POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19715, 4 September 1929, Page 17

POST-PRIMARY EDUCATION.

WHAT LONDON IS DOING. ■SMCIAIAT WSITTE* TOB THS PaBSS ' [BY ■•TEACHE-H.'"! 'X he Tni-r o-- this article i* «■ wacher who has considerable educational experience in -Ne-.v Zealand and m England. ilia account of reforms at present being carried out it Home is oi special interest in view of the buggested recasting of educational poll?;.- in the Dominion. A_ eecond a:xi una' dr'.-,c!9 will appear on Friday

The London County Council is one of the most progressive educational authorities in Great Britain, and its experiments in post-primary education should be of interest to New Zealand in view of the changes pending in our post-primary system. The Hadow Report of 1926' had recommended the termination of primary education at the age of eleven, the raising of the leaving age to fifteen, and the organisation of post-primary education for all children in a single organisation within which there should be a variety of types. It is this reorganisation that the London County Council is now engaged on, and the following are its chief features. There are now three stages in a child's education—the infant department, the junior school, and the postprimary school, of which there are several types. The child enters the inlant department at the age of five years and spends two years there. At the age of seven he transfers to the junior school. The junior school has four standards, 1., ii., 111., and IV. It possible these are divided to allow thre parallel streams of progress—--IA, 18, IC, 2A, 28, 2C, etc. The A group are highly intelligent, the it group of normal intelligence, the C group are retarded children. The only examination is the Junior County Scholarship Examination, for which all children sit when in the fourth standard, at the age of 104-11 years. This examination is in two stages, a preliminary and a final stage. The preliminary comes in October. Papers are set by the Council's examiners and forwarded to the headmasters, who mark the papers to a schedule of marks supplied l>y the examiners. The District Inspector then calls a meeting of headmasters to discuss the results. Only those pupils who obtain 50 per cent, of the total are allowed to sit for the final. Those who do not qualify for the final are transferred in October to senior schools. The final comes in March, in time to allow transfers to be made at Easter, when the school year ends. Papers in this examination are set and marked by the Council's examiners. In both preliminary and nnal the subjects are: Arithmetic, two papers, one on methods, one on problems; English, two papers, one essay, one on general questions. A list of the results is forwarded to the headmasters. This list shows the scholarship winners, and the remaining candidates axe divided into groups A, B, C, D, E, F. The scholarship winners are transferred to secondary sehools, giving the classical secondary education. The headmasters of the second type of school, the * selective eentral school, then visit the junior i schools and select, by consultation I with the headmasters, the best of the i remainder. The A and B groups, and ' some of the C group, are thus transferred to central sehools. Those left, the D, E. and F groups, transfer to senior schools. Of these three types of school. secondary, eentral, and senior, of their curriculum and aims, , I shall write in a following article. For the present I wish to discuss some general features of the system as already set out.

The change to post-primary education at the age of eleven U the subject of some discussion. After observing in all types of school I am entirely in favour of it. At eleven children are more adaptable, less self-conscious, and more fitted for entering on a new subject. This is especially the case in languages, such as French, where, if direct methods are used, the children enter on the subject with surprising zest. Then, too, the transfer at this age does away with the "marking-time" which teachers agree was a feature of the last stages of primary education in England. Lastly and most important, the change ensures that all children will have at least three years' post-primary work, and, when the leaving age is raised to fifteen, which the new Labour Government proposes to do at once as a means of cheeking unemployment, then at least four years. Already the majority of pupils in secondary and central schools remain for a fourth year. The benefit of this to the teacher is enormous. Work planned on the basis of a fouryear course can be better arranged and in that time a sound knowledge of the subjeet can be given. In New Zealand much time, money, and teaching effort are wasted through pupils leaving in the second year of the secondary work, before any real grasp of their subjects has been obtained.

On the other hand some primary schools, especially those established for some time, eomplain that their traditions are killed and their identity lost when the upper standards are removed. This is a narrow point of view, however, and the gain to the system as a whole must be the primary consideration.

It most not be thought that the classification of pupils into the different types of post-primary school is rigidly adhered to if a change ia justified. Cases of late development or bad classification can be, and are, met by transfers between the different types of school. Transfers occur more often from a lower to a higher-grade school than in the contrary direction. The work, of reorganisation on the above lines is far from complete. Very few senior schools are established as yet, although the central and secondary schools are well organised. The task of reorganising the elementary schools into junior and senior branches is carried out as follows. A group of neighbouring schools is taken, about fifteen to twenty in number in urban districts, and a smaller number in rural areas. A school in a central positionis chosen, to which the senior children from the others will best be able to travel. This becomes the senior school. The remaining schools lose their fifth and sixth standards and are reorganised as junior and infant branches. In .London the problem of ground spaee renders reorganisation very difiicult and the majority of primary schools still retain C, D, E, and F grade pupils until the leaving age is reached. Sufficient has been done, however, to enable the tendencies of the different types of post-primary school to be judged.