and human resources, to suggest that to obtain
a complete assessment of development and learning, the ideal situation would be one in which
Keeping track 91
the child is assessed by all three methods: that is, they have a written test, an in-depth practical
test (of application) as well as being observed while working.
All teachers tend to use performance outcome measures because they are readily
accessible and therefore more easily measured. However, the assessment of intellectual
thinking, such as the development of science processes investigated by the STAR project
(Cavendish et al. 1990), is problematic. For example, if we see children measuring the
temperature of a cup of tea we might infer that they are investigating the rate of cool ing. But
if we watch again, they might re-measure the temperature using a second type of
thermometer, because they are in fact conducting a survey into the ease of use of several
different thermometers. Any assessment of intellectual processes, rather than knowledge and
skills, depends on our ability to get at and to understand children’s thinking, which is the
concern of the opening three chapters of this book.
Since it is not possible to assess a child’s thought processes directly, we have to collect
evidence relating to the product of those thought processes. The most usual product is a piece
of finished written work, but observation helps the teacher by providing information from
ongoing interactions while the child is working. Indeed, the Primary Assessment, Curriculum
and Experience Project (Broadfoot et al. 1991) found that observation of individuals was a
major area of innovation in assessment practice. They also found that many teachers had
experience of observation but not necessarily for assessment purposes, and generally
conducted such observations in a general rather than a specific way. Because of the value of
observation for assessment and the relatively limited experience of its use as a formal
technique, the following section will focus on observation as a method of collecting evidence.
OBSERVATION
Formal and informal observation
Informal methods of observation involve the teacher in collecting information while working
with children as part of their normal learning relationship, but it is on the basis of often very
short interactions that teachers make judgements about a child’s thinking, and there are
pitfalls when using such informal observations (see Cavendish et al. 1990). Teachers often
have preconceived ideas about pupils’ motives behind their actions, and observations may be
interpreted within that preconceived framework. They may instinctively protect their pupils,
so that when failure occurs they look for external causes rather than ‘blaming’ the children.
(Chapter 4 discusses how we attribute failure to different things.)
A further difficulty with informal observation is for it to be selective, because we can
observe only what we are aware of. For example, when a group of teachers was asked to watch
a lesson and make their own informal observations, they were amazed to find that all of their
resulting observations were concerned with lesson management and organisation. There was
no mention of the fact that it was a science lesson, or of its content, or of the scientific
interactions that were taking place between the pupils in the video. When, however, the
teachers watched the video for a second time, having been through a short science workshop
them selves, the observations were far more detailed in terms of the science learning they
thought was being demonstrated by the children. This example shows that awareness of what
you want to know from the observation is a key issue. If, as teachers, we only make general
observations, important detail may well go unnoticed.
Clearly, if accurate assessment about intellectual processing is required, then some more
formal method would be appropriate. Post-task interview has been one method employed by
several workers (see, e.g., Bennett et al. 1984). This method involved the pupils taking the
interviewer back through the steps of working on a task so that the interviewer could identify
where the pupils went wrong. This method, though useful and fruitful, is very time consuming
and, while caution in the use of informal classroom observation is advised, the value of
observation for assessing intellectual processes is widely accepted. In order to overcome
some of the difficulties, researchers have developed several procedures which enable
classroom observation to be valuable while at the same time being practical for teachers to
use. Croll (1986) provides an extensive description of different observation methods, and
Simpson and Tuson (1995) offer a useful introduction to using observation in smallscale
research.
The two main types of observation methods which have been developed for classroom use
are systematic (structured) observation and participant observation. In systematic
observation, the observer first has to define the particular behaviours of interest and a method
of coding the observed behaviours. This approach has been used by several classroom
research projects, including ORACLE (Galton and Simon 1980), and the STAR project
(Cavendish et al. 1990). In participant observation, the observer takes an active role in the
proceedings, participating in activities with the people being studied. Structured observation
has been criticised for failing to provide a full picture of the classroom, because the observer
simply records ticks against a limited set of observed behaviours to get frequency counts.
Participant observation has been criticised because, given that pupils are known to say what
they think the teacher wants to hear, one cannot be sure whether the pupils are telling the truth
to the teacher/interviewer. Both methods of observation, therefore, complement each other
and should not be viewed as alternatives (Galton and Delamont 1985).
Participant observation
Participant observation is derived from anthropological and sociological research which

involves the observer taking field notes over a period of time long enough to become accepted
Keeping track 93
as a participant in the group being observed. Unlike systematic observation, where the
observer remains outside the classroom interactions, the participant observer takes an active
role. Advocates of this method of observation believe that actions and interactions only have
meaning as a result of shared understandings of the participants. Triangulation procedures are
important in this form of observation: i.e., observations are made and interpreted by more than
one of the participants. In the classroom, then, the observer, the teacher and the pupils
themselves would be asked their views about the same lesson.
Structured observation
Structured observation is the systematic recording on grids or checklists of specific

behaviours. The main outcome of such recordings is how often such behaviours occur in
particular situations or in different phases of an activity or lesson. The range of behaviours to
be observed is predetermined to minimise the level of inferential judgement about what is
happening. Structured observation is a useful method for collecting quantifiable data for
assessment purposes and will, therefore, be described at some length here.
In the STAR research project, the researchers and teachers were interested in assessing
science processes used by primary children. A structured observation schedule was
developed, the Science Processes Observation Categories (SPOC ). Figure 5.1 shows a
sample of the SPOC coding sheet. This section of the observation schedule contains the
science processes which were the main concern of the STAR project. The work of Ennever
and Harlen (1972) and the APU (1980, 1984) contributed to the development of the set of
process skills to be observed. The final list of observation categories
derived from consideration of the nature of science activities and of what skills it was
useful for teachers to identify as separate foci for children’s development, and hence for
assessment and review.
(Cavendish et al. 1990)
Individual pupils were observed for two-minute intervals, four times in each of four
lessons. If, for the first round (two-minute interval) of observation, the pupil observed was
actively involved in discussion about scientific observations, then a code of 1 was written into
the box appropriate for the first observation round. If, however, the pupil was part of the
audience to discussion, but not actively involved, then a code of 2 was written into the
appropriate space. In addition, the researchers wished to know whether the teacher was
involved in the interaction with the pupils, and if so a letter T was added to the box.
Once the observations were completed, the category codings were counted to obtain the
frequency of occurrence over the whole observation period. In this particular example,
Figure 5.1 An extract from the SPOC Observation Coding sheet

the STAR team found that pupils were involved in discussing scientific observations for 33.5
per cent of the observed time, and of this the teacher was involved for 10 per cent. When
frequencies are obtained across all of the categories, one obtains an indication of the pattern
of science talk in that classroom. Further details of the entire observation schedule can be
found in Cavendish et al. (1990).
Observation systems usually contain a range of high inference and low inference
categories. Low inference categories are those easily identified, such as where a pupil is
sitting, or whether the pupil is moving around the classroom. High inference categories are
those which are less specific and require the observer to be somewhat more subjective and
perhaps to observe for a time before being able to infer about the behaviour. When the
activities are complex, as in observation of science processes, a system should be used in
which the observer concentrates on a small number of behaviours/interactions and ignores
others which are relevant to the whole lesson but not required continuously: e.g., one might
be interested in the age or sex of the pupil or the social mix in which they are sitting, and this
can just be recorded once at the beginning of the observation period.
The choice of who to observe depends on the purpose of the observation. If the purpose is
for the assessment of particular children, then those children alone would become the targets
for observation, and other children not recorded. If, however, the purpose is for feedback to
Keeping track 95
the teacher on how effective was the organisation and management of the lesson, then it would
be advisable to sample pupils who are representative of the whole class: i.e., a balance of
achievement levels, age, etc.
Another method commonly employed by researchers is time sampling. In time sampling
the observer records exactly what happens at an instant, with each observation taking place
at, say, 25-second intervals or at whatever length interval is deemed appropriate. An
observation schedule with many or complex categories would require longer time between
observations for the observer to record all the information required at each instant. The result
of these observations is a frequency count for each category, giving an overall impression of
the lesson observed. Another method is to observe over an interval of time. This involves the
observer recording all that happens over a short period, perhaps using a column for each
second of observation. The results from this interval observation provide a more accurate
picture of the classroom but the method requires intense effort and concentration on the part
of the observer. A continuous record was used by Cavendish (1988) in her study of interaction
and behaviour in mathematics lessons. In the majority of sessions, the continuous record was
manageable, as behaviour while children are working through mathematics problems does
not change quickly. The difficulties experienced were during quick-fire question-and-answer
sessions – a teaching method often employed when teaching mathematics from the
blackboard. The method usefully employed for observation, therefore, should be chosen to
suit the classroom situation in which it is to be used and, in most cases, teachers are likely to
want to develop their own observation schedule, tailored to their own assessment needs.
Developing your own observation schedule
Teachers have their own preferences for certain styles of teaching and classroom
organisation. Their needs are likely to be different from those of educational researchers, and
the method of assessing pupil progress and effectiveness of teaching, therefore, also needs to
be individually designed. In order to develop an observation schedule, teachers need to:
• Be aware of exactly what they are looking for. The assessment of pupils needs to be
focused.
• Collect evidence in a recorded form which is useful in providing information to others,
whether they are colleagues, parents or the children themselves.
• Organise time to allow for observation – this may be by planning tasks of low teacher-
intensitivity for the class of pupils, or by using other people to help, for example student
teachers or non-teaching head teachers.
Getting started
The simplest type of observation schedule is a blank piece of paper. Several teachers have
reported the need to start in this way – taking notes of anything they observe during a lesson.
It only takes one or two lessons to find that full notes are time-consuming, and also that some
statements tend to recur several times during one session. A need for shorthand recording of
the observations then becomes apparent. Figure 5.2 shows one possible next step for an
observation schedule. Here, some basic information is collected at the top, followed by a list
of categories for observation and blank spaces for comments or tallies as the teacher desires.
A more detailed type of schedule is that of the SPOC, described earlier, but for most teachers
this schedule would be far too detailed to manage while in charge of a whole class. An in-
between type of schedule is one that includes detailed categories for some information,
together with spaces for more open comments. Further examples of systematic observation
schedules used by classroom teachers can be found in Hargreaves (1995).
Figure 5.2 An example of a simple observation schedule
Finding time for observation
The biggest difficulty for teachers to overcome is finding the time and opportunity to observe
in their own classroom. Each teacher has their own individual way of working and, while
some work closely with others, as in team teaching, many teachers are in a solitary teaching
environment. One of the STAR teachers was initially sceptical about the feasibility of
observation in his classroom, yet, at the end of the project, he was helping other teachers by
describing how he managed to do it successfully. What he did, in fact, was to analyse the
Keeping track 97
demands on his time during a lesson and identify time-consuming periods. He subsequently
changed his organisation and planned the tasks in such a way that the children could work
more independently. More detail about this teacher’s approach can be found in Cavendish et
al. (1990: 85).
Teachers can be their own worst enemies in management of their time. Many like to feel
wanted in the classroom. If children get on by themselves, teachers feel redundant, and so
lessons are often managed such that the teacher is constantly in demand or busy with general
classroom duties, such as handling resources or putting up displays. This desire to be needed
makes it difficult for behaviour to change. Just like the sceptical teacher described above,
teachers need to stand back and look at what is happening in the classroom, and to question
their own role. Are there stages of a lesson which are less demanding on the teacher? Can the
organisation of pupils be changed to allow more independence, and hence more efficient and
focused use of the teacher’s time?
When a teacher is the sole adult in charge of a class of 30 or more pupils, he or she will only
be able to concentrate on a limited field of observation. Here, there is a choice: the teacher can
limit the observation to very broad categories rather than very finely differentiated
behaviours, or can concentrate on just one or two fine behaviour categories which have
previously been determined as important for the purposes of the assessment. The number of
pupils observed may also vary, according to what the teacher is trying to find out. It may be
that only one child needs to be observed if the purpose is diagnostic, or a group of pupils may
be observed. If the teacher requires feedback on how successful a whole lesson has been, then
it is more likely that a sample of pupils across the classroom will be selected for observation
throughout the lesson period.
Recording learning outcomes
We have discussed at length some methods for gathering information as evidence for
assessment purposes, but the findings from this data-gathering need to be communicated to
appropriate audiences. At the beginning of this chapter, the following reasons for assessment
were given:
• to inform classroom practice;

• to inform the learner;
• to inform school policy;
• to inform outside agents.
This ‘informing’ necessitates the passing on of recorded information in a form that will be
useful. Once written down, records of information can become the basis for reflection,
comparison and discussion. The establishment of a National Curriculum in the UK and
Australia, and the accompanying assessment procedures, have led to particular requirements
in record-keeping to enable comparison of pupil performance not only from one year to the
next, but also between one school and another. The detailed assessment required at a national
level, for comparison of schools, is essentially different from that required by the classroom
teacher. The form which the record takes, then, greatly depends on its purpose. If, for
example, a school is interested in developing a particular curriculum area, teachers would
need to keep detailed records with a definite focus, thus providing factual information as a
basis for discussion about curriculum and staff development. If the progress of individual
children is the main interest, a profile of achievement in different areas for each child would
be more appropriate.
Systematic observation, when used in combination with teacher ratings and more formal
written assessments, adds validity to the profiles of pupils’ attainments. Based on these
measures, the importance of formative assessments in demonstrating the current levels of
achievement of pupils does not rule out the use of such profiles for diagnostic purposes. This
process can be helped by the development of the Records of Achievement (ROA) approach
into the primary school. This approach of recording achievement leads to the involvement of
pupils in their own development, by means of negotiation in both teaching and learning. Not
only does this fit in well with the philosophy of primary education, but it is also consistent
with recent theories of how children learn, as discussed in the first three chapters of this book,
and, for example, by Wood (1988). The findings from the evaluation projects associated with
Records of Achievement Study show that, where this model of teaching and learning has been
applied successfully, it has great impact on pupils’ motivation and self-esteem.
The development of ROAs in the UK has gone hand-in-hand with two other developments
– the rise in the availability of computer-based record systems and the move to local
management of schools (LMS). The need for some form of computer-based management
system in primary schools only became apparent with the 1988 Education Reform Act (DES
1988), while the move to LMS, with all that it implied for devolved budgeting, generated a
ready – some might say a desperate – need for systems to support heads and governors facing
a range of new responsibilities. The system known as SIMS (Schools Information
Management System) has come to dominate the management market, but rival products are
being developed, including KEY SOLUTIONS and PIMS (Primary Information
Management Systems).
Computer Assisted Assessment covers:
• recording and analysing progress;

• reporting on student achievement;
• recording prior achievement and prior learning;
• all functions for the registration and certification of candidates;
Keeping track 99
• computer assisted or computer delivered tests and examinations.
As computer based assessment and recording methods become more widely available, the
potential value of the information will increase. Where assessment and record-keeping are
completed solely by the classroom teacher, the constraints of time and effort will limit the
amount of detailed information entered on any assessment record and hence will impede the
effective use of assessment evidence for changing and improving classroom practice.
However, the first step towards effective use of assessment is the acceptance that formal,
rather than informal, assessment can provide quantitative data which is more informative,
more efficient and a more reliable form of evidence. This formal evidence complements
informal assessment and contributes to raising the status of records on children’s
development and learning. If the status of the information increases, the recipients of that
information are more likely to act upon the content and effect change.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
It was stated at the beginning of this chapter that our key aim was to support a reflective
approach to teaching and learning, where teachers monitor their own teaching behaviour and
its subsequent effects on their pupils. Such reflection, we argued, is best supported by the
collection of evidence from the classroom. The value of both informal and formal methods of
collecting information is accepted and the methods viewed as complementary, but many
teachers have in the past relied too heavily on informal intuitive assessment.
Assessing intellectual processes is problematic, since we can only really assess the end
result and infer the process that has gone before. Observing both pupil behaviour and
performance while on the task in hand is one method that helps to provide a more reliable
assessment of processes. There are still limitations, however, as we rely on our interpretations
of the observed behaviour to be valid, and they may not always be so. Even so, if data collected
from several sources suggest the same results, then one can be fairly sure of a correct
interpretation.
For assessment to be useful, the information has to be communicated in order to inform
classroom practice, to inform the learner, to inform school policy or to inform outside agents.
This communication is effected by means of assessment records, but the type and detail of
record to be kept depends on the audience and the focus of interest. What is clear, however, is
that a move towards formal methods of data collection and the establishment of written
records of achievement can benefit children’s learning by enabling and encouraging the
reflective practice of teachers.
REFERENCES
Ainscow, M. (1988) ‘Beyond the eyes of the monster: an analysis of recent trends in
assessment and recording’, Support for learning 3(3), 149–53.
APU (1980) Great Britain: Assessment of Performance Unit. DES Primary Survey Number
1, London: HMSO.
— (1984) Great Britain: Assessment of Performance Unit. Science in Schools Research
Reports Nos 1, 2 & 3, London: HMSO.
Bennett, N., Desforges, C, Cockburn, A. and Wilkinson, B. (1984) The Quality of Pupil
Learning Experiences, London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Broadfoot, P., Abott, D., Croll, P., Osborn, M., Pollard, A. and Towler, L. (1991)
‘Implementing national assessment: issues for primary teachers’, Cambridge Journal of
Education, 21(2), 153–68.
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (1982) The Arts in Schools, London: Oyez Press.
Cavendish, S. J. (1988) Sex Differences Related to Achievement in Mathematics, unpublished
thesis, Leicester: University of Leicester.
Cavendish, S. J., Galton, M., Hargreaves, L. and Harlen, W. (1990) Assessing Science in the
Primary Classroom: Observing Activities, London: Paul Chapman.
Croll, P. (1986) Systematic Classroom Observation, Lewes: Falmer Press
DES (1988) National Curriculum Task Group on Assessment and Testing: A Report, London:
HMSO.
Ennever, L. and Harlen, W. (1972) With Objectives in Mind. Guide to Science 5/13, London:
Macdonald Educational.
Galton, M. and Delamont, S. (1985) ‘Speaking with a forked tongue? Two styles of
observation in the ORACLE project’, in R. Burgess (ed.) Field Methods in the Study of
Education, Basingstoke: Falmer Press.
Galton, M. and Simon, B. (eds) (1980) Progress and Performance in the Primary Classroom,
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Gardner, J. (1994) ‘No pain, no gain’, Times Educational Supplement Update, June, 4.
Hargreaves, L. (1995) ‘Seeing clearly. Observation in the Primary classroom’, in J. Moyles
(ed.) Beginning Teaching: Beginning Learning In Primary Education, Milton Keynes:
Open University Press.
Hewitt, P. and Bennett, N. (1989) Assessment of learning. A Hertfordshire Primary Context.
A Report Arising from the Secondment of two Primary Headteachers, Hertfordshire LEA.
Holt, J. (1964) How Children Fail, New York: Pitman.
Hoyles, C., Sutherland, R. and Evans, J. (1985) ‘Using LOGO in the mathematics classroom.
What are the implications for pupil devised goals’, Computers in Education, 12, 61–73.
Rowe, M. B. (1974) ‘Wait time and rewards as instructional variable, their influence on
languages, logic and fate control’, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 17, 81–94.
Keeping track 101
Russell, T. and Harlen, W. (1990) Assessing Science in the Primary Classroom: Practical
Tasks, London: Paul Chapman.
Schilling, M. D., Hargreaves, L., Harlen, W., with Russell, T. (1990) Assessing Science in the
Primary Classroom: Written Tasks, London: Paul Chapman.
Simpson, M. and Tuson, J. (1995) Using Observations in Small-Scale Research, SCRE.
Thomas, N. (1990) Primary Education from Plowden to the 1990s, Basingstoke: Falmer
Press.
Tobin, K. (1984) ‘Student task involvement in activity oriented science’, Journal of Research
in Science Teaching, 21(5), 469–82.
Chapter 6
Primary culture and classroom teaching

The learning relationship in context
Maurice Galton
INTRODUCTION – SCHOOL CULTURES: THEIR IMPACT ON

THE PRIMARY CLASSROOM
Any visitor from a country such as the USA or the United Kingdom on a whirlwind tour
throughout countries on and near the Pacific rim, from Myanmar to Japan and then on to
Australia and New Zealand, would, if s/he ventured into schools, find much that was familiar
but also much that was strange and puzzling. At primary level, in particular, there would be
variations in the size of school and of classes. Some schools, in rural settings, would have
fewer than fifty pupils, although they would not be a mere forty kilometres apart, as is often
found in the UK. In conurbations such as Singapore, over 2,000 pupils would be the school
norm, with many classes of over forty pupils. In Europe and the United States a big elementary
school might have between 300 and 400 pupils and average class sizes of thirty children. In
some cases, for example in the Scandinavian countries, class size is limited by law to below
twenty-five pupils. Generally these pupils are placed in mixed gender groups and sit around
tables or desks pushed together. A typical arrangement is shown in Figure 6.1. In those
countries where class size is forty or greater, pupils usually sit in rows facing the teacher and
are streamed by ability. Figure 6.2 shows a typical arrangement in a Singapore school for
grade 1. A typical grade 6 classsroom in Singapore has rows of desks facing the teacher.
Elsewhere, setting within a class is limited to certain subjects, such as Mathematics and
Language. Much more common, however, is the trend for one teacher to cover the whole
curriculum, apart from some specialist areas such as Music and Physical Education.
But if our visitor probes below these structural features, s/he will begin to identify more
subtle variations in the way each classroom operates. Most important is the nature of the
relationship between the teacher and the pupils. Do pupils view their teacher as ‘the fountain
of all knowledge’, as a policeman, a facilitator, or a nursemaid? Does the teacher regard the
pupils as friends, as empty vessels which need filling, tender plants needing nurturing,
Primary culture and classroom teaching 103
Figure 6.1 Typical arrangement of European classroom
Figure 6.2 Typical arrangement in Singapore school for Grade 1 classes

