Marion Richardson was a revolutionary art teacher and schools inspector. First published in 1948, her book "Art and the Child" is one of the most remarkable educational documents of the period between the first and second world wars. This article reviews Richardson's philosophy and practice of art and suggests its continuing…

This article takes as its starting point the assertion that the purpose of primary education is to value every child in the moment. The author examines one particular story by a six-year-old girl as an example of what this assertion implies, and of its significance for teaching and learning within the primary school.

In the autumn of 1973, in an essay published in "FORUM" (Volume 16, Number 1), David Hawkins, scientist, mathematician, educationalist and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, argued that a truly democratic education required not so much a revolution in teaching methods as "the radical reconstruction of subject…

This article examines an eight-year-old's story as a literary work which throws light on the extent of a young child's knowledge of the human condition and on the child's capacity to set forth her knowledge in measured prose.

The author was disappointed by R. J. Campbell's sour critique of the Cambridge Primary Review in "FORUM" Volume 52 Number 1 2010. His description of the Review's proposals on curriculum and pedagogy as "backward-looking, cumbersome and partial" is such a bizarre misjudgement that it calls for some response. The author comments in turn on R. J.…

This article is the text of a keynote address given to the North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation at its annual conference in Chicago in February 2009. Three examples of children's linguistic and literary playfulness are examined, two from England and one from the USA. The article explores the radical implications of these examples for primary…

The author presents three fragments from the art work of a class of American elementary school children to illustrate the imaginative power of children's thought and language.

"It is imagination, above all, that drives learning forward." With the eloquence and insight always associated with his work, Michael Armstrong considers how to recognise children's imaginative achievement: how to observe it, interpret it, value it and promote it. The child's exemplification of the power of the imagination demands our respect, but…