Education Minister Nick Gibb said having a teacher speak to the class as a whole from the front was much more effective than children working on their own -- the method which has become dominant¹ in schools over the past 40 years.

 

Mr Gibb's intervention², which will infuriate many in the educational establishment, follows a Government scheme in which more than 70 maths teachers from British primaries went to Shanghai to study the teaching styles of their Chinese counterparts.

 

Researchers have found that children in China achieve marks in maths up to 30 per cent higher than English pupils of the same age.

 

In 'whole class' teaching, which was common in this country until the 1950s, the teacher instructs all the pupils together by using a blackboard, or its equivalent, while testing the children with questions.

 

But progressive educationalists argued this was too authoritarian³, and instead promoted the 'child-centred' approach that has been prevalent in primary schools since then. Under this system, pupils are encouraged to 'discover' knowledge by themselves, working at their own speed or in small groups, with the teacher offering them support.

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