set 1985 : no. 2

Despite the fact that resources to help slow achievers in classrooms are usually less than adequate, we tend to overlook
one of the most powerful sources of children's learning at school - other children. Children pick up considerable knowledge from interaction with other children, including complex social skills and rituals, playground games such as skipping-rope chants and versions of the facts of human reproduction. Such information is readily shared in the playground, yet most… Read more

Children learn a great deal from other children. The power of this learning from peers is easily seen. Children learn such things as playground games, the language of their friends, and social behaviour, remarkably quickly - and effectively. The significance of this learning has long been recognised by schools and some, particularly small country schools, use older students to help younger ones, though usually in an informal manner. This booklet suggests ways to use the potential of the peer… Read more

Discussing nuclear war informally with a group of 16-year-olds I discovered that they had a great many different opinions about it, and many misconceptions. Stimulated by Hugh Lauder and Alan Scott and their 'Politics of Education' course at Canterbury University I set out to find out exactly what the situation was. As a trial run I prepared a survey and tested it on a group of third formers (Year 8). Interpreting the written answers proved to be a problem, however, so a second survey was… Read more

When Kirsty was brought to the attention of the Kelburn Visual Resource Centre in September 1979 she was a rather egocentric, tense, frustrated, unhappy and mixed up individual. She wanted to attend University but saw herself being dead from drug addiction by 20. Kirsty was classified as dyslexic. At a chronological age of almost sixteen she had a reading age of eight and had received eight years of intensive remedial reading assistance - in a reading clinic, individually with her schools,… Read more