104 Maurice Galton
or a rabble which needs ‘careful watching if they are not to gain the upper hand’? Such
perceptions will manifest themselves in the way question-and-answer sessions are
conducted, the form of classroom control exercised, the system of rewards and punishments
meted out and, in particular, the degree to which pupils are permitted to exercise choice over
what they learn. These aspects of the daily life of a classroom are often referred to as its
‘ethos’.
Part of this classroom ethos derives from the structural features described above. Empty
vessels tend to sit in rows, and to answer the questions put by the teacher rather than ask them.
Tender plants will be encouraged to seek support from their peers, will exercise a degree of
autonomy over what they learn, and will be more likely to be praised rather than criticised.
These teacher behaviours, however, will also stem in part from the individual’s personal
belief system, their view of themselves and their openness to other people’s ideas.
It is this interplay between ideas and structure that creates the life of the primary school
and its classrooms; what is termed its culture, defined by Raymond Williams as depicting ‘a
way of life’ of any group, be it a nation or a profession (Williams 1961). Others, such as Robin
Alexander, describe the primary school culture in terms of its beliefs, concerns and distinctive
language (Alexander 1992). Alexander argues there is an ‘inescapable relationship’ between
ideas and structure within a culture;
they do not exist independently of each other. Ideas generate structures; but structures also
generate ideas in order to explain and sustain structures. In conjunction, ideas and structure
secure collective cohesion and continuity, and confer identity and security on the
individual.
(Alexander 1992: 171)
Thus a culture not only serves to identify, but also to ‘define, justify and control’ its members
(Alexander 1992: 169). This is because, as ideas, beliefs and values become identified with
the group rather than the constituent individuals, as a manifestation of its cultural identity,
they provide the ideological basis for action. In order to demonstrate membership of the
cultural group, an individual is forced to enact the ideology, chiefly because the system of
rewards, promotions, etc. is likely to be dependent on such demonstrations of ‘cultural
purity’.
Recognising the complex nature of this interplay between structure and ideas is crucial for
any understanding of the typical patterns of classroom organisation which operate in any
particular country. In recent years politicians and administrators have often sought to change
educational structures through curriculum reform, in the expectation that school
improvement would follow through a shift in teaching and learning strategies. In most cases,
however, teachers have adopted the line of least resistance to these curriculum changes and
simply ‘bolted’ the innovation on to their existing practice. This appears to have happened in
the United Kingdom with the National Curriculum (Pollard et al. 1993; Galton et al. 1995)
and many Council of Europe (CDCC 1982, 1987) and OECD studies confirm a similar trend.
Before going on to look more critically at this apparent trend to conservatism among teachers,
however, some aspects of the primary school culture that give rise to certain patterns of
classroom organisation, and their effects on teaching and learning, will be briefly described.
SOME MANIFESTATIONS OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CULTURE
In most countries, primary schooling, as it exists today, grew from the need to provide mass
education of a standard that allowed for the shift away from an agrarian to an industrialised
economy. In its minimalist form, this elementary education required pupils to be able to read,
write and count. Although, during the course of the twentieth century, standards have been
continually raised to meet technological advance, this elementary tradition remains strong.
Even in developed countries, the bulk of curriculum time is still given over to these ‘core’
activities, which nearly always take place at the beginning of the school day when pupils are
believed to be most attentive. Those responsible for early developments in mass primary
education saw the teaching of language, in particular, as the key which opened up the cultural
inheritance, in the sense that the term was used by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy
to represent all that was known to be best in our civilisation. Arnold’s argument for inducting
as many citizens as possible into this culture was that only through the experience gained from
the study of past achievements could people be persuaded to turn away from the path of
revolution as the solution to the grave social problems that had arisen as the result of
industrialism. The view, as it developed, had important implications for pedagogy in that it
presupposed a ‘transmission’ model of teaching, and a belief in the power of the educated
mind to make decisions on behalf of individuals whose education mainly consisted of
acquiring practical knowledge and skills. This led very early on to the creation of different
types of schools, and the search for ways of selecting each child for the education to which s/
he was best fitted.
Industrialism, however, also brought about a reaction which sought to retain the perceived
benefits of the agrarian way of life, particularly the feelings and emotions resulting from close
contact with natural surroundings. A crucial period in developing this awareness of nature
was seen to be early childhood, perceived as an age of innocence. From this approach has
flowed what Blyth (1989) has termed the developmental tradition in primary education,
giving rise to various stage theories of learning, and culminating in the child-centred
approaches which, in different countries, have been grouped under labels such as
‘progressive’, ‘informal’ and ‘open education’. Central concepts within these approaches
have been ‘learning through doing’, ‘readiness’, and a view of knowledge as ‘integrated and
106 Maurice Galton
personally constructed’ rather than a collection of distinct disciplines consisting of

universally agreed bodies of knowledge.
But, as Kliebard (1986) notes in his study of The Struggle for the American Curriculum,
ideas, as they trickle down into the classroom, rarely retain their pure form. Partly because,
as we have already seen, teachers often ‘bolt’ innovation on to existing practice, and partly
because many classroom decisions are driven by pragmatism rather than theory, as a ‘coping’
response to immediate problems, new sets of ideas tend to get mixed up with existing ones.
Kliebard refers to this mixing process as one of hybridisation, which frequently results in
their being a gap between ‘rhetoric’ and ‘reality’. Thus numerous studies of primary teaching
in the UK and elsewhere, which will be summarised in a later section of this chapter, have
found that those teachers, claiming to believe in experiential learning as part of a child-
centred philosophy, nevertheless often spend considerable amounts of time teaching
didactically, although in a classroom environment which emphasises individual learning
(Galton 1989).
Curriculum hybridisation, therefore, serves to reinforce the common public culture of
primary teaching, since the outwardly shared set of beliefs, often perceived as self-evident
truths, creates a barrier which prevents too close an inspection of the disjunction between an
individual teacher’s aims and their practice. Alexander (1984) notes, for example, that
research evidence is often reinterpreted to match the ideological perspective and those who
challenge such views are accused of damaging teacher morale. Instead, critics are urged to
celebrate what is good rather than dwell on weaknesses. It is for this reason that Hargreaves
(1992: 217) argues that
Physically, teachers are often alone in their own classrooms, with no other adults for
company. Psychologically, they never are: what they do, their classroom styles and
strategies – are powerfully affected by the orientations of the colleagues with whom they
work now and have done in the past.
It is this psychological inter-dependency which is said to account for the strong resistance to
change among primary teachers, and which led one commentator to describe the profession
as characterised by presentism, conservatism and individualism (Lortie 1975). Teachers,
according to Lortie, prefer to concentrate on short-term planning in their own classrooms
where their efforts can be seen to bring immediate results (presentism); avoid discussing
fundamental issues concerning teaching and learning, for fear it might raise fundamental
questions about their practice (conservatism); and shy away from forms of collaboration with
colleagues, such as team teaching (individualism). For all these reasons schools, like living
cells, seem to be largely impervious to outside pressures to change well established existing
practices, and, as Chapter 9 of this book shows, the management of change must also be seen
as part of a learning relationship.
This is particularly true of those countries which are in, or are about to enter, a post-
industrial phase where there are many more competing rationales for curriculum building.
Schools now face demands from a variety of sources that their pupils should be educated for
‘employment’, ‘life’, ‘self-development’ and ‘leisure’, to name but several possibilities. Not
surprisingly, given that the teaching approaches required to satisfy such demands often
conflict, teachers tend to adopt a cautious approach to innovation, believing that, like trains
and buses, if they miss the latest new idea someone will come up with another before too long.
It is this scepticism which partly upholds the ‘elementary tradition’ in primary teaching and
sustains existing patterns of classroom organisation.
PERSISTENT PATTERNS OF CLASSROOM ORGANISATION
During the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s a series of studies took place, mainly in the
United States and the United Kingdom, which were designed to explore the consequences of
existing patterns of organisation for students’ learning. The general results of this research,
nearly all of which involved pupils in the elementary school, has been summarised by Brophy
and Good (1986) in the USA, and by Gipps (1992) in the UK. Typical of these studies was the
Beginning Teacher Education Study (BTES) undertaken in California (Denham and
Libermann 1985), and the ORACLE (Observational Research and Classroom Learning
Evaluation) study undertaken in Leicester (Galton et al. 1980; see Chapter 5 of this book for
a discussion of some of the observational techniques used in this and related studies).
The UK pattern showed a high degree of asymmetry between what teachers did with their
time and what pupils did. Pupils spent nearly 80 per cent of their day working on tasks without
interacting with the teacher or another pupil. For only 60 per cent of this time were pupils ‘on
task’. At other times they moved out of their place to get paper, sharpen a pencil or to watch
what other students were doing. They would also wait in the queue to ask the teacher for help
or to get their work marked. For some 12 per cent of the day pupils would be seated at the front
of the class. These periods tended to take place at the beginning and end of sessions, when the
teacher was giving instructions or sharing ideas and looking at the work produced. Towards
the end of the school day class time would be used by the teacher to read a story. Most of these
whole-class sessions consisted, therefore, of the students listening to the teacher giving
instructions, commenting on work or reading aloud. Only a small proportion of the day, the
remaining 8 per cent, involved pupils in collaborative activity, either in peer tutoring or
cooperative groupwork. Even when pupils were asked to work together in this way, a
substantial proportion of the conversations were not concerned with the task in hand. These
results, a summary of the ORACLE findings, have been replicated with remarkable
consistency by other researchers, such as Tizard et al. (1988) and Alexander (1992).
108 Maurice Galton
In contrast, teachers spent over 75 per cent of their time interacting with individual
students, repeating instructions, marking and commenting upon work. These periods were
very infrequent because, with thirty pupils in a class, each student received about six minutes
a day of the teacher’s attention if s/he distributed it equally. Often, however, more attention
would be given to pupils who misbehaved, usually boys. Interactions involving the task
tended to be of short duration. A followup to the ORACLE study found that over 40 per cent
of these exchanges did not last for more than five seconds (Galton and Patrick 1990). Not
surprisingly, therefore, these brief exchanges were not very challenging. The main task of the
teacher was to keep everyone busy. For the most part the exchanges involved the teacher as a
resource telling pupils where to find something (a book, a piece of equipment), how to do
something (hints for solving a problem, demonstration of a a practical task), or whether
something was correct (a spelling, a multiplication). From the teacher’s perspective the
classroom was a very busy, productive environment, while for some pupils with ‘time on task’
levels of around 50 per cent (Tizard et al. 1988) a considerable proportion of each day
appeared to evaporate!
By way of contrast, consider the following description of a Singapore teacher’s
mathematics lesson to a class of ten-year-old students. The topic is the angles of a triangle.
There are 45 children in the class. The pupils sit facing the teacher who stands at the front.
Boys sit on one side of the room, girls on the other. The lesson begins by the teacher
revising how to calculate the third angle of a triangle, given two angles. She then rapidly
draws five triangles on the board marking two angles in each. Five children come out to
the board to tackle these problems. While they are working out the answers she writes
another five examples on another blackboard. When the first group have finished she asks
the rest of the class to check if the suggested solutions for the third angle are correct. While
this is taking place the second group of pupils are working on the next set of examples. This
sequence continues until all 45 students have had a turn at the board. The whole activity
takes just 8 minutes.
When this task is completed each pupil is given a paper triangle with the centre of the
paper cut away. They are told to tear off two corners and fit the pieces together. When they
do so the pieces of paper form a straight line. The teacher tells them that this shows that the
three angles of the triangle add up to 180°. They then go on to prove that the exterior angle
equals the sum of the two opposite angles and again do examples on the board. They then
move on to examples of right angles. By this time 40 minutes of the lesson has elapsed. For
the remaining twenty minutes the students do examples from worksheets.
(Galton, personal observation)
Thus, for nearly 66 per cent of the lesson, class teaching was the preferred strategy, in contrast
to the system operating in the UK in which, typically, the teacher would have started with a
demonstration of the paper triangle, asked children what they could infer from the fact that
the three corners fitted into a straight line, sent children to their table to work on examples
from worksheets, and used the final ten minutes to point out the special properties of triangles
with an angle of 90°. Perhaps 66 per cent of this lesson, in contrast to that of the Singapore
teacher, would have consisted of what American researchers call seat work. Of greater
interest is the way in which teachers from the two cultures might use the practical
demonstration involving the paper triangle. The Singapore teacher uses it so that pupils can
confirm what they have worked out previously: that the three angles add up to 180°. The UK
teacher would use it so that pupils can infer this rule.
IDEOLOGY AND CLASSROOM PRACTICE
We saw earlier that classroom culture arises from the interplay between ideas and structure.
All too frequently, critics of contemporary primary schooling tend to forget this fact and
attribute perceived weaknesses in practice solely to the prevailing belief system. Thus the UK
teacher chooses not to tell pupils that the three angles add up to 180° because s/he believes
that ‘finding out is better than being told’, and that ‘children should be left to discover things
for themselves’. These maxims are, in turn, said to derive from the child-centred view of
education which originally developed as a reaction to the worst excesses of the industrial
revolution during the nineteenth century. Such views are reinforced in turn by theories of
child development, such as Piaget’s (see Chapter 2 of this book, and Wood 1988).
Clearly, such critics fail to appreciate the process of hybridisation, as described by
Kliebard (1986), which explains why teachers who hold a constructivist view of knowledge
in the manner of Piaget nevertheless spend most of their time interacting with individual
pupils, providing them with information, or issuing routine instructions. Far from never
telling pupils anything, teachers called individual monitors in the ORACLE study, who used
the least amount of class teaching, were more likely to tell pupils what to do than were the
class enquirers, who, as their name implies, frequently taught the whole class (Galton et al.
1980). All teachers strove to maintain the highest engagement levels, rarely taking the
opportunity to stand and monitor the pupils’ activity. Campbell (1993) attributes this high
work rate to conscientiousness, a characteristic of the Protestant work ethic arising from the
origins of mass elementary education within the Christian tradition of church schools, which
was later transported to all parts of the globe through missionary activity. As a result, the
primary culture includes a perception of teaching as a vocation requiring honest, hard-
working, committed professionals.
Conscientiousness is certainly a common feature of both of the mathematics lessons
described earlier in the chapter. Both teachers, during their training, will have had their
attention directed to constructivist views of knowledge, but what will determine how they
110 Maurice Galton
apply such theories will be structural features such as class size and ability groupings. For the
Singapore teacher with forty-five children in the class, the proportion of time which could be
devoted to individual pupils is too small to enable worthwhile exchanges. Given the
homogeneity of the class, the tactic of checking on their work five at a time is both more
efficient and more effective. In contrast, although a class of thirty still offers only limited
opportunities between a teacher and each pupil, the wide range of ability found in most UK
classrooms renders whole-class instruction problematic except for those tasks such as
introducing activities and drawing conclusions from what different pupils have
accomplished. Thus, equally important in an attempt to understand why teachers teach as they
do is the concept of teaching as a pragmatic activity. Faced with a number of different
problems – a difficult child, a rainy day requiring children to stay inside the classroom during
playtime, limited numbers of the same text book – a teacher will select a course of action
which s/he believes will allow the maximum number of children to engage in purposeful
activity. The nature of that activity will vary according to the classroom ethos. The teacher
with a class of difficult, unmotivated pupils, many of whom lack the self-confidence to learn,
will be less concerned with the academic content of the task and more concerned that it should
capture the pupils’ interest. A teacher such as the one in Singapore, who had only to say ‘Do
you need me to put my finger to my lips?’ to gain total silence, will naturally focus to a greater
degree on the intended learning outcomes of each task she sets.
PEDAGOGY: A NEGLECTED ASPECT OF THE PRIMARY

CULTURE
There is another factor which contributes to the strength of the prevailing view of the primary
school culture. This is the lack of any coherent theory of pedagogy, in the sense used by Gage
(1981) to describe a science of the art of teaching. In particular, as Eisenhart et al. (1991)
argue, there is no expectation of progression or development within pedagogy, because ‘there
are no theories of how teachers learn to teach more effectively’. This view offers another
reason why practice is so resistant to change. Namely, there is no expectation that it should
change. As the final chapter of this book shows, there is a tradition that student teachers model
their method on a more experienced classroom teacher’s practice when acquiring basic
teaching skills. If they find themselves with problems, they may modify these procedures by
taking advice from other teachers, but otherwise, with minor modifications, they stick with
the system that works. In teaching, therefore, there is no accepted notion of a progression on
which to base professional development. When dealing with those aspects of pedagogy
involving classroom discipline, teachers, as they gain experience, are rarely expected to
consider the use of approaches that encourage pupils to exercise self-control. It is more often
a case of having found one method that works and then sticking to it. This was true when, for
example, one school principal offered courses on using less confrontational methods of
classroom management. He was told by one teacher, ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’,
to which he replied, ‘But we are not dogs. We’re people!’ (Rogers 1990: 276).
Both Kagan (1992) and Reynolds (1992) have reviewed the extensive literature on
teaching and professional development, and they concur with Berliner’s (1992) view that
probably the best available model for building a theory of pedagogy is one which seeks to
differentiate between the cognitive states of teachers at different stages of their development.
This is because appropriate training programmes can then be devised in the same way that
different approaches are needed to move pupils to the point where they become ‘independent
thinkers’. This notion of needing to match INSET training to the teacher’s cognitive
development must be at the centre of any worthwhile theory of pedagogy.
TEACHING FOR UNDERSTANDING
As Good and Brophy (1994) note, one of the major shifts in thinking about teaching and
learning during the past decade has been the increased emphasis placed on teaching for
understanding, rather than for transmission of information. In this model, the main function
of whole-class teaching is to provide a scaffold which will enable pupils to think productively
(Nuthall and Alton-Lee 1993; Brown and Campione 1994). In science, for example, the
teacher needs to provide a framework which enables a group of pupils to decide which
hypotheses are plausible explanations of the facts and which are not. Part of this framework
will involve developing the necessary skills to apply procedures in ways which aid productive
thinking. For example, Galton (1989) describes how a group of nine-year-old pupils, when
asked to time a twenty-five second interval between two sounds on a tape recorder using a
stopwatch, obtained results within a range of fifteen and ninety-five seconds. Yet, the day
previously, the same pupils had been asked to explore the relationship between the angle of
incline of a wooden plank and the time it took for a toy car to travel down its length using the
same stopwatch. Others, such as McNamara (1995 and Chapter 4 of this book) have argued
that it is the teacher’s failure to train pupils adequately in communication skills which
accounts for the lack of effective groupwork in primary classrooms.
The evidence from research studies (Brophy and Good 1986) suggests that the use of direct
instruction, of the kind employed in the example of the Singapore mathematics lesson, is most
appropriate for teaching pupils to solve relatively simple problems involving procedural
routines, content knowledge and factual information. The teacher’s role in this kind of
problem-solving is very similar to that of the computer programmer who provides the
machine with the procedures necessary to work out a solution. As well as the actual
calculation, this also involves routines for accessing, storing and retrieving information and
rules for making decisions (e.g., how to proceed if a result is higher or lower than a given
112 Maurice Galton
value). Decision-making in a computer consists of answering lots of ‘yes or no’ questions

very quickly. The efficiency of the computer depends on this speed of processing and its
capacity to store large amounts of information in chunks. The effectiveness is also increased
by the use of ‘sub-routines’. These are regularly-used procedures which can be automatically
called up when needed rather than starting from scratch each time.
When this information model of ‘man as a computer’ is applied to learning by direct
instruction, there are strong parallels. The pupils are given new information, they are shown
how to remember it, and are taught how to use it in various procedures to solve problems. The
pupils then practise these procedures until they can use them automatically. However, just as
with the simple model of the computer in which, if the nature of the problem-solving changes
appreciably, the computer has to be re-programmed, so too when we move from teaching
multiplication of whole numbers to multiplying fractions or decimals, we have to begin the
process of direct instruction again. Once we move to generalities, for example, understanding
the principles of multiplication irrespective of the particular application, direct instruction
appears to be less effective. This form of thinking, or concept development, involves the
acquisition of new ideas (or the invention of them) and an ability to make appropriate use of
them. In the process we may have to identify the nature of a problem, analyse its components,
determine whether we have sufficient knowledge to solve it, and be able to monitor whether
our efforts are likely to be productive. As we saw in Chapter 3, this ability to regulate our
thinking processes, or to ‘control the domain of cognition’ (Meadows 1993: 78), lies at the
heart of what Brown and Palincsar (1986) call ‘learning as theory change’. The ‘man as a
computer’ model is not very helpful for understanding these ‘metacognitive’ processes, but
the ideas of Vygotsky, based upon cooperative learning, are (Cohen 1994). Here, those who
are more competent help the less competent move to a position where they can become ‘self-
regulating’ in their thinking. To assist the less competent learner, the more competent must
provide a ‘scaffolding’ or framework by means of which these metacognitive processes can
be internalised. Once this state is achieved, the pupil can become an independent thinker.
Pupils still need to engage in the same metacognitive processes, but now ‘talk to themselves’
rather than with peers or an adult. The teacher’s role is now primarily that of facilitator and
‘friendly critic’, as described in the Piagetian account of the thinking process. Thus Vygotsky
and Piaget represent the ends of a continuum which moves from ‘other’ to ‘self regulation.
For example, part of the scaffolding for discussion during collaborative learning involves
systematically considering all cases in support of the argument, then all counter-examples.
Cases which are neither for nor against are then isolated and used to suggest possible
alternative ways of presenting the original proposition (Brown and Palincsar 1986: 39).
Groups are taught to apply this strategy until the process becomes automatic. These
procedures, therefore, along with more fundamental skills, such as learning to listen carefully,
to communicate views and to handle conflict of views within the group, need to be taught
initially through direct instruction. Whether the teacher or peer provides the scaffolding
depends on contextual factors. Brown and Palincsar (1986) argue that the more abstract the
problem, the more dominant will be the teacher’s participation. Much will depend on the
extent to which the more competent pupils within the class have internalised the scaffolding
procedures.
Decisions about classroom organisation should then follow from this analysis. In direct
instruction, class teaching will be most effective because it maximises teacher contact. Thus,
when teaching procedures or skills such as listening, the whole class can be involved. When
new information is being offered, including demonstrations of relatively simple problem-
solving using this information, ability groups are likely to be preferred. Once, however,
thinking processes involving metacognition are required (e.g., getting ideas for story writing,
hypothesis generation, evaluating historical evidence), the research evidence suggests that
mixed ability groups may be more appropriate (Bennett and Dunne 1992).
However, even with this strategy in place, there remains a question of motivating pupils to
participate enthusiastically in these activities. Studies show that, even when pupils have the
necessary prior knowledge, they appear reluctant to engage in more demanding cognitive
activities, preferring, instead, to feign dependency (Pintrich et al. 1993). For such pupils, too
rigid a scaffolding of the kind offered in the example of group discussion can become a prison,
so that thinking never operates outside the teacher’s chosen framework. There will be
apparent gains in learning, but creativity may be stifled as a consequence. Chapter 4 of this
book suggests that it is only possible to use collaborative approaches if the pupils’ self-image
and self-esteem (both academic and social) are high. If pupils feel confident enough in their
learning, so that they do not fear failure, they will be more willing to initiate exchanges with
teachers in which they are open about the difficulties they have encountered and the solutions
they have used in attempting to solve a problem (McNamara and Moreton 1995).
IMPROVING EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
In a recent review of the field of research on teaching, Good (1995) argues that the study of
student cognition, how pupils perceive learning and its relation to their social development,
has not received the attention it deserves. One important factor has to do with the way that
teachers regulate pupils’ behaviour so that, as Galton (1989) argues, pupils are required to ‘do
as you think’ when learning is involved, but ‘do as the teacher says’ when a behaviour
problem arises. Pupils often find it difficult to interpret the teacher’s dual role of learning
facilitator and behaviour manager, and play safe by adopting dependency strategies which,
in extreme cases, take the form of ‘learned helplessness’ (as discussed especially in Chapter
4). Reviews of expert teaching (Sternberg and Horvath 1995) note that experts are less prone
to create this kind of classroom environment, since they avoid the use of maxims such as
114 Maurice Galton
‘don’t smile until Christmas’, preferring instead to deal with each problem as it arises on the
principle that ‘circumstances alter cases’. This suggests that one of the key elements in
changing the culture of schooling, so that teaching for understanding rather than for
knowledge transmission occurs, is the development of a comprehensive model of pedagogy
which includes a shift from behaviourist models of classroom management to ones based on
negotiation, of the kind advocated by Rogers (1990). Part of the teacher conservatism
remarked on by Lortie (1975) stems not so much from an in-built resistance to change for
change’s sake, but from a feeling that experts are ‘born, not made’. Too many teachers report,
while admiring the way that a colleague dealt with a pupil, that ‘I couldn’t possibly do the
same. I don’t have his/her personal qualities.’
SUMMARY
As long as the profession continues to argue that teaching quality arises from personality
traits, rather than from the consistent application of pedagogic theory, teaching effectively for
understanding rather than for knowledge transmission will remain an elusive goal. This is a
goal which is no longer restricted to the countries of the Northern hemisphere, but one which
increasingly commands the attention of policy makers within the rapidly developing
economies of Asia and the Pacific rim. There, the desire of China and India to participate fully
in the global economy requires existing industrialised countries to equip their workforce with
new skills if their competitive edge is not to be eroded. Furthermore, the marriage of
communication and computer technology now results in the power of computer networks
doubling every eighteen months or so, and this makes it difficult to visualise the demands of
the workplace a generation further on. Since schools cannot predict the kinds of knowledge
and skill their pupils will need, there appears to be no alternative but to
shift the emphasis of the duration system away from mastery of content to the acquisition
of thinking skills that will last the lifetime. Creativity and innovation skills will be at a
premium as we move into higher value-added knowledge and technology-based industry.
Our students must be encouraged to think independently and develop the habit of dealing
with the unpredictable and the open ended.
(Singapore Ministry of Education 1995)
Such goals provide a formidable challenge to both educators and researchers, who must
provide the necessary pedagogical frameworks within which a new generation of teachers
can be inducted into the profession, and existing members provided with the necessary
incentive to adapt their existing practice.
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Galton, M. (1989) Teaching in the Primary School, London: David Fulton.
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Galton, M. and Patrick, H. (1990) Curriculum Provision in the Small Primary School,
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Galton, M., Hargreaves, L. and Comber, C. (1995) Implementation of the National

