Overview

This warts and all look within an inner city primary school is an intimate and charming account of how people at Edith Neville primary school approach issues that face urban schools everywhere. The author's insightful journalistic eye focuses on how individuals cope with government initiatives, the needs of the pupils and of the community at large. Focusing on the progress of individual children, in some cases from the time they start nursery, this book illuminates contemporary urban school life and provides a human account of major and minor successes, and failures, over a twelve-month period in a passionate but complex educational community. The book highlights how: the school community works to give equal chances to all children staff strive to include children with special needs the school community enlist the support of parents who mistrust the system staff manage distressed and distressing behaviour. In the background the school's managers endeavour to meet targets and inspections, while containing teacher stress and retaining a vision of the broader purpose of education. What occurs in schools is a matter of incessant public debate. Yet with the exception of children and teachers, few people know much about what happens in them! until now.

Full Product Details

9780415359085

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Reviews

... you'll have a marvelous idea of what happens in Britain's classrooms without having to set foot in them!. <br>Stories out of school<br>- The Times, 09/2005 <br>

'If I had to recommend one book to explain what has happened to Britain's schools in the past 20 years, this would be it...I approached Oranges and Lemons with high hopes. Wallace exceeded them.' -Francis Beckett, New Statesman 'This is a highly readable account of a year in the life of Edith Neville Primary School.' - Church Times

Author Information

Wendy Wallace is a freelance education writer who has for the last five years been senior feature writer for the Times Educational Supplement. A contributor to national newspapers and magazines including The Times, The Times Saturday Magazine and The Guardian, she is editorial adviser to the Teacher Training Agency magazine Ruler and to the British Councils International Placements for Head Teachers programme.

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