School
to fit
child's
needs
Aggett
jge 2
By Carlin Lockee
Giving children their
childhood is the aim of
Elizabeth Aggett. headmistress
of the Evaline Lowe Primary
School in London.
Aggett said the philosophy
of the Evaline Lowe Primary
School is to use a purpose-built
school to fit the needs of the
children.
Aggett attended a
conference this summer
sponsored by the Nebraska
Council of School
Administrators and the UNL
Teachers College and
participated in seminars and
workshops during the summer.
The open-plan method of
education uses open classrooms
rather than the traditional
corridors with closed
classrooms on either side.
Therefore, the schools have to
be "purpose-built" to fit this
method of education. She said
that there was some
disapproval to this method
when the Evaline Lowe school
opened in London in 1966.
The Evaline Lowe Primary
School is state-supported and
was the first urban open-plan
primary school in London. The
school works with children
from deprived families and is
geared to the needs of the
children coming from high-rise
"flats."
Open 8 am. - 9 p.m.
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mjt . . . Mini Jf- f.u.,,,1 1m,,ii "SlMIWrriwa, " "
1135 R 432-0111,4
The store imMfl
has ytpm4m
The open-plan school is
innovative, Aggett said,
because it uses open classrooms
and team teaching to allow the
student to progress along
different schemes of
instruction. There are no
shut-off classrooms, but certain
withdrawal areas for the
teachers and the students, and
home bases similar to a
classroom, are provided.
The 350 to 400 children,
ages 3 to 11, are taught by
several teams of two teachers.
The faculty includes 13
teachers who receive help from
parents, nursery assistants,
student teachers and other
volunteers.
The structure for the school
is flexible and pays more
attention to how a particular
subject is approached. She said,
for instance, if a child didn't fit
into one reading scheme, the
scheme would be changed to
fit the child. Since full records
on each child constantly are
kept up-to-date, there is no
difficulty in assessing how far
the child has progressed under
one scheme, she said.
Results obtained from this
type of teaching indicate that
the students leave the school
with a high standard of
academic work and individual
bearing, she said.
Aggett added that British
educators are acknowledging
Monday - Thursday
daily nebraskan
the debt owed to nursery
school education methods.
Nursery schools have no set
format for instruction, but
focus on the children s needs
and interests. The individual
child, his creativity and
capabilities, is the main
consideration, she said.
More than 60 of British
primary schools are based on
nursery school programs and
that influence is spreading into
secondary schools as well,
Aggett said.
This eliminates the
tendency to force 5 to
18-year-olds to conform to a
different method of education,
she said, and "helps to better
prepare students for college,
where again the influence of
nursery school methods is
felt."
A good example of open
education in Nebraska is the
country schools, she said. In
these schools there is an open
classroom even though it is
one classroom. There also is
vertical grouping of the
students, grouping children of
different ages together.
Aggett said she had
problems explaining the British
open-plan schools to
Americans because of the
terminology. Whereas open
education here usually means
education with freedom, it
actually means freedom with
license, she said. Also, what
Americans might call "learning
disabilities" would probably be
referred to as "part of growing
up" to a teacher in
an open-plan school.
In America as well as in
Great Britain, she said there is
a tendency to advocate
teacher-oriented package deals
for the students. This "chalk
and talk" method is not used
because the teachers don't
know how children learn, but
because the teachers
themselves are slow to change,
Aggett said.
Teachers must not give up
hope about the effectiveness of
any innovative teaching
program, Aggett said.
Administrators must not only
give teachers support, but also
time, she said, and added that
"We at the Evaline Lowe
School are coming into our
own now, but it's taken six to
seven years."
The people she met and
worked with in Lincoln
expressed interest in open-plan
schools, and she said that these
people seem to have the
capabilities to implement such
a plan successfully. No special
teaching techniques are
required for the open-plan
method, only a belief in what
is being implemented, she
added.
Wherever an open-plan
method of education would be
tried, the basic way of working
with children would be the
same, Aggett said. With this in
mind, the desire to learn and to
be creative would be supported
and all approaches to learning
would be interesting, she said.
'73 summer
enrollment
record high
An enrollment of 5,333
students in UNL's second
summer session made the 1973
summer program the largest in
University history.
A total of 13,363 students
enrolled in courses this
s u m me t . First session
enrol I merit totalled 6,916,
while H(H) emollod in a 3-week
pie session and in an
8 week session.
The 1973 summer program
exceeded the previous high of
13,1?() students in 191. Last
yi.'.ii the summer enrollment
was 1?,H()b
Academic
calendar
Ainjust
27 I it st semester classes
I )( ( M
September
3 Laboi Day holiday
4 Final day adds accepted
21 Last day to drop courses
lab
October
5 Mid-semester scholastic
reports due
19 Last day to drop courses
without labs
November
21-5 Thanksgiving vacation
December
15 Last day of first semester
classes
1 7 First semester exams
21 First semester ends
Tr"k Recycle
monday, august 27, 1973