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Chapter 7
Look back and wonder

The reflective practitioner and the learning
relationship
Neil Kitson
Excellent teacher preparation and superior teaching demands continuous attention to problems of
teacher self-evaluation and its avowed goal – teacher self-improvement. Mere teaching experience
will not guarantee improvement.
(Simpson 1966: 1)
INTRODUCTION
The role of a classroom teacher involves a complex web of skills and relationships. The
development of educational issues and teaching practice means that a teacher’s work is never
finished. When this is coupled with the wider demands placed upon the practitioner, such as
meeting the prevailing ideology or dealing with less than perfect surroundings, it may seem
that the job is one where the conflicts can never be reconciled. Yet the reality is that teachers
cope to varying degrees of success in the situations that they find themselves. To help them
cope, there are a range of strategies, but for many years writers (Zeichner 1982; Costello
1990; Whitty and Willmott 1991) have begun to develop the notion of reflective teachers who
can view their own practice within the broader context of teaching and, through reflecting on
it, can then improve and enhance their own work.
THE REFLECTIVE TEACHER
The notion of the reflective teacher is not, however, a new one; it originates with the work of
Dewey (1933) who, when looking at the learning of skills, developed the concept of ‘routine
action’ and ‘reflective action’. Dewey suggests that routine action is somewhat fixed and
static and governed by such things as tradition, habit and authority, by institutional structures
and expectations. Conversely, reflective action is characterised by engaging in constant self-
appraisal and development. Among other things, as Pollard and Tann (1987) suggest, it
implies flexibility, rigorous analysis and social awareness.
Look back and wonder 119
Pollard and Tann have developed and extended Dewey’s notions, applied them to
teaching, and extrapolated four basic characteristics of reflective teaching (1987: 4–5). These
are:
1 Reflective teaching implies an active concern with aims and consequences, as well as with
means and technical efficiency.
2 Reflective teaching combines enquiry and implementation skills with attitudes of open-
mindedness, responsibility and wholeheartedness.
3 Reflective teaching is applied in a cyclical or spiraling process, in which teachers
continually monitor, evaluate and revise their own practice.
4 Reflective teaching is based on teacher judgement, partly by self-reflection and partly by
insight from educational disciplines.
The reflective teacher needs to be aware of the aims and consequences of their action. We
can see that the child-centred philosophies developed in Britain during the 1960s and early
1970s had a significant effect on the general practice of teachers. The philosophy itself has a
long history, taking support from such post-war child psychologists as Piaget (1950) and
gaining official sanction in the Plowden Report (Central Advisory Council for Education
1967). These notions developed into an ideology or system of professional beliefs which has
now been shattered. Where once there was certainty there is now confusion. What were taken
to be answers now stand as debate. The arena of educational development is open to a wide
range of competing and conflicting opinions.
The previous chapter discussed some of these wider issues in terms of ideology and
change, and this chapter will now focus more on the primary school practitioner, standing
within this confusion and attempting to make moral and political sense amid the social
complexity. Teachers are trying to operate within a professional framework and to answer
practical educational questions on the spot, whereas the broader concerns of educational and
social aims are taken out of the school arena and placed firmly in the political domain. The
result of this is an increase of professional tension between the practice within the classroom
and the political debate. Costello (1990) alludes to the relationship between the issues and the
practice as seen by the classroom practitioner, and highlights the difficult gap currently
apparent between the theory and the practice. With the educational debate in such a volatile
state, teachers are placed in a difficult position, in that they are now cast in the role of the
interpreters of political policy (White 1978; Silcock 1994) rather than just the implementers.
In order to do this effectively and bridge the divide, teachers need to be willing and able to
consider for themselves both educational values and social consequences. Furthermore, they
need to participate in the debate at the widest possible level. In order to do this effectively, and
as a result operate as effective practitioners, they need to be reflective about the process of
education and not merely reactive to it.
120 Neil Kitson
Thus reflective teaching implies very serious considerations of ends as well as means. This
is an issue which we feel has been relatively neglected in . . . teacher education . . . .
(Pollard and Tann 1987: 6–7)
SKILLS, ATTITUDES AND THE REFLECTIVE TEACHER
Several previous chapters have shown the importance of the skills and attitudes which
children bring to the learning relationship, and reflective teaching also focuses upon skills and
attitudes rather than upon aims and objectives. It is about ownership and responsibility rather
than dogma and authority. The ability to reflect constructively upon our teaching gives a
degree of autonomy and empowerment by making the teacher in the classroom the agent of
their own change. By becoming flexible and responsive to the needs of the children and the
demands of the curriculum, optimal positions can be adopted. The teacher can become ever
more effective within the classroom by assessing the learning relationship.
Pollard and Tann (1987) identify six types of skill which contribute to the cyclical process
of reflection. These are:
1 Empirical skills – knowing what is actually going on and how people really feel.
2 Analytical skills – the ability to interpret the information gathered and to make sense of it.
3 Evaluative skills – making judgements about the effects of what has been seen and relating
it to future judgements.
4 Strategic skills – planning what needs to be done as a result of the new information and
deciding whether the action that needs to be taken should be at class, school or local
authority level.
5 Practical skills – here the teacher must put into practice the ideas developed. It is not
sufficient to be able to analyse and theorise without the skill of implementation.
6 Communication skills – necessary because the reflective teacher must test out his/her
perceptions and viewpoints with others. Indeed Liston and Zeichner (1990) go further in
suggesting that such communication is essential to the process of reflection.
These skills are necessary but not sufficient for teachers to develop as reflective practitioners,
for they need to be placed within an attitudinal framework first identified by Dewey and
developed further by Zeichner (1982), Pollard and Tann (1987) and Liston and Zeichner
(1990). The framework consists of three elements: open-mindedness, responsibility, and
wholeheartedness.
Open-mindedness
This is important as part of the reflective process, as it enables the practitioner to consider
objectively ‘what is going on’. If one is closed to the full range of possibilities then only that
information that fits within the perceptual set will be attended to. Therefore the teacher will
see only what she expects to see and will not fully attune to the evidence. As Dewey states,
open-mindedness is an
active desire to listen to more sides than one, to give heed to facts from whatever source
they come, to give full attention to alternative possibilities, to recognise the possibilities
of error even in the beliefs which are dearest to us.
(Dewey 1933: 20)
But to be open-minded must lead directly to the consideration of where such open-
mindedness may lead. Each observation made will have an associated course of action and
related outcomes, so that if we are going to look for something we must be prepared to deal
with what we discover. In order to deal with these outcomes, Dewey proposes the second
attitude necessary for a reflective practitioner: that of responsibility.
Responsibility
In its intellectual sense, Dewey sees that responsibility enables us to consider the
consequences of a projected step, which means that we must be willing to adopt these
consequences when they follow reasonably: ‘Intellectual responsibility secures integrity’
(Dewey 1933: 30).
Clearly Dewey was concerned with the classroom and the wider context of the school. Yet,
as indicated above and in the introduction to this book, the relationship between the teacher,
the learner and the learning situation is dependent upon the wider social and political context.
The teacher tends to relate to the learning environment in accordance with loose criteria set
out by a society. These criteria have a political and cultural underpinning which needs to be
understood by the reflective practitioner. Liston and Zeichner (1990), writing from an
American perspective, expand upon this notion by examining the relationship between
teachers and learners.
Lately, the sense within teacher education seems to be that as long as teachers ‘reflect’ on
their action and purposes, then everything is all right. When this is the case, calls for further
reflection become groundless, that is, such proclamations lack any substantial basis for
discerning what will count as good reasons for educational action. We sense that teacher
education ought to aim directly at developing teachers who are able to identify and
articulate their purposes, who can choose the appropriate means, who know and
understand the content to be taught, who understand the cultural and cognitive orientations
of their students, and who can be counted on for giving good reasons for their action. . . .
122 Neil Kitson
[T]eachers’ educational rationales should take into account the activity of teaching, the
larger community of educators, and the greater understanding of the social and political
context of schooling. Furthermore such reason-giving should provide some basis on
which to discern good from bad, and better from worse, educational rationales.
(Liston and Zeichner 1990: 236)
Quite clearly, Liston and Zeichner are asserting that moral, ethical and political issues will be
raised, and indeed this must be so if teachers are to make professional and personal
judgements about what is educationally worthwhile.
Wholeheartedness
The third of Dewey’s attitudes necessary for a reflective practitioner is that of

wholeheartedness. This refers essentially to the way in which decisions based upon
intellectual responsibility are made. It was Dewey’s contention that teachers should be
dedicated, single-minded, energetic and enthusiastic.
There is no greater enemy of effective thinking than divided interest. . . . A genuine

enthusiasm is an essential attitude that operates as an intellectual force when a person is
absorbed. . . . The subject carries him on.
(Dewey 1933: 30)
On their own, each of these attitudes is admirable enough, but, as Pollard and Tann (1987)
state, it is only when they work in conjunction that the teacher is enabled to become truly
reflective.
REFLECTION AND ITS RELATION TO COMPETENCE AND

ACTIONRESEARCH
There is a number of strategies that teachers can employ in developing their practical skills
through reflective processes but, for the purposes of this chapter, we will consider two, both
of which hold the notion of reflection as central. The first involves teachers reflecting upon
their skills and practice, relating them to specified criteria defined in terms of competencies;
the second, based on the concept of action research, is the engagement in the process of
actively asking questions of their work in the classroom. We will now consider both of these
strategies in order to evaluate their effectiveness for practitioners in the classroom.
Competency-based teacher reflection
In changing times, unchanging schools are anomalous. Competency based [teacher] education
promises the thrust necessary for adaptation to meet the challenge of a changed and changing society.
The emphasis in competency-based teacher education on objectives, accountability and
personalisation implies specific criteria, careful evaluation, change based on feedback, and relevant
programs [of learning] for a modern era.
(Houston and Howsam 1972: 1)
A great deal has been written about the use of competencies within the professional
development of teachers (McNamara 1990; Baird 1991; Bennett et al. 1992; Carter, et al.
1993), and what Howsam and Houston described back in 1972 has become increasingly
significant today for teachers, as our schools, and the educational system they operate within,
experience major changes.
But what, then, are competencies and what is their function in the development of the
reflective practitioner?.
The notion of competency was originally conceived by industry and the world of
employment from the ideas developed by behavioural psychologists. What theorists
attempted to do was to break down the specific activities relating to a job into their basic
component parts – the basic skills which would enable an individual to carry out the job
successfully. Competency initially considers all the elements that would be needed, and then
groups them into specific, manageable skills. By working through these skills the individual
learner, be they a surgeon, an electrician or a teacher, can assess what they have already
achieved, what they have still to do, and then what they must begin to work on next. It means
that, through reflection, the learner can focus upon those areas that are important to them and
pay less attention to those where improvement has already taken place or those areas that the
individual brings with them from another part of their previous learning. In this respect it is
more like real-life learning, as opposed to the traditional, academic kind where all learners
must follow the same set of instructions and be presented with the same body of knowledge
to ensure that they have all received equal amounts of the same instruction. This ‘traditional’
method clearly fails to take into account the fact that everybody is different and that their life
experiences vary considerably. Competency-based learning attempts to be more efficient by
acknowledging the strengths of individuals and allowing the greater expending of energy on
those areas where development is needed.
Unlike the traditional models of teaching/learning which concentrate on the transmission
of a body of knowledge, kept secret until the point of transfer, here the skills needed to
124 Neil Kitson
complete the task are presented at the outset. The individuals have knowledge of the range of
skills and understanding that is required. They are able to become active participants within
the learning process and are no longer the passive recipients. Here reflection plays a key role.
Through the reflective process they are enabled to identify their previously acquired
strengths, their areas of deficiency, and then to select those new skills which they wish to
develop. Once they have engaged with the reflective process, they become aware not only of
what needs to be covered but also of their responsibility for the learning. No longer can they
blame others for being ineffective! If competency-based learning has been correctly
established, the learners have the responsibility to ensure that they are gaining access to the
knowledge, skills, and understanding that they require.
Now we will consider how this way of working can be used to help develop the skills of a
teacher.
Competencies within teaching and professional development
Teachers’ professional enhancement can be seen to fit this structure because it is the process
for the preparation and continued development of those individuals who want to practise in
the teaching profession. In common with the majority of professions, this process involves:
• the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to apply it;

• the development of a specified repertoire of critical behaviours and skills.
To the extent that the knowledge, behaviours and skills can be identified, these become the
competency-objectives for the training of teachers.
Learning objectives are commonly classified according to one of five criteria that can be
applied in the assessment of our performance as teachers. These criteria are:
1 cognitive objectives;
2 performance objectives;
3 consequence objectives;
4 affective objectives;
5 exploratory objectives.
What, then, are these objectives, and how do they relate to teaching, the matter under
consideration?
Cognitive objectives specify knowledge and intellectual abilities or skills that are to be
demonstrated by the learner. In the professional development of teachers, such objectives
need to include knowledge of the subject matter to be taught, knowledge of pedagogy, the
ability to analyse the curriculum area being taught, etc.
Performance objectives require the learner to demonstrate the ability to perform a given
activity – one must not only know what to do but also how to do it. For teachers, such an
objective could be identified as the development of higher-order reading skills, the
development of group-work, or the instigation of a personal skills programme.
Consequence objectives are seen as the results of the learner’s actions. The teacher may need
to develop, for example, a programme of phonics to help an individual’s reading progress, or
to show that she can enable the class to engage in independent collaborative groupwork.
Teachers need to be able demonstrate the effect of their teaching, not simply to have
knowledge of it.
Affective objectives deal with the area of attitudes, values, beliefs, and relationships.
Difficult to define, these objectives normally relate to the social health of the learning group:
i.e., the way that the children interact with and relate to each other.
Exploratory objectives seen as processes of self-learning or investigation. Here, teachers

will find out more about a specific issue or topic in order to develop their own teaching.
All five of these learning objectives are important in the professional development of teachers
who are flexible enough to meet the challenges of today’s teaching. When we look at
competencies for teaching we must make the greatest possible use of the consequence
objectives. The knowledge alone of how to do something is only of limited use (McNamara
1990). What we must strive towards is the knowledge, the skill of being able to put it into
practice, and the ability to evaluate its effectiveness through the result seen in the children’s
work. The key to the success of this, however, is the teacher’s ability to reflect constructively
on their own work.
Characteristics of competencies for teaching
‘Teaching acts are an observable performance’ (McDonald 1974). This performance is linked
to situations that vary in terms of the underlying purposes of the teaching, the materials that
are to be used, the children who are being taught and how they are responding to the specific
situation. Such ‘performances’ have two main elements within them:
1 a behavioural component
2 a cognitive component.
126 Neil Kitson
The first of these, the behavioural component, is a set of observable actions, while the second
is a combination of perceptions, interpretations and decisions. (See Chapters 2 and 3 for a
discussion of these cognitive elements and how they develop.) Proficiency in both areas is
needed in order to produce a competent performance, and, conversely, any set of
competencies that might be established needs to take both components into account.
As part of a learning relationship, teaching is an ongoing learning process of developing
skills, knowledge and understanding, of appraisal and re-evaluation. Teachers need
constantly to examine their practice, assess and alter their approach with every new child and
every new situation that they meet. To this end, as already demonstrated, teachers need to
become reflective practitioners, the sense of which is built into the competency model in the
way in which it looks at the professional development of teachers as an ongoing process. As
McNamara (1990) shows, it is not enough just to have the facts necessary to teach; the best
ways of putting those facts across are also needed. In order to help children learn effectively
we need to identify attainable goals, and we also need to feel that we are succeeding, not that
we are being constantly de-skilled by discovering that there is yet more and more that we don’t
know. When using a competency approach, the learner is given access to the range of skills at
the outset, and it is her responsibility to select those areas that she feels she would like to work
on. It is then clearly implicit within the structure of the competencies approach that the
learning will never be complete, only that a higher level will have been achieved.
Over recent years the UK government has become increasingly interested in this
competency-based approach to the education of teachers. In 1992 the Department of
Education published a list of competencies for newly-qualified teachers, and interest has been
shown in looking at how this can be related to practising teachers (Earley 1992a). Indeed a
considerable amount of work has been done linking the notion of competencies to that of
appraisal and to teachers’ individual action-planning for their professional development
(Earley 1992b, 1993).
The way forward?
Everybody is talking about competence. It is an El Dorado of a word with a wealth of meaning and
the appropriate connotations for utilitarian times. The language of competency-based approaches to
education and training is compelling in its common-sense and rhetorical force. Words like
‘competence’ and ‘standards’ are good words, modern words; everybody is for standards and
everybody is against incompetence.
(Norris 1991: 331)
Despite their apparent simplicity, the concepts of competence and standards have had a
troubled history. The tacit understanding of the words, Norris suggests, has been overtaken
by the need to define concepts precisely and to operationalise them. What has previously been
seen as practical has become shrouded in theoretical confusion, and what was apparently
simple has become profoundly complex.
This developing commitment to competencies, however, is not straightforward. As yet the
definition of individual competencies is far from clear and, when it has been defined, how will
it be assessed? There would seem to be a tension here in that a definition of competency that
lends itself to assessment will not find favour among the values of those professionals
engaged in teacher education (Carr 1993). But as McCulloch (1994: 129–30) shows:
[T]his is being challenged by those who argue that the true definition of competence
implies the kind of understanding and values which underpin a liberal higher education
and . . . these higher order characteristics can be specified, defined, observed and assessed.
McCulloch extends this debate by suggesting that the notion of competence is often used in
two different ways: first, in a theoretical way which can indicate enhanced performance; and
second, by theorising about competence as the underlying structure which is responsible for
observable performance. If we wish to study competence we will be studying a working
model of the development of expertise. If, on the other hand, we are to look at performance,
we are caught up in the methodological problem of how to relate what a person can do to what
they really understand. In other words, as McCulloch (1994) indicates, competence concerns
what people know and can do in ideal circumstances, while performance is what they do in
reality under existing circumstances. Competence includes the structure of knowledge and
abilities, whereas performance also includes the process of ‘accessing and utilising those
structures and a host of affective, motivational, attentional and stylistic factors that influence
the ultimate response’ (Messick 1984, quoted in McCulloch 1994).
Throughout all of this we are concerned with what the reflective practitioner is able to do
within the learning environment. Many within teacher education have resisted the whole
concept of competencies. They feel that it is a reductionist model with an over-emphasis on
skills and techniques, ignoring what informs teaching performance. Such theorists as Whitty
and Willmott (1991) propound the ‘Gestalt’ notion of educa tion, arguing that the process of
teaching and learning is far more than the sum of its parts – the process cannot be reduced to
a series of functions to be carried out by the teacher. To Whitty and Willmott, the reflective
qualities that are so important in the continuing development of a teacher are lacking in the
competency model. Others have argued that the competency-based approach does allow for
the major elements within the complex and dynamic process of teaching – evaluation,
128 Neil Kitson
research and experimentation. Authors such as Hextall et al. (1991) are able to define a range
of reflexively-based competencies. Evaluation, research and experimentation
are not value-added features of teacher quality; they constitute the very bases of
competence in teaching – that is reflectivity. . . . The quality of reflectivity can be
formulated as a series of competencies which can be observed, developed and monitored.
(Hextall et al. 1991: 5)
There is, however, a suggestion from McCulloch that this may be a somewhat politically-
based response which attempts to fit traditional concepts of teacher education into the
vocational model which is currently in vogue. Hextall and colleagues are challenging the
simplistic competency-based approaches to the development of teacher skills without
appearing to challenge the skills-based model being promoted at this time by the government
(McCulloch 1994). This confusion about the nature of the process underpinning the
competencies is further complicated by fact that the language of descriptors is so vague.
Despite the complexity of the task, there is a number of advantages which can be seen
when following this form of professional development for teachers. The first is that the whole
process of teacher education is demystified (its critics might even say over-simplified!) by the
definition and description of the competencies, and the second is that, as schools move to a
more criteria-based assessment of their children, they have a shared experience with which
to inform their practice.
Disadvantages
When attempting to relate the concept of competencies to the professional development of

teachers there remains, despite the work of Earley (1993), a number of difficulties. We need
to consider definitions of competency that go beyond skill but, by doing so, we come to the
difficulty of assessment (McCulloch 1994). It is for this that we need to re-establish the
concept of the teacher as a reflective practitioner, because herein lies the opportunity for self-
assessment across a range situations.
The compromise here is the association of specific definitions with range statements
which detail the different contexts within which the competencies must be displayed.
There remains the problem of where a ‘pass’ occurs, whether comparative judgements can
be used instead . . . or whether the identification of novice skills as compared with an expert
can give our absolute ‘pass’ – norm referenced as it inevitably is.
(McCulloch 1994: 138–9)
The advantages to the reflective practitioner of competency-based professional

development remain to be proven, while the difficulties of definition and specification, and
the associated identification of realisable assessment criteria, still dominate the debate. As
Norris (1991: 337) concludes:
What is wrong here, as I see it, is the assumption that the assessment of knowledge or
performance, taken separately or together, can cope with the range of context dependent
and contingent nature of professional action. It is not the standards of performance that are
required since these are beyond our capacity to specify. What is needed are standards of
criticism and principles of professional judgement that can inform action in the context of
uncertainty and change.
We are left, then, with an impasse. There is a growing move by centralised training bodies
towards the notion of competencies for both the development of initial teacher training and
for the professional development of teachers. Yet there is considerable evidence to suggest
that there are problems with this method of teacher development. Not least there are the
problems regarding definition and terminology. Clearly we are part-way along the road, and
much still needs to be examined. While the notion of competencies might be seen as an ideal
solution to teacher development, there still remains a number of unanswered questions. What
if, instead of looking outwards to a set of external competences, we look inwards for teacher
development, towards action research?
ACTION RESEARCH AND THE REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER
One area of work which has looked at the notion of teachers’ professional development
through reflection on practice has become known as ‘action research’, the name given to an
increasingly popular study within educational research originated by Lewin (1946). It sets out
to encourage the teacher to reflect on her own practice in order to improve its quality, and to
this end it is a self-reflective enquiry which is now being used widely in school-based
curriculum development, professional development, school-based improvement schemes
and, to some limited extent, initial teacher training. This growing movement is now being
seen as a real alternative to more academic, theory-based educational research, which has
often looked at issues within the educational debate rather than focusing on the practical
concerns of the teacher. Unlike the action-based method of enquiry, this larger-scale
educational research is often seen as being imposed upon classroom teachers and not dealing
with their own specific priorities. It sees the educational process as a holistic structure rather
130 Neil Kitson
than a series of independent autonomous areas of study, and views the teacher as being central
to the process.
Action research approaches education as a unified exercise, seeing a teacher in the class
as the best judge of his total educational experience.
(McNiff 1992: 1)
Action research is an effective tool for unifying the divide between educational theory and
practice, for it is the teacher herself who is encouraged to develop her own theory based upon
her own practice.
Action research might be defined as ‘the study of social situations with a view to improving
the quality of action within it’. It aims to feed practical judgements in concrete situations,
and the validity of the ‘theories’ or hypotheses it generates depends not so much on
‘scientific’ tests of truth, as on their usefulness in helping people to act more intelligently
and skilfully. In action research, ‘theories’ are not validated independently and then
applied to practice. They are validated through practice.
(Elliott 1991: 69)
Lewin’s (1946) model of action research was a model for change based on action and
research. It involved teachers and researchers in a cyclical process of planning, action,
observation and reflection: on the basis of reflecting upon the observations, a new planning
cycle is then begun. As with the competency model of professional development, teachers are
encouraged to observe their own practice and to reflect upon it. The most significant
difference is the autonomy placed upon the individual practitioner. With the competency
model the teacher is fitting her practice into previously determined criteria which then
become the ‘benchmark’, whereas with the action research model the teacher is empowered
to investigate those areas of concern as she perceives it within her own teaching situation.
The model originated by Lewin (1946) was further developed by Stenhouse (1975), and
has since been elaborated by Elliott and Adelman (1976), Ebbutt (1985) and others, who
developed the term ‘teacher-as-researcher’ to refer to the participants in the movement they
helped to create. This encouraged teachers to assume the position of researchers within their
own classrooms, as part of their professional reflective role. But as Pollard and Tann (1987)
indicate, this approach has been criticised for encouraging a focus on practical classroom
ideas while the wider issues are accepted and left unchallenged. Despite this, Carr and
Kemmis (1986) postulate that such work provides a means for the teacher to become
‘critical’. They suggest (1986: 165) that action research involves:
• the improvement of practice;

