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advantage at the expense of the more slowly developing children who may be
superior in the end.
Many backward but quite normal children are made to suffer by being pressed
forward too rapidly, because only calendar age is taken into consideration.
Attention has been directed to the retention of children in a junior department
on medical advice beyond the age limit which has been laid down for transfer to the
senior school.
Such considerations as these no doubt prompted an inquiry from one of the great
voluntary hospitals as to standards of attainment expected from children in the various
departments of the elementary schools.
To this enquiry the education officer gave the following reply:—
No definite standards of attainment for children in the various types of schools mentioned
in your letter have been laid down by the Council. The conditions and attainments of the
children vary so much from district to district that it is not practicable to do so.
I am afraid, therefore, it is not possible to give you the information you require in the form
in which you desire it. I trust, however, that the following notes may be of some assistance
to you.
Considerable latitude is allowed to head teachers both in regard to the subjects taught and
to whether promotion from class to class shall be made yearly or half-yearly. The Council's
regulation provides that " such promotion shall be based upon the educational attainments
of the children. Regard shall be had to the age of the children and to the accommodation
provided by the several classrooms." Normally, promotion from junior to senior schools is
made on the basis of age determined with relation to the final junior county scholarship examination.
This age of promotion varies from 11 years to 11 years 6 months.
With regard to the question of backward children, the new system of school organisation
introduced on the lines of the report of the Hadow Committee, makes it possible to have two,
or more often several, streams of pupils through a school, i.e., a series of classes through which
the brighter children pass, and one or more similar series of classes for those who develop more
slowly. Provision is thus made for the brighter children in classes with similar children of their
own age, and this arrangement is preferable to the alternative method of rapid promotion of
bright children to higher standards with older children. The disadvantage and discouragement
of keeping a backward child in a class with children so much his juniors is also avoided. This
system of organisation has now been introduced into the majority of the Council's elementary
schools.
Except in the case of children who are backward merely by the accident of long illness,
constant change of school owing to parents' removal, etc., the modern tendency is to treat backward
children by methods differing from those applied to normal children, rather than to
press them harder with the normal school work or by giving them extra homework. There are a
number of special classes for very backward children.
On the question of home lessons, the Council directs that efforts shall be made to secure
that all children attending public elementary schools, whose age, attainments and home circumstances
are suitable, shall do home lessons. These must not, however, be enforced as part of the
school discipline against the expressed wishes of the parents.
The entry of children to central schools is basically selective. Normally, only those are
admitted who reach a certain level of attainment by examination in English and arithmetic,
backed by a good school record and a standard of physical fitness which will enable them to benefit
from the more advanced instruction provided in the central school. The normal age of admission
is between eleven and twelve years, and, generally speaking, the children transferred to central
schools may be regarded as the brighter children from the ordinary elementary schools, apart
from those who succeed in qualifying for scholarships tenable at secondary schools.
Following-up.
The returns of the school doctors who re-inspect children found at the routine
inspections in elementary schools to be ailing and in need of treatment make it possible
to compile a statistical record of following-up. During 1933, 162,150 children were
re-inspected, a decrease of 13 on the number for 1932. At the first re-inspection
110,643 cases of defects requiring treatment (some children having more than one
defect) were reviewed. At the second re-inspection 51,507 cases not cleared up at
a first re-inspection were again reviewed. By combining the results of both reinspections
it is found that 82.2 per cent. of the children re-inspected were treated
or discharged as no longer requiring treatment. This result is a further advance
upon the previous year, when it was 81.6 per cent., and it is the best result hitherto
recorded.