Whole‐class Teaching, School‐readiness and Pupils’ Mathematical Attainments

ABSTRACT

The central issue considered in this paper is the problem of teaching, in the same class, children who are at widely differing stages of their devlopment or of widely differing ability. Comparisons are made of the age‐distributions within a class‐‐and the educational consequences‐‐of the Continental practice of deferring entry to primary school by a year for children who are slow developers (so as to achieve a greater homogeneity of pupils’ attainments within a class, and make teaching easier) with the English practice of school‐entry tied to a strict twelve‐months’ period of birth. From samples of classes of pupils aged 9–10 examined here, it seems that slow‐developing pupils in Switzerland, who have been placed in a class a year behind their normal age‐range, perform close to the average of the class in which they have been placed; and the dispersion of pupils’ mathematical attainments in Swiss classes is reduced to about half that in English classes. Where the variability of pupils’ attainments has been reduced to that extent, it is likely that less individualisation of teaching is required, and that learning by the class as a whole can proceed more successfully and more rapidly. Greater flexibility in age of school‐entry than currently practised in England may thus be a pre‐condition for the extension of whole‐class teaching, and for more efficient teaching and learning.