• the improvement of the understanding of the practice by the practitioners;
• the improvement of the situation in which practice takes place.
As with Stenhouse (1975), they see the potential for the action research model as being
emancipatory, releasing teachers from the straitjacket of habit, precedent, assumption and
entrenched ideology.
Lewin described action research as series of steps in a spiral and, put simply, each step had
four stages; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. The scheme in action is represented
in Figure 7.1.
The enquiry would then move on to the next step of the process, the replanning of the
action. The model would thus be extended as shown in Figure 7.2.
Stenhouse took Lewin’s ideas, which were not intended specifically for an education
setting, and developed the concept of the teacher researcher. His theoretical notions came out
of his work on the Schools Council Humanities Curriculum, which aimed at establishing a
liberating environment in which pupils could learn, and his central premise was that teachers
should regard themselves as researchers and see themselves as the best judges of their own
practice.
Figure 7.1 The four stages of action research

Source: McNiff (1988)
132 Neil Kitson
Figure 7.2 The action research model extended to include replanning

of the action
Figure 7.3 The ‘action research spiral’

Source: based on Kemmis and McTaggart (1988: 14)
This basic notion has been developed, both in this country and abroad, by Kemmis, Elliott,
Ebbutt, McNiff and others, and a range of models of the process has been suggested, some
of the key ones being illustrated in Figures 7.3 and 7.4. While the proposers of the various
Figure 7.4 Elliott’s action research model

Source: Elliott (1991:71)
models may disagree about the accuracy of the spiral or the linear structure, what is significant
for us here is that they all have within them the central notion of reflection. The learning about
practice does not come from the setting of a focus, nor does it come from the observation of
the practice. It comes about through reflecting on the practice – from thinking about what has
134 Neil Kitson
occurred in relation to what was previously assumed to have occurred, and about how the
learning environment might be altered to improve the experience for the children.
Much has been talked about the benefits of action research for the classroom practitioner,
but writers have voiced a note of caution. There are three main areas of concern. First,
classroom action research has moved a long way from how Lewin originally saw the concept,
which was externally implemented, very functional, and prescriptive. Today it is more
usually seen as problem-solving and eclectic in orientation, yet much energy has been
expended in trying to intellectualise the basis for action research as it is derived from Lewin’s
original work.
We should take care that what began as a useful label to describe teacher research for
professional development does not assume a different character as a result for intellectual
credibility.
(Hopkins 1993: 54)
Second, no model can ever mirror reality, and great effort continues to be expended by the
theoreticians in developing and refining the models. There is a danger that teachers may
become entrapped by the tight steps of the various models, rather than liberated by them. At
best, the models provide a starting point for the work and a guide thereafter. At worst they will
become a straitjacket, confining teachers within a set of assumptions.
Action research frequently focuses upon words such as ‘difficulty’, ‘problematic’ and
‘improvement’. Thus, professionally we are offered an image of a deficit model of teacher
development. We need to talk positively about classroom research, and to encourage teachers
to reflect evenly upon what they do rather than to dwell on the negative elements of what they
have got wrong.
Action research is one way of restoring and enhancing professional confidence . . . the
importance of action research is not to be underestimated. Action research provides
teachers with a more appropriate alternative to traditional research designs and one that is,
in aspiration at least, emancipatory.
(Hopkins 1993: 56)
TEACHERS ARE ALSO REAL PEOPLE!
When we consider ourselves as teachers, we must also consider those elements that make us
what we are. We must recognise our social, cultural and educational backgrounds, for all of
these have a significant influence upon a teacher’s work within the classroom. It is our
personal biography that goes to make what, in psychological terms, is known as the ‘self’, and
it is this that makes us the people that we are. This is as true for teachers and children as it is
for anyone else (Hargreaves 1992). The reflective teacher needs to consider her own values
and beliefs care fully, and to be conscious of their implications for teaching. It is this value
structure that will underpin the way that other ideas and decisions are dealt with. Much of this
is bound up with what is traditionally thought to be the role of the teacher. Often what is done
within the school is done in the way that it is because that is how the role of the teacher is
perceived – this in turn being a leftover from the training process that teachers have undergone
(Dewey would term this ‘routine action’ rather than ‘reflective action’). There are
considerable pressures placed upon teachers to conform to a range of roles, all invariably
constructed by ‘others’ and not by the teachers themselves (such as, for instance,
competences). The UK government has a notion of the role of the teacher, parents have a view,
as do school governors, children and the media. No two views are the same, and each brings
with it a set of pressures which are external to the real task of teaching. In order to free
themselves from these imposed roles, teachers need to be able to interpret the pressures, make
sense of them within the context of their own work and then make appropriate judgements.
This can only be helped by encouraging teachers to reflect on themselves, as individuals and
as practitioners within the classroom.
Thus, knowing oneself as a person, establishing a clear set of values, aims and
commitments, and understanding the situation one is in, are three essential elements in any
reflective consideration of teaching.
(Pollard and Tann 1987: 38)
DEVELOPING A SENSE OF ‘SELF’
Studies of primary teachers indicate that those people entering the profession have a strong
sense of professional identity and personal values. Nias et al. (1992) further indicates that this
feeling is so strong that many individuals see themselves as ‘persons in teaching’ rather than
as ‘teachers’. Many were looking for personal fulfilment through teaching, over and above
‘the job’. Clearly teachers must recognise this and resolve any differences between their
perceived role – ‘what teachers do’ – and their concepts of self – ‘how I see myself. Chapter
4 showed how changing children’s learning must involve a consideration of their feelings
about themselves as learners; similarly, the ability of teachers to change through reflection is
dependent upon how they see the relationship between their role and themselves. Therefore
there is a need to be open and willing to change, and the teacher must feel comfortable with
the ‘self’. We must encourage teachers to develop self-awareness and self-knowledge. By
136 Neil Kitson
doing this we are equipping them to cope with the wide and ever-changing problems that are
part of the learning relationship.
CONCLUSION
Effective teachers need to be reflective teachers. They need to develop a sense of openness
with themselves, with other staff and with pupils, in order to get feedback. In this way they
can find out more about how they perform in the professional setting in order that informed
development can occur. Teachers must be encouraged to work collaboratively with
colleagues and to develop open and trusting working relationships. It is important not only
that these professional relationships offer a different perspective on practice but that they also
offer support so as to deal with whatever is revealed. (For further discussion of this, see
Chapter 9).
It is important that teachers should identify how they feel about the learning process, rather
than fall into assumptions or habitual practices: ‘we’ve always done it like this’ is a weak
position from which to integrate new concepts into teaching practice. If we are not careful,
we will be swept along by the prevailing ideologies. It is important that, as teachers, we are
aware of and develop our own pedagogy.
Changes in the professional role of teachers may make considerable demands on our
personal and social attributes, as well as on our pedagogic skills. They also make demands
on our willingness and capacity for change. We need, therefore, to consider our aims in the
light of the many demands which are made upon us.
(Pollard and Tann 1987: 45)
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138 Neil Kitson
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Chapter 8
Classroom talk
Communicating within the learning relationship
Martin Cortazzi
INTRODUCTION
The language used by teachers in the classroom is a major element of a vital communication
system: classroom discourse. This chapter will discuss some of the many ways in which
classroom discourse frames learning. Teacher–pupil talk is the medium through which
learners encounter so much of the curriculum. It is the medium for classroom organisation,
management and control; a medium for socialisation into schooling and culture. Teacher–
pupil talk is the major means through which children develop their literacy skills which, in
turn, they will use for so much other learning.
The talk of teachers, therefore, has a far-reaching influence. It can be a model of how to
use language for learning and thus the means for pupils to learn how to learn. Teacher talk can
implicitly convey the norms and expectations of classroom behaviour, of teachers’ and
pupils’ roles, of how to attain knowledge and understanding. It can show how to express and
explain what one knows, or even that one may come to know something through trying to
express what one thinks it might be. Teacher talk can convey a hidden curriculum of all these
things. Together with the interaction of learners’ talk to each other, teacher talk can be the
foundation of cultures of learning. In all these areas, teacher talk can be a bridge or a barrier,
either facilitating learning relationships or limiting them.
During class time, classroom discourse is practically continuous. It is rare to find sustained
silence in primary schools. Teachers – and pupils – are constantly creating this medium for
learning, yet it is easy to take it for granted. Precisely because it seems so normal, especially
for more experienced teachers, we may overlook some of the ways in which it works and
ignore aspects of its complexity. This means it is difficult to change (if change is desired), but
easy to become a victim of it – to find that we only use language in certain ways because (we
believe) those are the ways of talking in classrooms.
140 Martin Cortazzi
This chapter will elaborate on these ideas, first outlining some of the ways in which teacher
talk functions on various levels. Then it will examine some of the patterns of the language
exchanges between teachers and learners. Some of these exchanges are designed to conform
to a plan or to reach an outcome known in advance by the teacher. However, many exchanges
are not pre-structured or formulaic. They cannot be predicted because children’s responses
cannot be easily predicted. Rather, classroom exchanges are negotiations of meaning in
which participants respond to each other’s on-going talk. The chapter therefore also examines
talk intended to create a learning relationship for children – an environment of
communication with teachers, linked to thinking and experience, in which children will learn
and develop.
ORAL COMMUNICATION IN THE CURRICULUM
Language is, of course, an important subject of the curriculum and it is vital for teachers to
present an appropriate model of language. Until recently, the language area of the primary
curriculum in many countries gave priority to literacy and literature, but now it is increasingly
common to give more emphasis to children’s talk. There are good reasons for this: children
in the primary phase are still acquiring their mother tongue, and in many cases a second or
other language. This means that they are still developing areas of grammar, pronunciation,
and, most clearly, vocabulary (Durkin 1986); but, more than this, they are also developing
sociolinguistic skills of appropriate use (Andersen 1990) and their awareness of language
itself and the ability to reflect on it and deliberately control its use (see Chapter 2 of this book
and, e.g., Gombert 1992). Also, the development of fluent talk can be seen as being important
for children’s social and psychological development, e.g. for self-confidence and self-
esteem, as seen earlier in this book.
For pupils in British primary schools, this means that English is a core subject, taught and
used by virtually all teachers. (Two exceptions are when a foreign language is taught and
when a teacher switches languages to support bilingual pupils’ learning.) This means that
teacher talk is an important model of language, both as a source of input for children’s
language development and as an example of appropriate target language. This is the reason
why teacher training programmes in many countries stress the use of clear speech by teachers,
a wide but appropriate use of vocabulary and, in general, a high standard of talk.
There is another dimension or level to this: language is the medium for learning all subjects
in the curriculum, including language (English or another language). Many linguists and
educators emphasise the importance of talking for children’s learning (see, e.g., Britton 1970;
Classroom talk 141
Stubbs 1983; Tizard and Hughes 1984; Wells 1986; Edwards and Mercer 1987; Corson 1988;
Meadows and Cashdan 1988). They have emphasised these kinds of linked propositions:
• language develops primarily through purposeful use;

• expressing ideas is a means of understanding them;
• talk with parents and teachers is making meaning;
• oracy is a bridge to literacy;
• talking is a foundation for learning;
• language use contributes to cognitive development.
Therefore the ability of teachers, and learners, to express themselves verbally – and
understand other’s talk – is crucial for the teaching–learning relationship.
Language is a symbol system. Through names, technical terms, subject-specific phrases
and expressions, the knowledge and concepts involved in all subjects are encoded. It is
difficult to discuss art, science or music without relevant terms. Language labels concepts and
encodes ways of thinking: the language of maths is maths. Hence, it is difficult for teachers
not to be involved, directly or indirectly, in language teaching, whatever they are teaching.
The example below shows how older children have internalised this idea of subject registers:
each subject involves learning a different way of talking because the subject embodies its own
way of thinking. However, younger learners still have to learn how to handle these differences
of register. The speaker is a secondary school student:
When you’re speaking with each other, you’re practising your English. Geogra-
phy is a different language, you don’t speak that. When you’re speaking about
Maths, that’s English, but when you write, you have to write Maths. You have to
use words like ‘thus’, and ‘hence’ and ‘implies that’. History has a completely dif-
ferent set of words, like ‘bitterly hostile’, and there are some words that you can’t
use in Geography – like ‘mardy’ and ‘beautiful’.
Transcript 1 (from Harold Gardiner 1980; personal communication)
This presents teachers with a paradox: there is a need to simplify their talk to children
because they are still acquiring language, yet there is a need to provide a language-rich
environment to facilitate their development. This is heavily reinforced by another paradox:
the need to use language as a medium for learning subject content when children are still
developing that medium. English is both a target and the means to reach that target. It is also
the means that teachers have to use to help children attain these.
142 Martin Cortazzi
ORAL COMMUNICATION IN SOCIAL INTERACTION AND

CLASSROOM ORGANISATION
A further level of complexity is the fact that teacher talk is the means for organising and
managing children’s learning. Teachers need to give instructions, set up activities, or organise
groups of learners. Teachers need to inform children about what to do, how to go about tasks,
and they need to assess and evaluate learning. All of these teacher roles are predominantly
carried out through language. The language used for controlling and disciplining pupils is
also part of this dimension.
Consider these questions asked by primary teachers:
• Can you play the guitar?

• Can you get into groups?
• Can you get on with your work?
All of these could be answered by yes or no, without further action by the children, i.e. they
could be interpreted as requests for information about the ability to do these things. This
depends on the context, however. If the first is said to a child holding the guitar, it could be a
request for action, a polite command to play. The second example is clearly a classroom
instruction. The last example could be an instruction, but is more likely to be a reprimand; yet,
if said by a teacher who wants to know if children need help, it is a request for information.
Teachers know that the context and tone of voice make all the difference, that utterances are
not only saying something but are also doing something. Older pupils also know that speech
performs actions and they can decode the underlying meaning.
TEACHER What are you laughing at?

PUPIL Nothing.
Here the pupil understands the question as a reprimand – one is not supposed to laugh in class
– and so replies ‘Nothing’. This is clearly not literally true, and can be taken to mean Nothing
that I can tell you about, i.e. it is unofficial laughter, not part of the classroom agenda. While
older pupils realise and respond to such indirect requests and controls by teachers, they are a
challenge for some younger learners and second language users.
TEACHER Before noon it is ante-meridian, or a.m. If it’s after, it’s post-

meridian. What does that mean? Can you guess . . . post-meridian?
Yes, Simon.
CHILD 1 Afternoon.
TEACHER Afternoon. That’s right Good boy.
Classroom talk 143
CHILD 2 It’s like when somebody’s having a baby. It’s post-mature if it’s
after . . .
TEACHER It’s post-natal and ante-natal, not mature.
CHILD 2 I know, but . . .
TEACHER That’s right Good girl. Yes, post. Good.
CHILD 3 My mummy told me about the p.m. and the a.m. and I worked it out.
In the mornings it’s a.m. and if it’s in the afternoon it’s p.m.
TEACHER Good. Well, I want you to practise doing it with these cards that
I’ve made you. Alright, shush the rest of you! If you want to get bottle
tops to draw round for clocks then do so. Could you just get on qui-
etly for a minute, Anna? Just a minute, Donald, please. Any time after
12 o’clock at night, midnight, until 12 o’clock noon – which is our
lunch time isn’t it? – we say ante-meridian or a.m.
Transcript 2 (quoted in Francis 1977: 78; my interpretation)
The management role of teachers can often conflict with a teaching role, especially under
pressure of time. This is illustrated in the example of Transcript 2, which occurred with eight-
year-old pupils who were about to practise some work with clocks.
The teacher starts by explaining and asking about the terms a.m. and p.m. and one child
provides an acceptable answer. The second child then offers an unsolicited comment which
includes the term post-mature. The teacher interrupts this with a correction. (The social rights
of speaking in classrooms include the norm that teachers may interrupt pupils at any time, but
not vice versa.) This would normally stop such an exchange but here Child 2 acknowledges
the teacher’s correction: ‘I know, but . . .’.
The but shows that the child has more to say. At this point the teacher again cuts in,
apparently acknowledging, now, Child 2’s original contribution by focusing on the word post.
The teacher’s praise also seems to enforce control, preventing Child 2 from continuing. Child
3 now offers another comment which effectively repeats the teacher’s original explanation.
The teacher acknowledges this, then moves into management talk in order to set up the task.
This is obviously not too easy. Most children need to be quietened, and some (Anna, Donald)
are obviously bidding for individual attention from the teacher. The extract shows how the
teacher wants to get the class working on the task and tries to avoid being switched off course
by children’s comments. An explanation from one pupil, Child 3, cannot be taken to imply
that the whole class understands. The teacher seems to be aware of this trap, since, after
quietening the class, she returns to summarise the basic point.
The extract analysed so far shows conflicts between three of the functions of teacher talk:
explanation, organisation and control. But there is more. There is also a conflict between
organisation and social expression. Child 2 is apparently offering a comment from personal
144 Martin Cortazzi
experience. This use of language for social interaction is not reciprocated by the teacher, who
apparently sees it as a distraction and maintains the instructional focus of the talk by
correcting, then praising, Child 2’s terms. This is a pity: Child 2 has more to say and, in fact,
she is using post-mature correctly. The teacher does not seem to know that it refers to a child
born after the normal nine-month term of pregnancy and is thus an antonym of premature.
This is likely to have emerged in a subsequent sharing of experience by Child 2, but we will
never know, since the teacher cut her off, prematurely. Had the teacher made a more socially-
oriented comment after Child 2’s ‘I know, but . . .’, and allowed her to explain, an exchange
between teacher and pupils similar to the one described in the diagram in Figure 8.1 might
have been the result.
Before After
TIME -noon ante-meridian post-meridian
BABIES -birth ante-natal post-natal
-a full term pregnancy premature post-mature
Figure 8.1 A diagram of the teacher–pupils exchange in Transcript 2 as it might have

been
This would have reinforced the meaning of post and consolidated the meaning of ante by
associating it with pre. This would have been closely related to the chief concept of the lesson
and it would have helped the children see the language systems involved. As was illustrated
in Chapter 2 by Hargreaves and Hargreaves and Chapter 3 by Merry, such a continuation
could have shown the pupils the value of personal expression and sharing experience, relating
new concepts to what they already know.
The example shows that, potentially, the social dimension of teacher–pupil talk can
intersect powerfully with content-centred talk. Talk is a crucial social mode of learning. In
this case, the teacher could have been learning from the child. Unfortunately, the learning
relationship was, on this occasion, dominated by the need for control and organisation. All
teachers face such dilemmas.
TEACHER TALK AS METACOMMUNICATION
There is one function of teacher talk which links language learning with classroom
organisation and control. This is a metacommunicative function (Stubbs 1983) in which
Classroom talk 145
teachers communicate about classroom communication. Generally, this means teachers use
talk to control the pupils’ talk, but it can be used to make learners aware of language and how
to use talk in different ways. Examples of primary teachers’ metacommunication are:
• Can you give me an example of that?

• Don’t shout out. Wait till I ask you.
• Has anybody got a question to ask this group about their experiment?
• Daniel, I like the way you said that. You expressed it very well.
Like so many other aspects of classroom talk at primary level, metacommunication is

assymetrical: teachers use it frequently but it is very rare for children to use it. One reason for
this is that metacommunication often has a strong control function. It regulates pupil talk and
reflects the social rights and power of the classroom.
Metacommunication can be used with much less intervention than these comments
indicate. It can be used to suggest, or model, ways of talking and thinking. This is shown in
the example of Transcript 3, in which a group of eleven-year-olds are discussing where a new
road should be built. Each pupil has a role and is arguing a case.
For most of the time the teacher is observing and listening but does not interrupt, although
it must have been tempting to intervene after Marcia’s second or after Steve’s third comment.
When the teacher does speak, she skilfully steers the discussion by eliciting Marcia’s reasons.
MARCIA I want route A.

STEVE Well, I don’t, I want route C, cos . . .
MARCIA I don’t care what you want.
STEVE Route A will destroy my golf course.
TERRY What about Elkin Hall? . . . It’ll . . .
TRACY What about the people who live in Lawstown . . . the kids having to
cross the road?
MARCIA What about it . . . it’s falling down anyway.
STEVE You’re not coming through my golf course and that’s that.
MARCIA Oh yeah . . . we’ll see about that . . . we’re having route A.
TEACHER Perhaps Marcia would give us her reasons for so strongly sup-
porting route A?
TERRY There aren’t any, she’s just being awkward.
146 Martin Cortazzi
TEACHER I think we should listen to what Marcia has to say in favour of

route A and then put forward any questions or queries or worries that
we have.
MARCIA Route A is the cheapest . . . it doesn’t go through the town so it
won’t be a danger or a nuisance to the residents of Lawstown . . . and
it won’t mean having to destroy an area of beauty where there’s lots
of wildlife.
STEVE Yeah, route A has some good things about it . . . but the golf . . . the
golf course provides for lots . . . of people . . . their recreation.
TRACY But couldn’t the golf course be rebuilt . . . I mean it’s better to build
a golf course than to have a busy road through the middle of the
town.
TERRY Yeah, but Elkin Hall . . . I know it’s old but that’s the point, isn’t it? . .
. You could take it down and move it . . . rebuild it, but it wouldn’t be
the same . . . it wouldn’t be got like real any more, would it?
Transcript 3 (from Corden 1992: 176; my interpretation)
The teacher’s brief comments focus on content, but indirectly on argument (‘give us her
reasons . . . ’) and discussion procedure (‘listen . . . then put forward any questions or queries
or worries . . . ’). Another teacher might have reprimanded the pupils or focused on their social
relations and a brewing quarrel. In fact, these teacher’s comments are metacommunication
which draw the pupils back to the task, focusing on their talk and including the group rather
than Marcia alone (Give us her reasons . . .’, ‘we should listen . . . ’).
There is a paradox with metacommunication. Teachers use it to control pupil talk by
clarifying, expanding, rephrasing, summarising and directing discussions. For many children
this facilitates language and interaction by prompting and explaining talk. However, if it is
always the teacher who does this, there are severe restrictions on the opportunities for children
to develop independence in controlling their own talk and in managing and interpreting
discussion – someone else is always the chairperson. As the example shows, activities such
as drama and role play, or group discussions with a pupil as chairperson, may encourage pupil
metacommunication. Yet teachers need to use metacommunication to maintain control and
to organise classroom events, and they need metacommunication to organise children’s
drama, etc.
The argument so far is that the teaching–learning relationship is built up in teacher–child
exchanges of talk. As outlined here, this classroom communication functions on several
Classroom talk 147
interrelated levels, and involves paradoxes. As demonstrated by Kitson in Chapter 7 of this

book on the reflective practitioner, it is a major point for professional development to be
aware of these levels of communication in one’s own classroom, and to reflect upon such
paradoxes, even if there does not seem to be an immediate solution to them.
Given the importance of teacher talk and pupil expression for the subject, content and
medium of learning, for social interaction, control and classroom organisation, it would not
be an exaggeration to say that the curriculum is born and carried on the tip of the tongue.
However worthy the policy documents, syllabuses, textbooks and materials which are used
to plan and carry through classroom activities for learning, ultimately what primary children
learn is crucially dependent on teacher–pupil exchanges of talk.
THE STRUCTURE OF CLASSROOM EXCHANGES
Classroom exchanges are stretches of interaction between two or more participants in which
the talk is jointly constructed to achieve a purpose. In those exchanges which involve the
teacher, the teacher’s contribution is usually to inform learners or to question them. Pupils
respond, and this in turn is followed up by the teacher. Such exchanges have been more
intensively researched than other aspects of classroom communication (see, e.g., Sinclair and
Coulthard 1975; Mehan 1979; Coulthard and Montgomery 1981; Sinclair and Brazil 1982;
Willes 1983; Lemke 1989; Willis 1992; Hoey 1993; Tsui 1994).
One can see how this works from the example of Transcript 4, which contains sequences
of two- or three-part exchanges. The teacher is asking an early-years class about a picture of
a christening, as part of a project about festivals. Each exchange is initiated by a teacher
question which a pupil answers, with the teacher taking every alternate turn. This gives
question–answer exchanges. However, the teacher frequently repeats the answers, giving a
three-part exchange structure: question–answer–repetition.
TEACHER Listen, one at a time. John, you tell us what he’s doing.
JOHN Making a cross on his hand.
TEACHER What is he doing? What is it? What is it that’s in the picture?
What is it called?
PUPILS He is being christened.
TEACHER He is being christened. What happens when you’re christened?
DAVIN You get a name.
TEACHER You get a name. What’s your name?
148 Martin Cortazzi
DAVIN Davin.
TEACHER Davin. Where do you think this is taken from? Who do you think
they are?
PUPILS From the church.
TEACHER In a church. What makes you think it’s in a church?
PUPILS (inaudible)
TEACHER Wait. Listen, one at a time, shall we? Steven?
STEVEN And you have a christening cake.
TEACHER And you have a christening cake. Where do you have a christen-
ing cake? In church?
PUPILS No.
TEACHER When do you have christening cake? At home? Afterwards or
before?
PUPILS Afterwards.
TEACHER Afterwards. What do we call this here?
SEAN I know.
TEACHER What is it?
SEAN A font.
TEACHER A font. That’s a good boy, Sean. That’s a font . . .
(the exchanges continue is this way for some time)
Transcript 4 (from King 1978: 44–6; my interpretation)
The teacher did not want to simply inform the children about christenings. She assumed they
could use their background knowledge to interpret the picture and that her role was to elicit
this through questions. When a child gave a ‘correct’ answer she repeated it for emphasis;
‘wrong’ answers were ignored.
Some teachers say that they repeat pupils’ answers in this way so that the rest of the class
can hear. This seems strange, given that an aim of language education is to help children to
speak audibly, confidently and fluently. With constant repetitions, children learn not to listen
to each other; they need only wait to hear the teacher’s repetition. They also learn to direct
their answers only to the teacher, not to their peers. There are probably stronger reasons for
the repetitions: first, they serve to punctuate the discourse, keeping the regulation of speakers’
turns within the teacher’s control; second, the repetition is actually evaluation – it signals the
correctness of the pupil’s response. If a teacher does not repeat, or otherwise evaluate a
response, this is generally interpreted by learners to mean that the response is wrong, so other
pupils give different responses. With the repetition, other pupils do not give further responses
because they know that the repeated item was correct. This illustrates the power of the third
move in classroom exchanges.
Classroom talk 149
A complication in this interpretation of teacher’s repetition is that it depends on intonation:

rising intonation generally means a questioning repeat, throwing doubt (or surprise) on the
response; falling intonation signals acceptance that the response is correct. This is illustrated
in the next example, where a teacher and some eight-year-olds are examining building
materials and artefacts. The teacher here uses incomplete sentences with rising intonation –
these are essentially slot-filling questions for children to supply the final words.
TEACHER So this is a corner . . . ?

