An interesting trail of different kinds of research led Geraldine McDonald to the study of how junior school children learn school-ways-of-thinking. Now a re-think of testing intelligence may be necessary.

This is a case-study of a truant and how, with the help of professionals, her trouble with school gradually lessened.

Does the introduction of a new teaching technique help children learn? Would it be better to reduce class size, get a new teacher, send the children home? New statistical ways of summing up what research tells us.

15 assumptions get in the way of good education. For example, teachers must punish but teachers must not punish. This item will make you think again.

Some schools are busy challenging the assumptions Richard White details in item No.7, particularly the assumption that children of equal age must all be taught the same curriculum, and together. One secondary school tried other ways; very successfully, the researchers found.

Careful examination of written stories reveals that poor spellers restrict their vocabulary and their syntax to avoid words they cannot spell, giving quite a wrong impression of their intelligence.

'The English cannot spell because they have nothing to spell it with but an old foreign alphabet of which only the consonants - and not all of them - have any agreed speech value.' So said George Bernard Shaw. How right he is, and how it can be turned to advantage by teachers, is revealed.

This is a review of the work of Peter Freebody in this field. It is a stimulating look at classroom practice, assessment of literacy, and mis-matches of policy and method.

Two classroom research projects used co-operative learning to encourage cognitive progress. This meant, almost paradoxically, using conflict, and its subsequent resolution, to teach knowledge and skills.

Some children learn best using verbal instructions and explanations; others prefer visual material. Some children learn well in one way, but prefer the other (at which they are not as skilled.) This research reveals that all is not lost when the teacher knows what to do.