CHILD 1 Of the . . . er . . .
CHILD 2 Someone’s house.
TEACHER Co . . . so what do we call it? . . . It’s a corner . . . ?
CHILD 2 Slab.
TEACHER Slab?
CHILD 1 Corner Tile.
TEACHER Corner Tile.
Transcript 5 (from Corden 1992: 174; my interpretation)
The teacher’s repetition of ‘Slab?’ with rising intonation is taken as negative feedback by the
children – otherwise it is doubtful if Child 1 would continue to offer ‘Corner Tile’. The teacher
repeats this response with falling intonation to indicate approval and the exchange is over.
Younger children and those learning in a second language can have problems in
interpreting such delicate cues, as in the following example where a teacher is helping a nine-
year-old bilingual pupil with prepositions.
TEACHER Where is the cup?

CHILD On top of the box.
TEACHER Right, the cup is on top of the box. (moves cup) Now where is the
cup?
CHILD In the box.
TEACHER The cup is . . . ?
CHILD In the box.
TEACHER The cup is in . . . ?
CHILD The cup is in the box.
TEACHER Right, very good, the cup is in the box.
Transcript 6 (from Johnson 1995: 9–10; my interpretation)
150 Martin Cortazzi
Here the answer ‘In the box’, although parallel to the previously accepted answer of ‘On top
of the box’, is not accepted. We know this, as the child does, because the teacher does not
repeat or otherwise evaluate the answer, but instead gives an incomplete sentence cue with
rising intonation. The child interprets this as a slot-filling question and completes it, ‘In the
box’, although this means repeating the previous answer. Again, there is no evaluation from
the teacher, which signals that this is not the reply she wants. Instead, she repeats the
incomplete sentence, which the child now re-interprets as a cue for a long answer, ‘The cup is
in the box’. The teacher now signals acceptance: ‘Right’; praise: ‘very good’; and repeats the
sentence – a triple positive evaluation.
In fact, the question–answer–repetition pattern is a particular example of a more general
pattern which has an opening move or initiation (I) from the first speaker, then a response (R)
from the second speaker and finally a follow-up move (F) from the first speaker. This is shown
in Figure 8.2, with indications of other realisations of the same general pattern. Variations of
this basic pattern are common: I–R; I–R–I–R–F; I–R–F–F; and other elements can expand
the basic pattern: question–(pupils raise hands, bidding to answer)–teacher nominates one
pupil–answer–follow-up . . . .
In classrooms, the initiation is usually, but not always, from the teacher. Responses tend to
come from pupils in answer to teachers’ questions or to follow instructions or explanations.
The follow-up is virtually the prerogative of the teacher.
Such exchanges are constructed by the joint effort of the teacher and pupils: it is the teacher
who initiates and responds, while the pupil’s role is to be a respondent, sandwiched between
the teacher’s two-thirds of each exchange. This would explain at the micro level Flanders’s
(1970) well-known finding that teachers talk for two-thirds of class time.
To understand the system, it is useful to look at the I–R–F exchanges as question–answer–
evaluation. Teachers’ questions generally evoke answers: when the answer comes the teacher
knows both that, and how,
Initiation Response Follow up
question answer repetition

elicitation query acknowledgement
request temporisation evaluation
directive elaboration
informative reinterpretation
refocus
Figure 8.2 Examples of I-R-F patterns

Classroom talk 151
Figure 8.3 The structure of a common classroom exchange
the question was understood, besides being able to evaluate the answer. This makes the I–R–
F exchange very useful for teachers to check children’s understanding (see Figure 8.3). This
is also useful for the children: when the teacher repeats, evaluates or praises the answer this
gives pupils feedback, and in fact pupils’ answers are often designed to elicit such feedback.
The three parts of classroom exchanges can thus be seen as two overlapping pairs of moves –
or adjacency pairs, to use Schegloff’s and Sacks’s (1973) terms – I–R, and R–F, in which the
first predicts or seeks the second, while the second confirms or interprets the first.
IMPROVING THE EXCHANGE
The research literature suggests two ways of improving the learning and communication
involved in classroom exchanges. The first is to wait. This means teachers should wait an
extra second or two at one of several possible points in the exchange: before asking, after
asking but before a response (i.e., before calling on a pupil to reply), and after a response but
before giving feedback. Basically, the pause gives extra thinking time for both teacher and
pupils. Rowe (1986) summarises the consequences of increasing the wait time:
For pupils
• There are fewer failures to respond;

• There is an increase in the length of responses;
152 Martin Cortazzi
• Responses become more confident (shown by intonation);

• There is an increase in unsolicited responses;
• There is more pupil–pupil discussion;
• There are more questions from pupils.
For teachers
• There are fewer questions;

• Questions are more varied; more of them are cognitively demanding;
• A wider variety of pupil responses are accepted;
• Follow-up moves are more flexible;
• There are fewer self-answers by teachers;
• Expectations of certain pupils (previously less noticed) improve.
A second way to improve the exchange is vary the initiation element by improving
questions or using alternatives to questions. While questions are powerful prompts for
learning, there is evidence that they are over-used or mis-used (see, e.g., Hargie 1978;
Richards 1978; Dillon 1988; Galton 1989). There are generally too few questions which
demand reasoning or evaluation, for instance. Dillon (1990) and Brown and Wragg (1993)
suggest:
• preparing questions: planning and sequencing key questions in advance;

• putting questions: distributing, prompting, listening and responding;
• pondering the question–answer exchanges to seek improvements next time.
Alternatively, other sorts of initiations could be tried which are not teacher questions:
• A ‘state of mind statement’: ‘I don’t quite follow’;

• An invitational statement: ‘I’d like to hear more about . . . ’;
• A statement of interest: ‘I was interested in your . . . ’;
• Reflective re-statement (of a pupil’s comment) to encourage clarification;
• Pupil questions to teacher, giving systematic opportunities to ask;
• Group questions, other pupils ask one pupil questions.
Classroom talk 153
CREATING A LEARNING RELATIONSHIP THROUGH TALK
A second general approach to overcome the disadvantages of classroom exchanges is to use

alternative teaching strategies. A basis for developing these is suggested by recent work
which builds on insights from Vygotsky (1986 [1934]), who stressed the socio-cultural
foundation of learning. The teaching–learning relationship, in this view, thrives in sharing
knowledge and meanings through talk in interactive tasks. The growth point for learning lies
within the child’s zone of proximal development (ZPD). As we saw earlier in this book, this
refers to the distance between actual development (seen by the child’s ability to solve tasks
independently) and potential development (determined by the child’s ability to solve tasks
with adult guidance or in cooperation with more advanced peers). The goal of the teacher is
to ascertain the point of potential development for any particular area of learning (ZPD) and
to help the child actualise it.
This has led to a surge of research and development (see, e.g., Edwards and Mercer 1987;
Meadows and Cashdan 1988; Tharp and Gallimore 1988; Newman et al. 1989; Moll 1990;
Wertsch 1991; Daniels 1993). Within this neo-Vygotskian tradition are the following selected
propositions:
• learning is internalisation of concepts mediated by experience and talk

• such verbalisation must be two-way, teacher and child;
• learning is not simply transmission but is construction, a joint building up;
• a teacher’s mentoring role is helping a child to learn how to do something;
• the teacher draws attention to significant features of an activity;
• the teacher engages in scaffolding, giving temporary help;
• scaffolding is later removed and initiative is handed over to the learner;
• the aim of scaffolding is to move the child towards independence;
• teacher talk and task-setting must challenge children at times;
• this challenge should be within a child’s ZPD;
• the teacher must continually ascertain this ZPD for any given concept;
• the teacher must be learning about the child’s learning.
POINTS FOR REFLECTION
In keeping with the notion of the reflective practitioner, outlined in Chapter 7, this chapter
concludes with some suggestions aimed at practising teachers, to help the ideas discussed
here to be taken further into professional practice by consideration of the following:
154 Martin Cortazzi
• Teachers can use language to change classroom contexts, e.g. from a serious to a humorous
tone; from off-task to on-task; or vice versa. How do you yourself use language to change
classroom contexts? When do you do so?
• The I–R–F pattern has been identified as the basic pattern of teacher–pupil exchanges.
When do you use this pattern? Do you over-use it? Can you extend the F element so that
children make comments, suggestions and their own evaluations?
• Extending ‘wait time’, and using alternatives to questions, seem potentially useful. If you
tried these in the classroom how would you monitor the effect? Would you ask the children
about their perceptions?
• The ‘zone of proximal development’ seems a vital idea for teachers to have in mind when
talking to individual children. Could it be applied to pairs? Or to small groups? Or to a
whole class?
• Teachers’ metacommunication could help children to reflect on tasks, learning and
language. How do you use metacommunication in the classroom? How might it be used
more effectively?
• The transcript examples in this chapter were recorded over a period of twenty-five years.
Looking back over them, with the dates in mind, do you detect any shifts in patterns of
communication over this period? Do you think they are reasonably representative of
primary classrooms? One example is actually from a secondary school: does this of itself
make any difference? How would these transcripts compare with one made in your own
teaching context?
• Classroom communication and the various patterns of teacher–pupil talk are crucial
channels for children’s learning. If teachers wish children to take responsibility for their
own learning, and to be aware of language around them, then arguably we should teach
children explicitly about classroom discourse. How would you do so?
SUMMARY
Teacher talk is a paradox. It is by nature transient, but in its passing it can create enduring
learning relationships. At its best, it is temporary in the sense that some of its characteristics
will have been handed over to a learner who, having learnt, no longer needs the same support
and is moving towards independence. To paraphrase Vygotsky, what children can only say
today with their teacher’s help they will be able to say alone tomorrow. They will be able to
Classroom talk 155
think through those words to make them their own, if we encourage a culture of learning
which provides such tools for thinking.
REFERENCES
Andersen, E. S. (1990) Speaking with Style, the sociolinguistic skills of children, London:
Routledge.
Barnes, D. (1986 [1969]) ‘Language in the Secondary School’, in D. Barnes, J. Britton and
M. Torbe Language, the Learner and the School (3rd edn), Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Britton, J. N. (1970) Language and Learning, London: Allen Lane.
Brown, G. and Wragg, E. C. (1993) Questioning, London: Routledge.
Corden, R. (1992) ‘The Role of the Teacher’, in K. Norman (ed.) Thinking Voices, the work
of the National Oracy Project, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Corson, D. (1988) Oral Language across the Curriculum, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Coulthard, M. and Montgomery, M. (eds) (1981) Studies in Discourse Analysis, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Daniels, H. (ed.) (1993) Charting the Agenda; educational activity after Vygotsky, London:
Routledge.
Dillon, J. T. (1988) Questioning and Teaching: a manual of practice, London: Croom Helm.
— (1990) The Practice of Questioning, London: Routledge.
Durkin, K. (ed.) (1986) Language Development in the School Years, London: Croom Helm.
Edwards, D. and Mercer, N. (1987) Common Knowledge, the development of understanding
in the classroom, London: Methuen.
Flanders, N. (1970) Analysing Teacher Behaviour, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Francis, H. (1977) Language in Teaching and Learning, London: Allen and Unwin.
Galton, M. (1989) Teaching in the Primary School, London: David Fulton.
Gombert, J. E. (1992) Metalinguistic Development, Hemel Hempstead: Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Hargie, O. (1978) ‘The importance of teacher questions in the classroom’, Educational
Research, 20(2), 99–102.
Hoey, M. (1993) ‘The case for the exchange complex’, in M. Hoey (ed.) Data, Description,
Discourse, London: Harper Collins.
Johnson, K. E. (1995) Understanding Communication in Second Language Classrooms,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
King, R. (1978) All Things Bright and Beautiful? A sociological study of infants’ classrooms,
Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Lemke, J. L. (1989) Using Language in the Classroom, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
156 Martin Cortazzi
Meadows, S. and Cashdan, A. (1988) Helping Children Learn, contributions to a cognitive

curriculum, London: David Fulton.
Mehan, H. (1979) Learning Lessons, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Moll, L. C. (ed.) (1990) Vygotsky and Education, instructional implications and applications
of sociocultural psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Newman, D., Griffin, P. and Cole, M. (1989) The Construction Zone, working for cognitive
change in school, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. (1978) Classroom Language: what sort?, London: George Allen and Unwin.
Rowe, M. B. (1986) ‘Wait time: Slowing down may be a way of speeding up!’, Journal of
Teacher Education, 37, 43–50.
Schegloff, E. A. and Sacks, H. (1973) ‘Opening up Closings’, Semiotica, 7(4), 289–327.
Sinclair, J. McH. and Brazil, D. (1982) Teacher Talk, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinclair, J. McH. and Coulthard, R. M. (1975) Towards an Analysis of Discourse, the English
used by teachers and pupils, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stubbs, M. (1983) Language, Schools and Classrooms, London: Methuen.
Tharp, R. G. and Gallimore, R. (1988) Rousing Minds to Life, teaching, learning and
schooling in a social context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tizard, B. and Hughes, M. (1984) Young Children Learning, talking and thinking at home and
school, London: Fontana.
Tsui, A. B. M. (1994) English Conversation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky, L. (1986 [1934]) Thought and Language (trans. A. Kozulin), Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge University Press.
Wells, G. (1986) The Meaning Makers, children learning language and using language to
learn, London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991) Voices of the Mind, a sociocultural approach to mediated action,
London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Willes, M. J. (1983) Children into Pupils, a study of language in early schooling, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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Coulthard (ed.) Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge.
Chapter 9
Managing primary schools

Facilitating the learning relationship
Paul Ryan
INTRODUCTION
It seems a rather obvious statement to make that primary schools are staffed by individuals
with characteristics. However, this rather obvious statement is often forgotten when
questions of management are being considered. The push to develop an organisation can
often result in the individual being forgotten. This need not be the case however. Hargreaves
(1994) places great emphasis upon the individual within educational organisations. In his
analysis, there has to be a recognition of the differences between individuality and
individualism. Individualism is normally associated with selfishness, when individuals
behave in a manner that is inconsiderate to others. Individuality, on the other hand, is
individual behaviour characterised by expressions of opinion, creativity and thought, with
regard to maintaining relationships with other people. He argues that management in schools
should find room for both individualism and individuality.
Management in primary schools involves working with teachers and other adults, and the
establishment of relationships. While it is not possible to legislate for the types of
relationships, management involves consideration of people’s wide variety of beliefs, actions
and related responsibilities.
How this responsibility is exercised will depend upon the relationships that are created. It
is also reasonable to conclude that the nature of relationships will depend upon the views held
by those who manage in connection with the relationships they create, maintain and develop
with colleagues. For example, if a person with management responsibility perceives that a
colleague is behaving in a manner which is characterised by individualism, it would normally
be considered negative behaviour. Alternatively, if a person is displaying a degree of
individuality, then it may not necessarily be regarded as negative behaviour. The deciding
factor in both scenarios would be the people involved and their perceptions of appropriate and
acceptable behaviour.
158 Paul Ryan
The task of management in primary schools involves working with individuals and the
building of relationships. The number and types of behaviour that can be expressed among
any group of people are wide, varied, and often unpredictable. It is not easy to predict what
the behaviour of individuals will be and always maintain a working relationship.
Management in primary schools is more effective if relationships are based on trust, honesty
and openness, where individuals feel they can express their opinions, beliefs and concerns
freely. Effective management must involve listening, considering and acting in recognition
of individual factors; not an easy task.
When considering management based on relationships, what can theoretical perspectives
and research evidence provide in terms of possible strategies? What might these strategies
look like in practice? Finding answers to these and other fundamental questions begins with
a consideration of management in educational and non-educational organisations, and then
in primary schools in particular.
THE CONTEXT FOR SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
Management in primary schools raises significant issues related to the management of

educational organisations in general. Such management involves recognising the national
and global context within which schools operate. In the UK, this has been characterised as:
An increase in institutional autonomy, with commensurate account-ability, operating in

the context of increased client choice balanced by increased central direction of the
curriculum.
(West-Burnham, et al. 1994: 5)
These changes have been described in terms of the need for self-managing schools.
A self-managing school is a school in a system of education where there has been

significant and consistent decentralisation to the school level of authority to make
decisions related to the allocation of resources. . . . The school remains accountable to a
central authority for the manner in which resources are allocated.
(Caldwell and Spinks 1992: 4)
Within this context, the need for more effective management practices is paramount, but
what exactly is educational or school management? Management has been described by
Murgatroyd and Morgan (1993: 27) as:
[T]he ability of the staff to provide an appropriate service mix; . . . the internal
organisational structures, roles and management working processes; and . . . delivery of
the chosen strategy.
Managing primary schools 159
It can also be viewed from a different perspective, one that recognises schools as places where
there is a lack of certainty, where the quality of the management depends upon the personal
and professional qualities of those who lead and manage, and where managerial effectiveness
is based upon the capacity to make judgements.
Bush and West-Burnham (1994) have suggested that the management of schools involves
consideration of both theory and practices. The practices of managers serve as a useful
starting point for a third consideration of educational management. Managers do something;
to assess the quality of management we need to know what they do, how they do it, why they
do it, when they do it, and who they do it with. To summarise: we need to know about
managers’ aims, styles and practices.
TO MANAGE OR TO LEAD?
The behaviour of educational managers is not, however, morally neutral. Managers in schools
must be clear about the purposes of management, which can be defined as the need to facilitate
student learning and, in so doing, serve as a model for the learning process, demonstrate a
degree of integrity and consistency, practise what is preached, and recognise a tension
between decision-making and managerialism. In this analysis, decision-making equals
autonomy, and managerialism equals control.
Management in primary schools also requires some form of leadership. This is not the
implementation of appropriate procedures but discrimination, selection and prioritisation,
followed by implementation, reflection and adaptation. It is reasonable to assume, then, that
educational management involves a moral, logical and instrumental relationship with the
staff who work in a school and the pupils who attend it.
The management of schools has changed from an emphasis upon control, to leadership to
bring out the best in people and the ability to respond quickly to change . . . .
(Lofthouse 1994: 125)
Educational management has been heavily influenced by general or business management

theory and practices. To judge whether business management practices are appropriate to the
primary school context we must consider whether educational management is different from
other forms of management. Bush and West-Burnham (1994) highlight seven factors where
education differs from industry. Education differs in terms of objectives, measurement,
evaluation, children and pupils, professional issues, fragmentation, and time.
Handy and Aitken (1986: 32, 33) offer an alternative view. They outline some of the key
management functions where education is seen as similar to industry. The function of
managers is to:
160 Paul Ryan
• decide upon key tasks and constituencies to be served (strategy);

• divide the work up (structure);
• monitor (systems);
• recruit (staff);
• train (skills);
• work out the best way to lead and relate to people (leadership style);
• create a sense of mission (shared values).
The place of theory in the management of schools provides a rationale for decision-
making. Bush and West-Burnham (1994) put forward three factors to support the place of
theory in educational management, interpretation, experience and context. Managers have to
interpret events, use their own and other managers’ experiences, and make judgements and
decisions taking into account the context of their particular institution. However, there should
be a recognition that:
• there is no one, all-consuming theory;

• there is no one, best way;
• there is no recipe for success;
• theories of education and the social sciences are different to scientific theories;
• there are different views and interpretations, not necessarily a search for the ‘truth’;
• managers adopting one approach can exclude others;
• a manager’s choice is a way of understanding events;
• managers adopt a particular perspective;
• managers use ‘frames’ for influence upon practice.
Educational management theory is usually characterised as observational, selective and

normative. Researchers observe what they perceive as successful or effective practices, they
select what they feel may be of relevance, and they advocate particular approaches based on
generalisable data. Educational management theory must help managers understand the
practices of other managers who have been more successful or effective. It is up to each
individual manager to use, adapt and relate management theories to their particular
institutional context. It is also important to recognise that there are different models of
educational management. However, most models have four main elements: goals, structures,
environment, and leadership.
One of the significant differences between education and industry is the issue of
professionalism. School managers work with teachers who can be regarded as professionals.
If teachers are regarded as professionals, then their place in the management of a school has
to be considered.
This could be regarded as a rhetorical question, but that is not my intention. Consideration of
professional issues in relation to teachers implies that they can exercise a degree of
responsibility. If management responsibility is the sole preserve of the headteacher, teachers

do not need responsibility, only to be controlled. This is not a management practice that I
would wish to advocate. If effective relationships are to be established, maintained and
developed, responsibility must be shared. Responsibility allows for individuality and, as
such, presents a managerial perspective that is based on sharing, which involves creativity,
spontaneity and some degree of innovation.
It has also been argued by Lofthouse (1994) that credibility in school management rests
upon the nature of bureaucratic structures and the degree to which teachers are regarded as
individuals (with autonomy). The tension between managerialism and decision-making is
again highlighted. Is the best style of management in primary schools a controlling one, or a
management style based upon individuality?
MANAGEMENT IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
One style or theory of management that can help with the management of tensions between
control and autonomy has been described as collegial or collaborative management.
Collegiality and collaboration fall within democratic theories of educational management;
they are characterised by shared decision-making.
The major factors associated with collegiality and collaboration are normative; they suggest
a ‘normal’ way to behave, and they value authority of expertise, emphasise common sets of
values, formal representation within structures, and consensus.
Collegiality and collaboration involve schools in democratic decision-making where
authority of expertise is valued and consensus is aimed for. However, this model of
educational management is not common, as headteachers have ultimate responsibility; which
implies the question, why use a participatory style? Justification for a collegial or
collaborative style assumes that staff want to be involved, that such a style will improve the
quality of decision-making, and make for more effective implementation of decisions.
Hargreaves (1994) argues that it has become heresy to suggest that collaboration and
collegiality are not pivotal to educational change. In his analysis, collegiality fosters teacher
development, school improvement, school effectiveness, implementation of imposed
change, school based curriculum development, and leadership development. Collegiality
also caters for context, commitment, understanding, raising of morale, teacher satisfaction,
raising of teaching standards, and teacher growth.
Arguing that collaboration and collegiality are the keys to educational change, Hargreaves
(1994) also examines some of the difficulties with this approach. There is often a lack of time
for collaboration, a lack of clear boundaries for collegial roles, and a lack of clear definitions
of meaning. Hargreaves goes on to argue that there is no one ‘real’ or ‘true’ thing that we can
call collegiality or collaboration. There are different forms of collegiality and collaboration.
162 Paul Ryan
Whose culture is it anyway? If teachers are told what to be professional about, how, where
and with whom to collaborate, and what blueprint of professional conduct to follow, then
the culture that evolves will be foreign to the setting. They will once again have ‘received
a culture’.
(Hargreaves 1994: 189)
In this analysis, there is no one ‘best’ or ‘correct’ perspective. The micropolitical perspective
takes the view that teachers may be interested in each other’s ideas, beliefs and practices, but
would not necessarily want to belong to teams because their own ideas, beliefs and practices
are different. It also questions professionals’ rights to individuality, individualism and
solitude.
The micro-political perspective encourages us to discriminate between different forms of
collegiality and collaboration – ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’. It recognises a distinction
between a collaborative culture and contrived collegiality. Collaborative cultures are
spontaneous, voluntary, development oriented, pervasive across time and space, and
unpredictable. Contrived collegiality is administratively regulated, compulsory,
implementation oriented, fixed in time and space, and predictable.
Collegial models are viewed by Bush (1995) as incomplete because they underestimate
the official authority of the head and because they present bland assumptions of consensus.
However, it is widely recognised (Wallace 1988; Nias et al. 1989; Ryan and Bush 1995) that
a collegial or collaborative style of management is an appropriate style for managing primary
schools. The numbers of staff involved, the informal culture and flat management structures,
make collaboration more achievable. Advocates of a collegial or collaborative style also
argue that decisions are more likely to be implemented (Fullan 1991).
Having considered the management of primary schools in general, I now turn to a
consideration of issues related to effective primary school management in action, using
management of the curriculum as an example.
MANAGING THE CURRICULUM IN PRIMARY EDUCATION
Management of the curriculum is obviously part of management in primary schools. The

management style that is adopted in matters related to the curriculum should fit with the
overall management style. The management perspective for management of the curriculum
that is advocated here involves many of the functions already outlined in a collaborative or
collegial style of management.
Lofthouse (1994) argues that management of the curriculum is based upon study of the
curriculum. Study of the curriculum involves an appreciation of perspectives that highlight a
distinction between liberal and illiberal studies. The distinction between liberal and illiberal
studies lies in a consideration of the values and priorities underlying the curriculum delivered,
as well as of what is actually delivered. There also has to be a consideration of the relationship
between the planned and the received curriculum in relation to race, class and gender issues.
The management of the curriculum involves what has beeen called ‘ground-clearing’, the
process whereby different curricular perspectives are considered with a view to establishing
clear or agreed understandings about the nature of the curriculum. Effective management of
the curriculum is difficult to establish without managers engaging in such a ground-clearing
process. Ground-clearing involves consideration of the most effective practices for bringing
about effective learning, and what constitutes effectiveness has been the subject of detailed
research.
Mortimore (1993), in his review of research into school effectiveness, begins with a
consideration of what the research contributes to the debate about the management of
effective teaching and learning. School effectiveness research highlights how effective
schools can make a contribution to teaching and learning. Schools do make a difference and
add value. However, there are likely to be differences in the average progress of pupils, and
these differences are not affected by home factors to the same degree as other facets of pupils’
progress. Schools have a crucial role to play in this respect; if they are to help pupils to
progress, effective management practices are essential.
Mortimore (1993: 300-305) outlines a range of factors related to school effectiveness:
• strong, positive leadership;

• high expectations; an appropriate challenge for students thinking;
• monitoring of student progress;
• student responsibilities and involvement in the life of the school;
• rewards and incentives;
• parental involvement in the life of the school;
• the use of joint planning and consistent approaches towards students;
• academic press and learning.
When these factors are related to a ground-clearing process and a collaborative style of
management, definitions of strong purposeful leadership, for example, can be arrived at. It is
important to recognise that effectiveness factors are open to a degree of interpretation, based
upon a consideration of school-specific contextual characteristics. Mortimore (1993) has also
considered the research conducted into effective teaching. Teaching is regarded as an overt
activity, something that can be observed and judged. The research regarding effective
teaching dates back to the work conducted by Bennett published in 1976, referred to in
Mortimore (1993) and his later work published in 1987. Bennett argued that a formal style
was best in order to achieve the ‘match’ between a task and the ability of the child. Bennett’s
ideas have since been modified, and he now accepts that assessing effective teaching is more
complex.
164 Paul Ryan
In research carried out before 1993, Mortimore et al. (1988) also found that defining
effective teaching was ‘far too complex’ to be assessed easily, and that effectiveness
depended on the task being set to pupils. Research has emphasised some of the factors related
to effective teaching. These include relationships with pupils, classroom management,
planning and preparation, aims, objectives and their achievement, choice of teaching
materials, marking, the ‘match’ of work to pupils, and question-and-answer techniques.
Subsequent research has re-defined effective teaching in terms of classroom organisation,
planning and preparation, ‘match’ of work to pupils, classroom interactions, mastery of
subject, and competence in teaching skills. Mortimore (1993) also considers forms of
knowledge and skills that can aid more effective teaching, curriculum knowledge,
pedagogical knowledge, presentation skills, psychological knowledge, sociological
knowledge, process knowledge, understanding how learners learn, understanding how
subject knowledge can be transferred, organisational skills, analytical skills, assessment
skills, management skills, and evaluative skills.
Mortimore (1993: 296) contends that teachers also bind and blend these forms of
knowledge and skills together with:
• imagination;
• creativity;
• sensitivity.
In the same paper, Mortimore examines the research related to effective learning. The work
of psychologists is used to highlight the links between effective teaching and learning since,
as Chapter 2 of this book in particular emphasised, learning is not directly observable. We
cannot be certain what has been learnt, and we can only infer that something has been learnt.
Theories of self-efficacy hold that learners’ belief in themselves can be reinforced or
reduced, and the effects of achievement noted. In this respect schools and teachers can have
an effect. Adaptive instruction, on the other hand, suggests that learning must be considered
in relation to the individual and the learning environment. A better ‘match’ between the two
would lead to optimum learning.
Learning is therefore affected by its intellectual, linguistic and social context. As a result,
learning in school should not be confused with general learning. Learning in school is pure
rather than applied thought; school involves individual rather than collaborative thought.
When school and life are related it draws upon attribution theory, whereby girls and boys
attribute failure to different causes. In this respect teachers provide differential feedback.
In summary, effective learning is active rather than passive, covert rather than overt,
complex rather than simple, affected by individual differences among learners, and
influenced by a variety of contexts.
Learning is more than the simple aquisition of facts.
[The] curriculum is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than

knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored.
(Lofthouse 1994: 128)
Managers guide the defining process and act as gatekeepers of core values. As Chapter 6 of
this book has shown, teachers left to their own devices will understandably drift towards the
comfort zone of safe methods. Managers need to know the range and quality of learning
experiences being offered, and the gathering of such knowledge involves monitoring,
curriculum and learning reviews, staff development and a focus on the pupil.
CURRICULUM MANAGEMENT IN ACTION
One of the central problems in managing primary schools is how to link the drive for
organisational development and the establishment of effective practices with considerations
of individual development, expressions of individuality and the occasional expression of
behaviour that can be described as individualistic. An examination of curriculum
management practices and the research conducted into effective schooling, effective
teaching and learning, highlights the complex nature of the difficulties inherent in primary
school management.
Put more succinctly, one may ask what the nature of a collaborative or collegial
management style looks like when applied to the primary school. It is obviously not possible
to provide examples of curriculum management that encompass all aspects of the curriculum,
but a specific example of an aspect of curriculum management in action can be demonstrated
with the use of case study research data.
THE CASE OF CLABRIX PRIMARY SCHOOL
Context
Clabrix primary school is a junior, mixed and infant school with a nursery class attached. At
the time of data collection the number on the roll was approximately 350 children, with a new
intake of reception-aged children to be admitted after the Easter break. Clabrix is staffed by
eighteen teachers. Of these, fourteen teachers are class-based, one is on maternity leave, the
Head and Deputy are not class-based, and one teacher is employed for supporting children
with language difficulties and children whose first language is not English. In addition to the
teaching staff the school employs two nursery nurses, five primary helpers, seven learning
support assistants for children with statements of special educational needs, ten midday meal
supervisors and two administrative staff.
166 Paul Ryan
The racial mix of the children attending Clabrix primary school is approximately 65 per
cent Afro–Caribbean origin, 20 per cent white, 10 per cent African origin and 5 per cent from
other racial backgrounds. The majority of the children live in local authority accommodation
with a small number living in privately owned property. Clabrix school has a policy of
integrating children with special educational needs and children who have a physical or
mental disability. At present, Clabrix primary school has nine children who have statements
of special educational needs, with a further eleven at various stages of the statementing
process.
The organisation of posts of responsibility for the Clabrix teaching staff in respect of
curriculum management is as follows:
• Head teacher – overall responsibility for management of the curriculum;

• Deputy head – responsible for staff development, including INSET (In Service Education
and Training) courses, mentoring, INSET budget and whole-school planning, record
keeping and assessment;
• Five ‘B’ allowance holders who hold coordinating responsibilities for English, Maths,
Science, Special Educational Needs, and Key Stage One;
• Four ‘A’ allowance holders who hold coordinating responsibilities for History,
Geography, IT, and Art, Design and Technology;
• Five teachers have no curriculum responsibility.
The current curriculum management focus
A review of the INSET plans of Clabrix primary school for the Autumn and Spring terms of
1994/95 reveals that the teaching staff of the school were involved in devising a whole-school
assessment profile. The key factor in determining INSET plans was the school’s development
plan. This stated that the main focus of the INSET work for the period was intended to be the
devising of a Maths scheme throughout the school. However, a change in post-holder had
resulted in postponement of the Maths scheme and the bringing forward of an assessment
focus that had been scheduled for the Summer and Autumn terms of 1995.
The decision to focus on assessment was made by the Head and the Deputy for two main
reasons. The first came from an evaluation of the school’s current status with respect to
assessment and the recording of children’s achievements. This revealed an inconsistency in
practice and the perception that this was due to excessive workload and lack of expertise by
some members of staff. The second motivating force was the review of the National
Curriculum that was taking place in the UK.
Guidance related to the National Curriculum review was seen to offer the opportunity of
easing the workload of teachers by them taking advice and not attempting to collect evidence
and assess every single aspect of the curriculum. In addition, teachers were also being advised
that they did not have to devise and keep detailed and complicated record-keeping systems.
Such systems generated huge amounts of paperwork and involved long hours of teachers’
time on administrative detail away from the classroom. The Head and Deputy felt that they
had the opportunity not only to ease teachers’ workloads but also to attempt to help teachers
develop their confidence and expertise in assessing children’s work.
For the Spring term, teachers were given a total of seven after-school group meetings with
the focus of each group as follows: Group 1: Writing; Group 2: Maths; Group 3: Science. The
groups were led by the relevant subject coordinators, and staff were able to choose which
group they wished to join.
Observations
The group of teachers with a Maths work focus decided against collecting samples of
children’s work. Through discussions about the nature of current maths work samples,
teachers felt that a true assessment of a child’s understanding of a mathematical concept could
only be attempted if a specific task or set of tasks was set by the teacher. Teachers needed the
opportunity to observe, evaluate and plan for the next stage of a child’s learning. What the
teachers seemed to be interested in was the process of children’s learning as well as the
product.
The maths post-holder had a crucial role in the process of devising what they called
‘assessment tasks’. She advised on the nature of tasks and what their focus would be. In this
case, the group began with num ber and the use and application of mathematical concepts. At
times she provided individual teachers with set tasks that would be appropriate to a specific
age range, and provided an overview of the tasks in an attempt to achieve progression across
the age range taught. The role adopted by the post-holder was a facilitating one where she
judged it to be appropriate, and became more directive when she felt the group had reached
an impasse or when a consensus could not be achieved. She also acted as a subject specialist
when she advised and provided ideas or activities that would help the group achieve their aim
of assessing the processes of children’s learning. The post-holder kept the group on task by
asking for class-based work to be undertaken within deadlines, and led the discussion with
regard to the final presentation of the group’s work to the whole staff.
The Science-focused group also decided to use ‘assessment tasks’ in an attempt to assess
the process of children’s learning in this subject. The group proceeded in a different manner
to the maths group, with each teacher working in their own class on a science activity of their
own choice and then reporting back their findings to the group. This led to the group
discussing and agreeing upon the need for an activity structure to which all staff would need
to adhere, to achieve consistency in assessment. An agreed structure would, it was felt, also
168 Paul Ryan
allow children to progress within an activity or develop it further, and allow the teacher to
assess current understanding and how that understanding is applied.
This process highlighted a weakness in teachers’ science teaching. Mainly, teachers were
not requiring children to make a prediction when engaging in a science activity. This flaw in
teaching led the group to conclude that teachers throughout the school needed to make sure
that they taught what they thought was important, what the National Curriculum required, and
what they thought it important to assess. Essentially the group was asking for teachers to
evaluate their practice on a continual basis.
The post-holder’s role in the group’s work was slightly less successful than in the maths
group. She did lead discussions, act as a facilitator and subject specialist and provide a
structure to the group’s activities. However, she was hampered by staff absence and, at times,
by her own inability to direct when she judged it necessary. As a result the group did not
provide concrete examples of work for the whole-school presentation. They did, however,
have some valuable insights to offer about the type of teaching that was taking place within
the school and how effective assessment could be achieved with respect to science.
When observing the group which focused on Writing, it immediately became apparent that
they were finding their tasks a lot simpler than the previous two had done. This was due to
three main reasons. The first was the fact that the Autumn term group had provided a structure
to their work that only needed minor adaptation. The second was that the group decided that
the main way of assessing childrens’ writing would be to get them to write, to collect the work,
and then to assess and moderate it. It was the group’s view that writing was a mental process
and that it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to assess a child’s thought processes. The
third and final reason for the ease of the group’s work was the contribution of the post-holder,
who acted as the leader of the group. She set a clear structure, led discussions effectively,
ensured people carried out agreed tasks, encouraged the group to keep to deadlines, and when
necessary she made decisions. Her style was businesslike and efficient, while not allowing
herself to become dictatorial. Honesty and openness were apparent, as well as the confidence
to let teachers act and make judgements without the fear of losing control.
Overall, the teaching staff of the school identified the need for the school’s curriculum
planning framework or scheme of work to be broken down into subjects. This would allow
the teaching staff to devise detailed schemes of work for Maths, Science and Writing (the
school had already devised a scheme of work for the teaching of Reading). Coupled with the
schemes of work, the staff felt that time should be allocated to allow them to devise directly
related ‘assessment tasks’. Following a lengthy discussion, the whole staff clearly expressed
a wish for the curriculum to remain firmly focused upon the process of children’s learning.
Schemes of work with ‘assessment tasks’ and a whole-school profile of children’s work
assessed would, they hoped, begin to raise standards of teaching and, as a result, children’s
learning throughout the school.
One crucial discovery by the groups was that work which teachers assessed to be average
or above average came out at a lower level in relation to National Curriculum levels. The
reasons for perceived low standards of work were identified as weaknesses in teaching,
omission of the teaching of key skills such as making predictions, the previous absence of any
moderation of children’s work, and inconsistencies in what was taught, and when, throughout
the school.
The roles of the Head and the Deputy in this process of curriculum management were to
decide upon the original focus, devise the structure of tasks, monitor the groups’ progress
over the weeks, and offer and give advice as it was required. Essentially this was a process
whereby groups met once a week to plan, organise and structure their own work, while the
Head and Deputy took an overview of the whole process. When individual groups made their
presentation, the discussions were lead by the Deputy with contributions from the Head.
Evaluation of the whole process and plans for the following term’s INSET were drawn up by
the Deputy. The Head was consulted upon final INSET plans for the following term.
CONCLUSIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL

IMPROVEMENT AND THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE
Hopkins (1994: 14) uses the concept of a ‘journey’ as a metaphor for school improvement.
Identifying two key factors that assist in the task of improving a school, he writes:
[S]chool improvement efforts appear to include:

• reconstructing externally imposed education reforms in the form of school priorities;
• creating internal conditions that will sustain and encourage change in schools.
The case study outlined on pp. 165–8 clearly fits into Hopkins’s model of school
improvement, which in turn assists in the management of change. Staff were engaged in a
reconstruction exercise within what appeared to be conditions for bringing about sustainable
change. The management style that has been conceptualised in this chapter is best
summarised as a ‘learning style’, and it can be seen from the case study evidence that the
conditions for change were fostered around the concept of this ‘learning style’ of
management. The work of Fullan (1991) presents a learning-centred approach to the
management of change in educational organisations. Fullan argues that changes in goals,
skills, philosophy, beliefs and behaviour are multi-dimensional, and involve people’s basic
conceptions of education. In addition, he contends that individual values in relation to change
have a dynamic relationship with multi-dimensional innovation, which involves materials,
teaching approaches and beliefs. Some effect upon the factors mentioned above has to take
place before change can happen in practice. When considering a style of management that is
‘learning-centred’, managers need to consider various aspects of the change process. These
170 Paul Ryan
include the soundness of proposed changes, an understanding of the failure of well

intentioned change, guidelines for understanding the nature and feasibility of particular
changes, the realities of the status quo, the deepness of the change, and the question of
valuing. In Fullan’s analysis, educational change is technically simple but socially complex.
Fullan’s perspective on the management of change has people as the central agents of
change. If people are not convinced of the need for change, they are less likely to implement
or even to begin to engage in change. The case study example highlights the complexities of
and the time involved in managing curriculum change. However, the style of management
adopted, while not totally collaborative, does have elements of collaboration. The teaching
staff in the case study school had the freedom to decide what changes in assessment
arrangements they would prefer to see and which area they wished to develop. In areas where
freedom was restricted – for example, in the allocation of time and the central focus of the
work to be carried out – it could be argued that the staff could accept a degree of imposition
when it was balanced with other freedoms.
The central message that arises out of this review of management theories and related
research is that people matter. The idea of learning relationships is just as important for
managers as it is for classroom teachers, and managers should therefore engage in processes
whereby they learn from colleagues and vice versa. Management in primary schools,
conceptualised in this manner, is more effective when it is a shared, learned and collaborative
process.
REFERENCES
Bush, T. (1986) Theories of Educational Management, London: Paul Chapman.

— (ed.) (1989) Managing Education: Theory and Practice, Milton Keynes: Open University
Press.
— (1995) Theories of Educational Management, revised edition, London: Paul Chapman.
Caldwell, B. J. and Spinks, J. M. (1988) The Self-Managing School, London: The Falmer
Press.
— (1992) Leading the Self Managing School, London: Falmer Press.
Fullan, M. G. (1991) The New Meaning of Educational Change, London: Cassell.
Handy, C. and Aitken, R. (1986) Understanding Schools as Organisations, Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
Hargreaves, A. (1994) Changing Teachers, Changing Times, London: Cassell.
Hopkins, D. (1994) ‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’, in Managing Schools Today, 13(6).
Lofthouse, M. (1994) ‘Managing Learning’, in T. Bush and J. West-Burnham (eds) The
Principles of Educational Management, Harlow: Longmans.
Mortimore, P. (1993) ‘School Effectiveness and the Management of Effective Learning and
Teaching’, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 4(4), 290–310.
Mortimore, P., Sammons, P., Stoll, L., Lewis, D. and Ecob, R. (1988) School Matters: the
junior school years, Wells, Somerset: Open Books.
Murgatroyd, S. and Morgan, C. (1993) Total Quality Management and the School,
Nias, J., Southworth, G. and Yeomans, R. (1989) Staff Relationships in the Primary School,
London: Cassell.
Ryan, P. and Bush, T. (1995) Managing the Curriculum in Primary Education, Leicester:
University of Leicester.
Wallace, M. (1988) ‘Towards a Collegiate Approach to Curriculum Management in Primary
and Secondary Schools’, School Organisation, 8(1), 25–34.
West-Burnham, J., Bush, T., O’Neill, J., and Glover, D., (1994) Leadership and Strategic
Management, Harlow: Longmans.
Chapter 10
Back to the future

The learning relationship in initial teacher
training
Mark Lofthouse
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.

Those who can’t teach become teachers of teachers.
INTRODUCTION
This is one contemporary British saying which needs little explanation, because its critical
thrust is only too apparent. However flippant, cynical and unfair this saying may appear to
those engaged in education, it sums up a peculiarly English contempt for both teachers and
teacher training. Yet is this contemptuous attitude embedded only in the UK, or is it now being
exported on a worldwide basis? The British have been exporting ideas in the name of trade
for a very long time. A central theme developed in this chapter is the idea that what has been
termed ‘the unconscious imperialism of trade’ was the means by which Britain exported far
more than goods. Ideas followed exports and Britain gave to colonies and emerging countries
alike her own circumscribed view of education.
Chapter 6 has shown how different cultures have different educational ideologies and thus
different expectations about teachers, and this chapter will consider the origins of English
ideologies and expectations in more depth. The English have for a long time suffered from an
imperfect understanding of what might constitute a learning relationship. Elementary
schooling in England was characterised by a pervasive belief in doing things to children rather
than with children. Thus, examples from British history cited in this chapter are of
significance because their export (conscious or unconscious) has played a part in determining
the present development of others.
Against the background of this historical context, the first section of this chapter, Policies,
Politics and People, provides a comparative historical summary illustrating how there has
been a widespread tendency to devalue primary education, primary teachers and, by
implication, primary training and trainers.
Back to the future 173
How this widespread devaluation currently impacts on policies and practice in initial
teacher training is analysed in the second section, The Consequences of Competencies. Here
the proposition that teacher training is currently reverting to a process of social reproduction,
rather than educational transformation, is explored.
The summary of the chapter argues that, in the UK and parts of the ‘old Commonwealth’,
we are currently witnessing the bizarre spectacle of ‘going back to the future’, namely the
imposition of nineteenth-century ideologies apparently as a means of solving twentieth-
century dilemmas. Therefore, as our end is in our beginning, we start with a review of the
historical and comparative cultural demands made upon primary teachers and their trainers.
POLICIES, POLITICS AND PEOPLE
Primary teacher training is viewed in a mirror composed of those reflections, values and
attitudes which a society has of its teachers, schools and children. In 1597 John Lyly reflected
the anti-intellectualism which prevailed at that time when he pronounced, ‘If any man among
all his servants shall espy one either filthy in his talk or foolish behaviour, him be committeth
ye guiding and tuition of his sons’ (Lyly 1597: 403). Such an evident contempt for tutors,
teachers and teaching was deeply rooted in English society (Lawson 1967: 61). One
dimension of this English problem was the reluctance of the state to become involved in the
provision of either schooling or training (Harrison 1979: 63). While Napoleon in France and
Bismarck in Germany vigorously used schooling to serve the needs of the state, successive
British governments hung back, leaving schooling to the churches and charity (Cobban 1965:
9; Armytage 1969: 21). Thus, while French and German teachers soon became assimilated
into the ranks of the bourgeoisie, in England a combination of voluntarism and laissez-faire
policies ensured that anyone, however ineffectual, could teach. In a village school in
Gloucestershire, during the year 1846, it was recorded: ‘A shepherd being too infirm at eighty
to look after the sheep, undertook instead the education of the children, to whom he taught
very elementary writing’ (Horn 1978: 79). With such limited expectations, teacher training
was not required, much to the fury of Matthew Arnold, who found in Europe what he believed
should be in England – systems and methods for training teachers.
In 1888 Arnold uncompromisingly told an Educational Commission of Enquiry that
England was ‘falling behind the continent in terms of our aspirations for elementary
education’. In the field of teacher training, he bleakly concluded: ‘we have barely begun to
compete’ (Arnold 1888: 95, 242; see also Arnold 1869, Smith and Summerfield 1969). The
clash between Arnold and members of the Cross Commission is interesting because it raises
174 Mark Lofthouse
fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of teacher training, questions which
continue to reverberate:
• Teacher training or teacher education? – a debate often wrapped up in discussion as to the

place of theory and practice within a course or programme.
• What is the purpose of the ‘disciplines’ within teacher training? – a debate now conducted
between those who regard the ‘disciplines’ as curriculum clutter and those who regard
academic ‘disciplines’ as safeguards of standards.
• What are the cultural and social expectations of teachers and their training? – an ongoing
debate, uncomfortable and frequently acrimonious, as societies change but wish schools
and teachers to remain static.
In addressing these questions, it can be noted that there is no need of training, if tasks are
simple. For almost the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, informed opinion in England
persisted in regarding teaching as such a simple, undemanding task that it required no training
at all (Dent 1977: 2). The nub issue here is the need to separate the activity of teaching from
that of child minding. The progress of early childhood education in England was blighted,
from its earliest origins, by an arrogant belief by politicians and policymakers that little
children needed ‘minding’ rather than ‘teaching’ (Whitbread 1972: 7). The continued low
esteem in which work with young children is held stems from the erroneous beliefs that such
work is easy and that anyone can do it.
Such views were rife in Victorian times, and therefore the debate concerning the role and
place of theory and practice in teaching did not start in Britain until the 1880s. In sharp
contrast, Germany and France had by this time embraced the concept of educating teachers.
Both countries were ‘theory friendly’, and quickly established training systems which
brought aspiring teachers into contact with academic knowledge and newly emerging
disciplines, such as psychology (Barnard 1929: 27–32). Significantly, England did not follow
the European pattern, being more interested in teacher training than teacher education. Early
modes of English training, such as the pupil-teacher system, adopted apprenticeship methods
where ‘copy and do’ predominated. When teacher training colleges finally limped into
existence in England (James Kay-Shuttleworth being the founding father of one in Battersea,
London, in 1840), the obsession with practice, rather than knowledge, was embedded. While
Kay-Shuttleworth deplored the ignorance of his students, he and his successors tried to
counter difficulties largely by concentrating on what today would be described as ‘skills and
dispositions’ rather than by providing knowledge (Lofthouse 1992: xii). In short, the English
teacher training system was all about ‘doing’ rather than ‘thinking’. This might be regarded
as of marginal significance if it were not for the fact that our Victorian predecessors were such
busy ‘doers’ that they succeeded in creating the British Empire, an empire envied and
emulated by others (Morris 1992: 5–7). Taking for granted the notion that what was right for
Britain must be right for the colonies, the mother country exported to Australia, New Zealand,
the West Indies and, more slowly, to India and Singapore, British attitudes to schooling and
training. As empire building was, for the most part, left to the shock troops of merchants and
missionaries, the latter in particular found no difficulty in setting up training systems and
institutions which had served them well in the UK. Thus, as Martin has pointed out, the
teacher training curriculum deployed in Jamaica in 1889 by the British and Foreign School
Society was identical to that set down for the first of the Society’s colleges founded in
Borough Road in London (Martin 1989: 29–36). Inventories of cargoes carried by ships of
the East India Company landing freight at Port Royal show that, intermingled with the iron
and pottery goods, were steadily increasing supplies of school textbooks and teacher training
manuals. The essential point from this is that both British and colonial students came into
contact with a limited and utilitarian curriculum, where knowledge of God and salvation was
more important than secular concerns. While the French strove to inculcate a love of French
culture and traditions, the British offered fustian fare, at home and abroad. Dent has identified
the foundation blocks of the teacher training curriculum which permeated Britain and the
Empire:
Firstly, a knowledge of English grammar sufficient to qualify them to speak and write their
own language with correctness and propriety; secondly, the improvement of their own
handwriting and knowledge of arithmetic; thirdly geography and history, and in addition,
when time and other circumstances will permit other useful branches of knowledge.
(Dent 1977: 7)
For those interested in curriculum studies, it is not difficult to detect that this is a timetable
pretending to be a curriculum.
First announced in 1814, the sheer longevity of this rag-bag collection of subjects was as
problematic in Britain as it was to be in the Empire and Commonwealth. In Britain custom
and practice ensured continuity and conformity. When Jones conducted his monumental
survey of teacher training in Britain in 1924, the 1814 timetable was still recognisably alive
and well (Jones 1924: 84). Such a lack of interest in content strongly suggests that practice,
and not knowledge, was the principal objective. Unsurprisingly, increasing numbers of
teacher training students became dissatisfied with the perceived irrelevance and fatuity of
their subject work. In the Empire and the Commonwealth, a different problem was caused by
176 Mark Lofthouse
irrelevant knowledge being canonised as high-status knowledge, simply because it was

irrelevant and thus mistaken for being academically desirable. The post-colonial legacy for
many countries has been bound up with re-shaping imposed structures and knowledge (not
least in teacher training), while finding an obstinate desire among some of the indigenous
population to retain what is regarded as ‘high-status’ knowledge. The report of the Singapore
Review Committee on Improving Primary School Education notes the problems associated
with high-status academic work being conducted through the medium of English, compared
with the low status accorded to vocational work undertaken in a variety of mother tongues.
Apparently, ‘Not made here’ still has a powerful appeal, whether in terms of imported
knowledge or imported cars (Singapore Review Committee 1995: 1–4).
As trade makes the world smaller, there is a global debate as to what constitutes
appropriate social and cultural expectations of teachers and teaching. Often these debates are
too specific to bear generalisation, except where history and culture coincide. In nineteenth-
century Britain, teachers in elementary schools came to resent the lowly position accorded to
them within society. A hunger for acceptance and respectability gave way in the early
twentieth century to more forceful demands for better conditions, better pay and, mixed up in
a bundle of hopes and expectations, better training (Eaglesham 1967: 71). Such an agenda is
now recognisable in the developing countries. Indeed, what afflicted Victorian primary
school teachers now assails their counterparts in the third world. The reasons cited to deny
status and recognition for teachers of young children in nineteenth-century Britain are
brought out and dusted off so as to dampen the expectations of teachers in the developed as
well as the developing countries. These arguments may be summarised as follows:
• The age-range divide: knowing about how younger children develop and learn is
somehow not proper knowledge; teaching subject-based knowledge to older children
confers greater status.
• The expert–novice divide: the more specialised you are the more expert you are; as
primary teachers do everything, they are not specialists.
• The gender divide: in many societies, caring for young children is seen as woman’s work,
and childminding is confused with teaching; as small children have little status, those who
work with them have low status.
• The power divide: societies are divided into the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’; systems of
schooling invariably service the needs of society as it is, rather than as it wishes to be. In
this context, knowledge is power and therefore knowledge has to be distributed carefully.
It is usually in the interests of elite power groups to keep teachers of young children poor
and relatively ignorant.
Summary
If this sounds harsh and bleak, a review of teacher training during the nineteenth century
powerfully suggests that the whole process was severely functional. As Simon argues, the
system was designed for social reproduction (Simon 1989: 77–84). In Britain there was a
hysterical and protracted debate over whether the social reproduction system was going
wrong, namely whether elementary school teachers were getting ideas above their station.
Charles Dickens, a sensitive barometer of Victorian opinion, wrote a series of vicious
portraits of elementary school teachers achieving social advancement which they did not
deserve (Dickens [1865] 1938). Dickens’s work and attitudes expose the issue of what
constitutes gentlemanly knowledge as compared with skills and knowledge classified as
utilitarian and vocational. The latter was suitable for ‘trade’, but not for ‘gentlemen’.
Elementary school teaching and teachers struggled to achieve ‘trade’ status during the
nineteenth century, at home and abroad. The struggle was not helped by the anti-theoretical,
pragmatic training they received, if they received any training at all. ‘Doing’ was everything,
thinking and learning were luxuries. As Simon has demonstrated, there was no pedagogy in
Britain (Simon and Taylor 1981: 124–45). Above all else, teacher training was amazingly
static, showing minimal development over the century.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF COMPETENCIES
Historians currently argue as to when the shift from modernity to post-modernity took place.
Kung contends that the real turning point was 1918, the end of the First World War, which
signalled the end of the old European empires (Kung 1990: 3). Certainly at this time the old
mould of a Euro-centric world disintegrated, and a new world order began to shift away from
Europe and towards America and the Far East. In retrospect, while this began to happen
visibly, the realignment was not accompanied in the field of teacher training by any paradigm
shift in thinking or ideology (Kuhn 1962: 3). A debilitating combination of war-weariness
and financial retrenchment ensured that, in Britain and much of Europe, primary teacher
training during the inter-war period was conducted along pre-war lines. It was a case of old
wine in very old bottles (Lofthouse 1992: 79). Only after the Second World War did Britain
show signs of accepting post-modern concepts, and in the field of primary teacher training
the paradigm shift finally occurred during the 1960s.
During this decade I was teaching in primary schools, and during the 1970s I was working
in the field of initial teacher training. Applying Kuhn’s model of paradigm shifts to what I
178 Mark Lofthouse
experienced (personal and partial though this is) I would suggest that some of the shifts shown
in Figure 10.1 occurred.
Figure 10.1 Paradigm shifts which occurred during the 1960s and 1970s.
First, a disclaimer. Figure 10.1 does not pretend to be a comprehensive model. The
modern–post-modern debate concerning teacher development has been more closely worked
out by Hargreaves in his book Changing Teachers, Changing Times (1994). Second, Simon
is right to suggest that the progressive revolution in British primary education was a
revolution that largely never happened (Simon 1989: 381–2). However, enough happened to
be of continuing interest and my purpose is to trace some of the key ideas and see how they
impacted on initial teacher training.
Like the majority of British primary teachers, I entered teaching with a certificate in
education. This was acquired at a teacher training college over a period of three years (the
length of the course having just been raised from two years). Significantly, my final certificate
commented on my abilities in practical teaching and professional studies, and referred to my
‘main subject’ without naming it. This quite accurately reflects the division of the course:
two-thirds practical, one-third academic. Although the certificate was awarded by a
university, most of us at our college knew little about the place and certainly never visited it.
This was in sharp contrast to our colleagues in secondary schools, most of whom studied for
a three-year first degree at a university and stayed on to complete a further one year Post
Graduate Certificate in Education. The pallid ‘Cert. Ed.’ behind our name, compared with the
status conferred by ‘BA, PGCE’ for our secondary colleagues, made the point forcibly. What
it conveyed most particularly was that primary training was strictly for primary teaching. In
a nutshell, the Cert. Ed. was a hermetically sealed product, which could only be cashed in for
primary teaching.
The paradigm shift, when it finally came, was a belated but very welcome recognition of
teacher education as opposed to teacher training. This was signalled in Britain by changes of
title: teacher training colleges suddenly found themselves renamed colleges of education
(Reid et al. 1994: 5). This change of title was the outward symbol; Reid has summed up the
dramatic shifts which occurred within the colleges, as the Certificate Of Education was
dropped and the new, four-year B.Ed. degrees were introduced:
The importance of these changes . . . reflected a fairly profound change in the

conceptualisation of the teacher from classroom crafts person, who needed to learn a trade,
to the teacher as educated person, equipped with knowledge and the ability to apply this
and his or her intelligence to the profession of teaching pupils. Hence the associated
curriculum changes were of much greater depth . . . .
(Reid 1994: 5–6)
For primary school teachers the curriculum changes were brought together in the Plowden
Report. In higher education (which the newly named colleges of education strove to enter
legitimately), curriculum change centred on planning degrees which had large elements of
‘Education Studies’, a bland title for the emerging educational disciplines – the philosophy,
psychology, sociology and history of education. These disciplines were classically surveyed
and promoted in 1966 by J. W. Tibble in his book The Study of Education. The list of
contributors – Paul Hirst, Richard Peters, Brian Simon, William Taylor – is a roll-call of those
academics who gave impetus to the new wave of thinking. In retrospect, it is possible to ask
how far the new wave rolled, and to what effect. In the colleges of education the effects were
mixed. The study of professional and educational issues became more open and intelligent,
but it also became regrettably compartmentalised. In organisational terms, colleges tended to
respond to the arrival of disciplines by creating departments of professional and educational
studies. Invariably the latter became associated with high-status knowledge, where staff were
properly expected to publish. In contrast, professional studies departments all too often took
on a ‘schools ghetto’ role, characterised by staff who, rather than write articles, were expected
to undertake an enormous burden of school practice supervision. Given this divisive context,
it is not surprising that every new course proposal tended to degenerate into a dog-fight over
180 Mark Lofthouse
the relative merits of professional knowledge versus education theory. The same questions
rolled back and forth:
• Is teaching an art or a science?

• What do beginner teachers most need: skills, knowledge or appropriate attitudes?
• What is the role of school experience compared with school practice?
• Should students have greater freedom to plan their own course?
• Should ‘education studies’ become free-standing, independent of professional courses?
• What is the relationship between theory and practice? What do we mean by the term
‘beginner teacher’?
As can be seen, the debate was cyclical and, of course, the questions were never really
answered. As an Oxford tutor once dismissively wrote at the foot of an assignment paper:
‘Many topics pursued, none overtaken’.
The whole progressive debate in Britain was eventually overtaken by economic decline,
precipitated in part by the oil crisis of 1973–74. Liberal attitudes towards education are
closely linked to the ‘feel-good factor’ generated by good economic performance. When the
succession of quaintly named ‘boomlets’ came to an end in the ‘never had it so good’
Macmillan era, serious interest in educational reform gave way to educational retrenchment.
As dozens of the colleges of education were either closed or amalgamated in the 1970s,
Britain’s weakness, economically and politically, became all too visible (Hencke 1978: 27–
33). Macmillan had signalled the retreat from Empire in his ‘winds of change’ speech. The
reality of his words came home to roost in the 1970s, when both the old and the new
Commonwealth countries became assertive, rather than deferential, in their dealings with
Britain. In the field of teacher training, many of the old Commonwealth countries were
irritated by the colonial legacy and were determined to set up their own policies (McLaren
1974: 49–65). Conferment of nationhood on new Commonwealth countries was invariably
the signal to get rid of the old ways, which had a habit of creeping back (Lauwerys and Tayar
1973: 5). British dominance of the educational disciplines during the 1970s was ‘the last
hurrah’, the final opportunity for Australian and New Zealand academics to use their
secondments to visit the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge and London. When the
disciplines diminished in importance during the 1980s, the academic attention and interests
of both old and new Commonwealth countries tended to switch to America.
Primary initial teacher training: contemporary debates
The United States of America currently sets the agenda for a global debate on education and
teacher training. It is a very ill-tempered debate, couched in terms of what has been described
as a ‘discourse of derision’. The tone of this debate was set by Bloom’s book, The Closing of
the American Mind, significantly sub-titled, How higher education has failed democracy and
impoverished the souls of today’s students (Bloom 1987: 19–23). Bloom’s hypothesis, that
what currently passes for higher education is worthless because it promotes knowledge rather
than understanding, is applied by Shor (1986) to the field of education. Shor argues that
American conservatism, as expressed through the Republican policies of Nixon and Reagan,
has eradicated educational liberalism and replaced it by ‘the new vocationalism’. Shor
identifies periods and issues which, while referring to America, have far wider applications
for European and Pacific-rim countries (1986: 1):
• the 1960s – the culture of protest fuelled by progressivism;

• 1971–75 – the counter-offensive, career education and the focus on work;
• 1975–82 – the counter-reformation: the literacy crisis and back to basics;
• 1982–[86] – the war for educational excellence against mediocrity, however described and
wherever found.
Warren (1978), Hirsch (1987) and Jacoby (1987) all provide further applications of how
Shor’s analysis worked in the USA. For most countries, the significant point was that ‘when
America sneezes, the world catches a cold’. The collective force of the American educational
jeremiads was a global loss of confidence in the power of education, and a return to notions
of ‘less education, but better education’.
The problem is that the word ‘education’ is so slippery. For ‘new right’ politicians
everywhere this in itself is irritating, because simplicity and order have to be found in a world
grown complicated. It has been said that ‘to every complex problem, there is always a simple
answer – and it is always wrong’. This has signally failed to deter politicians of the ‘new right’
from giving simple answers to complex issues. In the field of initial teacher training, the ‘new
right’ agenda abandons teacher education as being ‘transformational’ and, instead, returns to
the need for teachers to acquire skills and competencies.
The consequence of competencies
Although Chapter 7 has shown how competencies can be used to promote reflection, that may
not be their chief attraction. Teacher competencies are alluring because they are safe. They
suggest that teaching is basically a skills-oriented activity, and once the appropriate skills
have been identified, they can be learned. ‘Learning by doing’ has a long history within
primary schooling, and therefore ‘skill cycles’ are ripe for application in primary initial
training. The work of Kolb (1984), Dreyfus and Dreyfus (1986) and Schon (1987) all provide
powerful reasons for teacher trainers to become acquainted with methods of skill acquisition.
The Dreyfus and Dreyfus model (1986: 227) identifies five stages of skill acquisition:
1 novice;
2 advanced beginner;
3 competent;
182 Mark Lofthouse
4 proficient;
5 expert.
Argyrsis and Schon argue that you make progress through this continuum by reflection-on-
action and reflection-in-action (Argyrsis and Schon 1978). Therefore, real-life professional
competencies for doctors and teachers are best acquired by constant reviews of action (mini
thought experiments) within the ongoing flow of professional activity (Schon 1987: 57–9).
Taken in conjunction with Kolb’s theory of experimental learning, there is an apparently
overwhelming case for putting primary trainees into classrooms and entrusting their training
to mentors (Kolb 1984: 89; Tomlinson 1995: 20–21).
The critical issue is that, however sophisticated the competencies are, and however neatly
the skills are dovetailed and packaged, we are back to teacher training. Training agendas are
now commanding international attention because the peculiarly British distrust of teaching
and teachers appears to be breaking out in the form of a contagious, global rash. As the
teacher’s role is diminished a new technocracy replaces reasons and values by ‘outcomes’ and
‘outputs’. ‘If it can be measured it must be there, and because it’s there it must be worthwhile;
tick a box and capture a learning experience!’ This kind of reductionism provides a rationale
which has powered the introduction of national curricula, core competencies and associated
assessment processes, profiles and targets. Shenstone (1993: 7) offers an overview of what
recent New Zealand governments have been attempting along these lines. Allowing for
different emphasis, many countries have been attempting to achieve a good deal of this
‘reform agenda’:
1 the creation of self governing schools;

2 the reduction of bureaucracy;
3 the introduction of objective and visible formula funding;
4 the exposure of services to competition;
5 the raising of standards through competition between schools and among pupils;
6 the development of ‘national curricula’ with clearly defined and monitored assessment
processes and targets.
Without doing violence to Shenstone’s agenda, I think it is possible to tuck within its
framework a more specific ‘action list’ of what can be observed in initial teacher training:
• a switch to school-based training, because schools are where the action is;
• a switch to skills-based training, often reflected in students achieving mastery of teaching
competencies and skill clusters;
• all of the above being predominantly achieved through mentored school experience and
school practice;
• a re-definition of what constitutes a beginner teacher, with renewed emphasis on teaching
techniques as compared with contextual knowledge.
Summary
The philosopher Hegel once said, ‘The only thing one learns from history is that nobody ever
learns anything from history’. The sad truth of Hegel’s remark is evident in the present mis-
application of what are claimed to be training reforms. While it is logically possible to analyse
why these measures are being put in place, it is equally possible to assert that they will not,
and cannot, work. Let me substantiate the accusation. We are currently faced with the bizarre
spectacle of America, Britain and large parts of the old Commonwealth attempting to ‘go
back to the future’. This yearning for the past to answer for the present is revealed in a desire
to recreate nineteenth-century trading conditions, and specifically weak labour unions and
deregulated markets (Keeghan 1995: 22). In addition, associated with free market economics
there is an almost unbridled belief in competition. As Shenstone identifies (1993: 7), there are
potent convictions that schools and pupils can only succeed through internal and external
competition. Therefore the worldwide rush to create educational markets is explained as a
manifestation and further evidence of the apparent triumph of capitalism as being ‘the one
best system’ (Harries 1992: 2).
Our Victorian predecessors found it to be a very imperfect system, especially in the field
of primary education. From 1862, elementary schools in Britain were exposed to the full force
of market philosophy. This came about by the imposition of the Revised Code, a system often
referred to as ‘payment by results’. Satisfactory attainment by pupils in reading, writing,
arithmetic, linked to attendance, earned financial grants. These grants were only paid after an
increasingly severe system of inspection, verification and performance testing had been
applied. Robert Lowe, who devised the scheme, was brutally frank in explaining his rationale.
‘Enlist the hope of reward and the fear of penalty,’ he declared, ‘then see how difficulties are
overcome’ (Sutherland 1973).
From a provider’s point of view, difficulties were overcome. Gladstone, as Chancellor of
the Exchequer, rejoiced at discovering a system which enabled him to peg spending on
schooling, and then reduce it. In any case, he could claim success. For thirty years the primary
curriculum was reduced to three subjects. It was hardly surprising that attainments apparently
improved (Hurt 1971: 176).
A high price was paid for chimerical success. Those who had to implement the code were
not consulted: their only duty was to deliver it. Teachers became instructors, whose function
was to drill, cram and grind children through what Matthew Arnold referred to as ‘games of
mechanical contrivance’ (Arnold 1910: 12).
The limitations of such a threadbare curriculum were exposed when it became apparent
that
• children could pass tests for reading when they could not read;
• the amount of money spent on testing schools was greater than the amount invested in
them.
184 Mark Lofthouse
The code was abandoned in 1895.

How does all of this impact on contemporary debates concerning the provision of initial
training for primary teachers? In essence, those who ignore history are condemned to relive
it. We currently witness a world-wide lurch back to static models, where teacher training
replaces teacher education (GTC 1993: 14–15). This seems perverse and retrograde in a
world which has become more complicated and more culturally plural. The influence of
teachers and teacher training is marginalised, as competencies and national curricula are
more tightly specific and the role of the teacher becomes that of the technician. Further, the
role of higher education in such a process is highly problematic. In Britain and Australia, there
are clear signs of a desire by governments to withdraw universities and academics from
teacher training (Dawkins 1988b: 290–9). If this occurs, the status of teachers will be open to
re-interpretation. In particular, the perception of teaching as a trade (albeit a skilled one), and
not a profession, will be restated.
For any teacher reading this, let me persuade you not to write your letter of resignation just
yet! The above agenda may run for a while, but it cannot succeed. The present triumphal
progress of capitalism, with all its associated trappings of markets and competitions, does not
answer the question of what education is for in the twenty-first century. Kung is one of the
many now arguing passionately for a ‘new role ethic’, where schooling and education have a
major role to play in filling the moral vacuum created by our present reliance upon
technocracy (Kung 1990: 6–10). Anyone working with small children knows that teaching
them is far more than an information exchange, just as preparing students for teaching is
something more than providing them with a bundle of skills. This intuitive knowledge is
important, as Zeldin argues in his book, ‘An Intimate History of Humanity’ (Zeldin 1994: 1–
6). Dismissing the ‘system building’ of the nineteenth century as a dreary game pursued by
those who sacrificed normal living in pursuit of ephemeral power, Zeldin mounts a powerful
case for humanity to break out of bureaucracy. In particular he declares that:
To have a new vision of the future, it is necessary to have a new vision of the past. . . . What
ordinary people can do for themselves is to increase their mutual respect, without
repeating the mistakes of the past.
(Zeldin 1994: 145)
For teachers, Zeldin’s message and philosophy is a powerful confirmation that humanity is to
be cherished and encouraged amid a world currently obsessed with meaningless inputs,
outputs and competencies. Arguing that the primary purpose of education is to develop a
knowledge not of facts, but of values, Zeldin attacks our tendency to polish time’s distant
mirror and find it more attractive than it really was. This is salutary, at a point when ‘revised
codes’ are being re-invented across the world. While the rear-view mirror currently appears
very attractive, it is, in fact, fatally cracked.
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Index
Abrahmson, L.Y. 75 Bandura, A. 27, 30

abstraction 12–13 Barnard, H.C. 174
accommodation 28 Barrett, G. 18
achievement: goals 19; special needs Beginning Teacher Education Study
72–4; see also self-esteem (BTES) 107
action research 129–34 behavioural difficulties 73
active learning 3, 9–24; children’s role behaviourism 30; language acquisition
10–17; teacher’s role 17–21; 32; special needs 69–70
teaching strategies 19–20 Bem, S. 36
Adelman, C. 130 Bennett, N. 15, 18, 21, 86, 92, 114, 164
Adey, P. 59 Bennett, S.N. 123
affective objectives 125 Berliner, D. 111
Ainscow, M. 77, 78 Berryman, J. 28
Aitken, R. 159 Blagg, N. 59
Alexander, R. 104, 106, 108 Blank, M. 39
Alton-Lee, A. 112 Blenkin, G. 22
Andersen, E.S. 140 Bloom, A. 181
Andrews, J. 59 Blyth, W. 105
Archer, J. 37 Boden, M. 62
Argyrsis, C. 182 Bonnett, M. 1, 11, 55, 62
Armytage, W.H.G. 173 Borba, C. 75
Arnold, M. 173, 184 Borba, M. 75
Ashman, A. 58, 68 Brady, J.E. 42
assessment 5, 85–91; computer-assisted Brazil, D. 147
98–9; formal see testing; informal Britton, J.N. 140
88–9; methods 89–91; objectives Broadfoot, P. 91
87–8; role of 86–7; summary 89; Brophy, G. 111
types 88–9 Brophy, J.E. 107, 112
assimilation 28 Brown, A. 112, 113
Athey, C. 15 Brown, G. 152
attitudes: to learning 53, 60–1; Bruce, T. 12–13, 14, 23
reflective teachers 120–2 Bruner, J. 2, 4, 9, 13, 18–19, 27–9, 32–3,
attribution theory 74–5 41, 43, 48, 53, 57
Audit Commission 66 Burman, L. 69–70
Burns, R.B. 73, 79
Baird, J.R. 123 Bush, T. 158–9, 160, 162
Bancroft, D. 33 Butterworth, G. 28
Index 189
Cahsdan, A. 141, 153 communication see

Caldwell, B.J. 158 language/communication
Campbell, R. 110 competencies 123–9; and teacher
Campione, J. 112 training 177–85
Carr, D. 127 conceptual shift 48–50, 57–8
Carr, W. 131 conferencing 59
Carraher, T.N. 56 conscientiousness 110
Carter, D.S.G. 123 consequence objectives 125
Cashdan, A. 59 conservation 28
Cavendish, S.J. 5, 90–5, 96 conservatism 105, 106–7, 114–15
child-centred teaching 18–19, 106, 119 continuous record 95
child development 3–4; cultural conversations 40
context 55–6; early years (three to Conway, R. 58
seven) 27–44; emotional factors 53, cooperative learning 42–3, 62, 113–14;
60–1; gender role development see also groupwork
36–7; home/family context 30–7; Coopersmith, S. 79
junior years (seven to eleven) 48–62; Corden, R. 146, 149
learning theory approach 29–30; Corson, D. 141
non-school settings 39–44, 56; role Cortazzi, M. 7
of play 35–6; school effects 38–44, Costello, P.J.M. 118, 119
56; shift from home to school 37; Coulthard, M. 147
social development 2, 28–9, 43–4, Coulthard, R.M. 147
53–4, 61–2; stages 28–9; theories Cowie, H. 16, 28, 31
28–30; theory of mind 54–5; young Craske, M.L. 75
children at home 34–5 Croll, P. 67, 92
Chomsky, N. 32 cultures, primary school see classroom
Clark, M.M. 18 culture
Clarke, A.D.B. 69, 70 curriculum: active, play-based 22–4;
Clarke, A.M. 69 hybridisation 106, 109–10;
Clarke, C. 68, 77 industrially-dominated 9–10, 105,
class sizes 102 107; language as subject 140–41;
classroom culture 102–15; and management 163–9; National
ideology 109–9; improving Curriculum see National
educational practice 114–15; Curriculum; Schools
language/communication 142–4; Council Humanities Curriculum
patterns of organisation 107–9; 131–32; teachers’ response to reform
pedagogy 111; teaching for 104–5
understanding 111–14 Curtis, A. 14
classroom exchanges: improving
151–2; structure 147–51; see also Daniels, H. 153
language/communication Darling, J. 18
classroom research see research Das Gupta, P. 28
classroom talk see Davidson, L. 33
slanguage/communication Dawkins, J.S. 184
Claxton, G. 61 deaf children 68
Cobban, A. 173 Delamont, S. 92
cognitive development see child Denham, C. 107
development Denham, S.A. 34
cognitive objectives 125 Dent, H.C. 174, 175
Cohen, E. 113 Dessent, T. 66
collaborative management 161–2 development see child development
collegiality 161–2 Dewey, J. 118–19, 120, 121, 122, 135
190 Index
Dickens, C. 177 Galton, M. 6, 18, 33, 43, 92, 105–10, 112,

Dillon, J.T. 152 114, 152
Donaldson, M. 4, 10–13, 28, 39, 49, 56 Gardiner, H. 141
Dowling, M. 24 Gardner, H. 50, 54, 70
Dowling, W. 33 gender role development 36–7
Doyle, W. 22 gender schema theory 36
Dreyfus, H.L. 182 Gipps, C. 107
Dreyfus, S.E. 182 Gold, M.W. 70
Dunn, J. 34–5 Goleman, D. 70
Dunne, E. 114 Gombert, J.E. 140
Durkin, K. 140 Good, T. 111, 114
Dweck, C. 19 Good, T.L. 107, 112
Dweck, C.S. 75 Goodlad, S. 81
Greenfield, P. 39
Eaglesham, E.J.R. 176 groupwork 42–3, 62; cooperative 80;
Earley, P. 126, 128 special needs 78–9; see also
Ebbutt, D. 130, 132 cooperative learning
ecological model 76–7 Gura, P. 15
Education Act (1988) 66 Gurney, P. 75
educational management see
management Hagvet, K.A. 73
Edwards, A. 10, 21, 52 Halford, G.S. 51, 53–4
Edwards, D. 140, 153 Hamachek, D.E. 79
effective schools 77–8, 163–5 Hammill, D.D. 69
Eisenhart, L. 111 Handy, C. 159
Elliott, J. 130, 132 Hargie, O. 152
employment, educating for 9–10, 105, Hargreaves, A. 106, 157, 161–2, 178
107 Hargreaves, D. 4, 33, 134, 144
enactive representation 29 Hargreaves, L. 4, 96
Ennever, L. 93 Harlen, W. 90, 93
environmental geography 22–3 Harries, R. 183
evaluation 85–6; classroom exchanges Harris, M. 28
148 Harris, P.L. 55
Evans, J. 65, 66 Harrison, J.F.C. 173
everyone reads in class (ERIC) 61 Hartup, W. 41–2
exploratory objectives 125 Haste, H. 2, 57
hearing impairment 68
feedback from testing 86–7, 89 Hegel, G.W.F. 183
Feiler, A. 69, 77 Hencke, D. 180
Feuerstein 57–8, 59 Herman-Fleiss, B. 70
Fish, J. 66 Hewitt, P. 86
Flanders, N. 150 Hextall, I. 128
Francis, H. 143 Hirsch, E.D. 181
Frey 36 Hirst, B. 81
friendships 41–4 Hirst, P. 179
Froebel, F.W.A. 9 Hoey, M. 147
Fullan, M.G. 162, 170 Holt, J. 14, 17, 52, 56, 90
functional integration 66–7 Hopkins, D. 77, 134, 170
Horn, P. 173
Gage, N.L. 111 Horner, R.D. 70
Gallimore, R. 43, 153 Horvath, J. 114
Galloway, D. 52 Houston, W.R. 123
Index 191
Howe, M.J.A. 58, 59 King, R. 18, 148

Howes, C. 41 Kingsley Mills, C. 78
Howsam, R.B. 123 Kitson, N. 6, 8, 15, 147
Hoyles, C. 88 Kliebard, H. 106, 109
Hudson, J.A. 49 Knight, P. 10, 21
Hughes, M. 12, 21, 34, 37, 40, 44, 140 Kohlberg, L.A. 36
human sense 39–40 Kolb, D.A. 182
Hurt, J. 184 Kuhn, T.S. 177–8
Hutt, S.J. 14, 18 Kung, H. 177, 185
hybridisation 106, 109–10 Kussell, 7. 79
I-R-F (initiation-response-follow up) Langford, P. 11

patterns 150–1 language/communication 7;
iconic representation 29, 48 acquisition theories 32–3; in the
ideology 109–10 classroom 139–54; and classroom
inclusion skills training 78 organisation 142–4; as curriculum
inclusive education 66–8 subject 140–41; development (three
independence, children’s 18–20 to seven) 30–1; as
Individual Education Programmes metacommunication 145–7; pre-
(IEPs) 70–2 verbal social skills 32–3; and social
individualism 107 interaction 142–4; teaching 140–41;
industrialism 9–10, 105, 107
see also classroom exchanges
Inhelder, B. 11, 35
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
INSET (In Service Education and
32
Training) 166–7, 169
Language Acquisition Support System
integration 65–8
(LASS) 33
intelligence quotient (IQ) 69
Lauwerys, J. 180
intelligences 50, 70
Lave, J. 4, 39
internalisation 29
Lawrence, D. 75, 79
interval observation 95
Lawson, J. 173
Isaacs, 9
learned helplessness 75–6, 114
learning: active see active learning;
Jacoby, R. 181
attitudes/emotions 53, 60–1;
Jacques, D. 79
cultural context 55–6; difficulties see
Johnson, D. 43
special needs; effective 77–8, 163–4;
Johnson, D.W. 78, 80
Johnson, F.P. 78, 80 objectives 19, 124–5; outcomes,
Johnson, K.E. 149 recording 97–9; relationship 3–8;
Jones, L.G.E. 175 sensory 10–11; strategies 50–1, 58–9;
successful/unsuccessful learners
60–1; trial-and-error 16–17
Kagan, D. 111
Kail, R.V. 51 learning theory: approach to child
Karmiloff-Smith, A. 53 development 29–30; and play 15–16;
Karrby, G. 21 social learning theory see social
Kasparov, G. 75 learning theory
Kay-Shuttleworth, J. 174 Lee, V. 28
Keeghan, W. 183 Legett, E. 19
Keilitz, I. 70 Lemke, J.L. 147
Kell, J. 18, 21 Levin, J.R. 58
Kelly, A. 22 Lewin, K. 129, 130, 131, 133–4
Kemmis, S. 131, 132 Libermann, A. 107
Keough, B.K. 16 Liston, D.P. 120, 121–2
192 Index
local management of schools (LMS) music 33–4

98–9
locational integration 66–7 National Curriculum 1–2; Clabrix
Lofthouse, M. 8, 159, 161, 163, 165 primary school 166–9; record-
Lofthouse, M.T. 174, 177 keeping 98
Lortie, D. 106, 114 Newcomb, A.F. 42
Lowe, R. 184 Newcomer, P.L. 69
Lyly, J. 173 Newman, D. 2, 153
Nias, J. 135, 162
McAuley, H. 23 Norman, D.A. 16
McCulloch, M. 127, 128–9 Norris, N. 127, 129
McDonald, J.F. 125 Nutbrown, C. 15
McGarrigle, J. 39 Nuthall, G. 112
McLaren, I.A. 180
Macmillan, Harold 180 observation 91–9; finding time for 97;
McNamara, D. 123, 125, 126 formal/informal 91–2; high
McNamara, S. 5, 42, 61, 75, 78–80, 112, inference/low inference 94; interval
114 95; participant 92–3; schedules,
McNiff, J. 130, 132 developing 95–6; systematic
McShane, J. 10, 51, 52, 59 (structured) 92, 93–5, 98; time
management 7, 157–71; of change sampling 95
170–71; collegial (collaborative) open-mindedness 121
161–2; context 158–9; curriculum ORACLE (Observational Research and
163–9; local management of schools Classroom Learning Evaluation) 92,
(LMS) 98–9; purpose 159–61; 107– 8, 110
theories 160–61; time see time oracy 78
management oral communication see
Martin, J. 175 language/communication
Matthews, J. 15 Osguthorpe, R. 43
Meadows, S. 51, 59, 113, 141, 153 ownership 20–1
measurement 85, 87–8; see also testing
Mehan, H. 147 Palincsar, A. 113
Meijer, C.J.W. 65 parental choice 66
Mercer, N. 140, 153 Patrick, H. 108
Merry, R. 1, 4, 11, 144 pedagogy 111
Messick, S. 127 peer interaction 42–3, 62
metacognition 52, 59–60, 113–14 peer tutoring 80–1; China 68
metacommunication 145–7 perception 10–13
Mittler, P. 67 performance objectives 125
Moll, L.C. 153 Perner, J. 54
Montessori, M. 9 Peters, R. 179
Montgomery, M. 147 Piaget, J. 2, 4, 9, 11, 13, 27–9, 32, 35, 39,
Moore, M. 73–4, 75, 76 41–3, 48–9, 53, 110, 113, 119
Moran, A. 49 Pijl, S.J. 65
Moreton, G. 42, 61, 75, 78, 79, 80, 114 Pintrich, P. 114
Morgan, C. 158 Piskin, M. 73
Morris, J. 175 play 3; and active learning 13–17;
Mortimore, P. 163–4 gender role development 36–7; and
Moses, D. 67 learning theory 15–16; as
Mosley, J. 75 observable behaviour 15;
Moyles, J.R. 3, 10, 14, 16, 21, 35 ownership 20–1; play-based
Murgatroyd, S. 158 curriculum 22–4; and
Index 193
social/cognitive development 35–6; Schwartzman, H. 15

socio-dramatic 15 Science Processes Observation
Plowden Report (1967) 42, 119, 179 Categories (SPOC) 93, 96
Pollard, A. 19, 43–4, 105, 118–20, 122, Scruggs, T. 43
131, 135–6 segregation 65–6
post-task interview 92 self-esteem: attribution theory 74–5;
Potts, P. 68 learned helplessness 75–6, 114;
presentism 106 special needs 72–4
Primary Assessment, Curriculum and sensory learning 10–11
Experience Project 91 Sharan, S. 43, 79
Primary Language Record 59 Sharron, H. 58, 59
problem-solving 112–14 Shayer, M. 59
Purkey, W. 73 Shefataya, S. 15, 18
Pye, 33 Shenstone, M. 182–3
Shor, I. 181
reading in the classroom 61 sign language 68
Record of Achievement (ROA) 89, 98 Silcock, P. 119
record-keeping: computer-based Simmons, P. R-J. 50
systems 98–9; learning outcomes Simon, B. 92, 177, 178, 179
97–9; National Curriculum 98 Simpson, M. 92
reflective teaching 6–7, 118–36 Simpson, R.H. 118
Reid, I. 179 Sinclair, J.McH. 147
relationships, teacher-pupil 102–3 singing, development 33–4
repetition (rehearsal; rote learning) 51; Sinha, C. 39
classroom exchanges 147–51 Siraj-Blatchford, I. 10
research 6; action research 129–34 Siraj-Blatchford, J. 10
responsibility 121–2 Skaalvik, E.M. 73
Reynolds, A. 111 skills: inclusion skills training 78;
Reynolds, D. 72 reflective teachers 120–2
Richards, J. 152 Skinner, B.F. 30, 32
Robson, S. 21 Slaby 36
Rogers, B. 111, 114 Slavin, R.E. 43, 78, 79, 80
Rogoff, B. 2, 4, 39, 43, 53, 58, 62 Slee, R. 65
Rose, S. 39 Smilansky, S. 15, 18
Rowe, M.B. 57, 151 Smith, L. 29
Russell, T. 90 Smith, L.J. 80
Ryan, P. 7, 162 Smith, P. 16, 28, 31, 35, 36, 173
Snow, C. 33
Sacks, H. 151 social development 2, 28–9, 43–4, 53–4,
scaffolding 2, 18, 29, 43, 57, 113–14, 153 61–2
Schegloff, E.A. 151 social learning theory 30, 43; language
schema development 14–15 acquisition 32–3
Schilling, M.D. 90 Socratic dialogue 59
Schmuck, P.A. 78 Somerset Thinking Skills course 59
Schmuck, R.A. 78 Sotto, E. 2, 12, 22–3, 57
Schon, D.A. 182 special needs 4–5, 65–81; behavioural
school cultures see classroom culture approach 69–70; behavioural
school effectiveness 77–8, 163–5 difficulties 73; China 67–8;
School Information Management ecological model 76–7; effective
System (SIMS) 99 schools argument 77–8; groupwork
Schools Council Humanities skills 78–9; inclusion skills training
Curriculum 131–2 78; Individual Education
194 Index
Programmes 70–2; low expectations 28; shift from concrete to abstract

71; self-esteem 72–4; support (conceptual shift) 48–50, 57–8
teachers 71; testing 70, 73–4; Thinking Books 60
traditional view 68–9 Thomas, G. 69, 77
special schools 65–6 Thomas, N. 88
SPELT programme 59 Thousand, A.S. 79
Spinks, J.M. 158 Tibble, J.W. 179
Stainback, S. 79 time management: classroom talk 143;
Stainback, W. 79 observation 97
standard attainment targets (SATs) 87; time sampling 95
special needs 71 Tizard, B. 34, 40, 108, 140
Stanford, G. 78 Tomlinson, P. 182
STAR project 90, 92, 93–4, 97 Topping, K. 43, 80, 81
Steiner, 9 Tough, J. 78
Stenhouse, L. 130, 131 trial-and-error learning 16–17
Sternberg, R. 114 Tsui, A.B.M. 147
Stevenson, H. 38 Tuson, J. 92
strategies 50–1, 58–9
Stubbs, M. 140, 145 Underwood, J. 5
Summerfield, G. 173 uninterrupted sustained silent reading
support teachers 71 (USSR) 61
Sutherland, G. 184 Villa, R.A. 79
Swan, S. 60 Vygotsky, L. 2, 4, 9, 13–14, 18–19, 27–9,
Sylva, K. 16, 20 32, 41, 43, 53, 57–8, 78, 113, 152, 154
symbolic representation 29, 49
symbolism 12–13 Wade, B. 73–4, 75, 76
Wagner, D. 38
Tann, S. 19, 118–19, 120, 122, 131, 135,
Walkerdine, V. 39
136
Wallace, M. 162
tasks, embedded/disembedded 12–13,
Walters, R. 30
40, 56
Ware, J. 69, 70
Tayar, G. 180
Ware, L. 66
Taylor, W. 177, 179
Warnock Report (1978) 66
teacher training 8, 172–85;
Warren, D.R. 181
competencies 177–85; history 173–7;
Waterland, L. 61
INSET 166–7, 169; policies 173–7
Wedell, K. 67
teachers: burnout 71; competencies
Wells, G. 78, 140
123–9; as facilitators 58, 61–2; as
Welton, J. 65
models 18–20; professional
Wertsch, J.V. 153
development 111, 124–5, 129;
West-Burnham, J. 158–9, 160
reflective 6–7, 118–36; sensitive
Whitbread, N. 174
20–1; values/beliefs 134–5
White, J. 119
teaching: effective 77–8, 163–5; for
White, R. 60
understanding 111–14
Whitty, G. 118, 127–8
Terwogt, M.M. 55
wholeheartedness 122
testing: assessment 89; feedback 86–7,
Willes, M.J. 147
89; special needs 70, 73–4; written
Williams, R. 104
tests 90
Williamson, J. 43
Tharp, R. 43
Willig, C.J. 11, 21
Tharp, R.G. 153
Willis, J. 147
theory of mind 54–5
Willmott, E. 118, 127–8
thinking: domains 49–50; egocentric
Index 195
Wolfendale, S. 77 Zeichner, K. 118

Wood, D. 12, 28, 29, 49, 56, 58, 59, 98, Zeichner, K.M. 120, 121–2
109 Zeldin, T. 185
zone of proximal development (ZPD)
Wragg, E.C. 152
2, 18, 29, 43, 58, 152

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Teaching in the Primary School

Teaching in the Primary

Edited by Neil Kitson and Roger Merry

London and New York

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 0–415–14814–6 (Print Edition)

List of illustrations vii

9 Managing primary schools: facilitating the learning

10 Back to the future: the learning relationship in initial teacher

1.1 Environmental Geography 21

5.1 An extract from the SPOC Observation Coding Sheet 94

5.2 An example of a simple observation schedule 96

6.1 Typical arrangement of a European classroom 103

6.2 Typical arrangement in Singapore school

7.1 The four stages of action research 131

7.2 The action research model extended to include

7.3 The ‘action research spiral’ 132

7.4 Elliot’s action research model 133

8.1 A diagram of the teacher–pupils exchange in

8.2 Examples of I-R-F patterns

8.3 The structure of a common classroom exchange 150

1.1 Teaching strategies for active learning 20

Neil Kitson and Roger Merry

PART I: THE CHILD AND THE LEARNING RELATIONSHIP

Chapter 1 Just for fun?

Chapter 2 Cognitive development, 3–7

Chapter 3 Cognitive development, 7–11

Chapter 4 Children with special needs

It would clearly be misleading to present an idealised view of classrooms involving only

Chapter 5 Observing, assessing and recording children’s development

and (b) the purpose or goal of assessment; for example:

• to improve a teaching programme;

PART II: THE TEACHER’S ROLE IN THE LEARNING

Chapter 6 Primary culture and classroom teaching

Chapter 7 Look back and wonder: the reflective practitioner

Chapter 8 Teacher language and communication

• the function and effectiveness of teacher talk;

Chapter 9 Management in primary education: a learning relationship

Chapter 10 Initial teacher training in the primary years: ‘back to the

Bonnett, M. (1994) Children’s Thinking – Promoting Understanding in the Primary School,

Just for fun?

PRIMARY CHILDREN MAKING SENSE OF THE WORLD

Reality from the child’s perspective

Ωηψ χαν τ ψου ρεαδ τηισ? Iτ ισ περϕεχτλψ σιµπλε – προϖιδεδ ψου

Abstraction and symbolism

ACTIVE LEARNING AND CHILDREN’S PLAY

What do we do when we make learning? Well, we observe, we look, we listen. We touch,

Play and learning theory

Play provides children with an active learning mode in which to

1 acquire new knowledge and skills;

3 recognise and solve problems;

THE PRACTITIONER’S ROLE IN ACTIVE LEARNING

Children’s independence and adult models

Table 1.1 Teaching strategies for active learning

Ownership, control and the sensitive teacher

– a true learning relationship.

Figure 1.1 Environmental geography