Primary education

==History==
{{globalize section|date=July 2022}}
perspectivesIn pre-[[Agrarian society|agrarian cultures]], children learnt by following their instinct to play. There was no need for enforced education.<ref name="PT"/>
In agrarian cultures, agriculture, husbandry, bartering, and building skills can be passed on from adults to children or master to apprentice.
Societies agree on the need for their children to learn and absorb their cultural traditions and beliefs. They attempt to do this informally in the family or by gathering the children together and employing a tutor to handle the task. This worked well for the landowners, but the children of the landless would be employed from the age of seven as servants. In one source from the turn of the 15th century, a French count advised that nobles' huntsmen should "choose a boy servant as young as seven or eight" and that "...this boy should be beaten until he has a proper dread of failing to carry out his masters orders." The document listed chores that the boy would perform daily and that the boy would sleep in a loft above the kennels to attend to the hounds' needs.<ref name="PT"/><ref name="Orme">{{cite book |last1=Orme |first1=N |title=Medieval children |date=2001 |page=315}}</ref>

Religious communities became providers of education and defined the curriculum. Learning to recite passages from their holy text is a priority. For their society to advance, the oral tradition must be superseded by written texts; some students must write down the passages. [[Monastery|Monasteries]] students needed to read out what is written in the religious language and not just the vernacular. This led to formal education in madrassas and schools. [[Martin Luther]] declared that salvation depends on each person's own reading of the Scriptures.<ref name="PT">{{cite web |last1=Gray |first1=Peter |title=A Brief History of Education |url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education |website=Psychology Today |access-date=8 March 2021}}</ref>
Trading and management create a demand for accountancy. Basic skills thus included literacy and numeracy. This was the core of Elementary Education.

In mid 17th century America, Massachusetts became the first colony to mandate schooling for this purpose. Beginning in 1690, children there and in adjacent colonies learned to read from the [[New England Primer]], known colloquially as "The Little Bible of New England".<ref name="PT"/>

===History of elementary education in Europe===
During Greek and Roman times, boys were educated by their mothers until the age of seven, then according to the culture of their location and times, would start formal education. In [[Agoge#Structure|Sparta]] until twelve, it would be at a military academy building up physical fitness and combat skills, but also reading, writing and arithmetic<ref name="Gutek1994">{{cite book|author=Gerald L. Gutek|title=A History of the Western Educational Experience: Second Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Db35CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA203|date=14 December 1994|publisher=Waveland Press|isbn=978-1-4786-3010-4|page=203|access-date=16 April 2019|archive-date=2 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190902064635/https://books.google.com/books?id=Db35CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA203|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|25}} while in [[Athens]] the emphasis would be on understanding the laws of the [[polis]], reading, writing, arithmetic and music with gymnastics and athletics,<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|29,30}} and learning the moral stories of Homer. Girls received all their education at home. In Rome the primary school was called the [[Ludus (ancient Rome)|''ludus'']]; the curriculum developed over the centuries featuring the learning of both Latin and Greek. In AD 94, [[Quintilian]] published the systematic educational work, ''[[Institutio Oratoria]]''.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|68}} He distinguished between teaching and learning, and that a child aged between 7 and 14 learned by sense experience, learns to form ideas, develops language and memory. He recommended that teachers should motivate their pupils by making the teaching interesting, rather than by [[School corporal punishment|corporal punishment]].<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|70}} The [[trivium]] (grammar, rhetoric and logic) and [[quadrivium]] (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) were legacies of the Roman curriculum.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|88}}

====The medieval church and education in Europe====
[[File:Jules-Alexis Muenier - La Leçon de catéchisme.jpg|thumb|''The Catechism Lesson'' by [[Jules-Alexis Muenier|Jules-Alexis Meunier]]]]
As the Roman influence waned, the great [[cathedral school]]s were established to provide a source of [[chorister]]s and clergy. [[The King's School, Canterbury|Kings School, Canterbury]] dates from 597. The [[Council of Rome]] in 853 specified that each [[parish]] should provide elementary education: religious ritual but also reading and writing Latin.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|81}} 
The purpose of education was to explain salvation, not social change. The church had a monopoly on education; the feudal lords concurred and allowed their sons to be educated at the few church schools. The economy in most of Europe was agrarian and the children of serfs started work as soon as they were able. It was accepted as a truth by Christians that man was created by God in the image of [[Adam]] with his share of [[original sin]] and that a boy was born sinful. Therefore, only the teachings of the church and the [[sacrament]]s could redeem him.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|77,85}} The parishes provided elementary education- but had no requirement to provide it to every child. The need was to produce priests, and in a stable kingdom such as that of [[Charlemagne]], administrators with elementary writing skills in Latin and the arithmetic needed to collect taxes and administer them. [[Alcuin]] (735–804) developed teaching material that was based on the [[catechesis|catechetical method]]- repeating and memorizing questions and answers, although often understanding the information was not important. These skills were also needed in the great abbeys such as [[Cluny]]. There was a divergence between the needs of town and monasteries and we see the development of the parish, chantry, monastic, and cathedral schools. With the entry of women into church life, convents were established, and with them convent schools. Girls entered at the age of eight and were taught Latin grammar, religious doctrine, and music, and the women's arts of spinning, weaving, tapestry, painting, and embroidery.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|84}} [[Bede]] entered the [[monastic school]] at [[Jarrow]] at the age of seven and became a writer and historian. [[Chantry|Chantry school]]s were the result of charitable donations and educated the poor. Beginning in 804, parishes were obliged to have a school, and cathedrals had to establish [[cathedral schools|schools]] after the [[Lateran Council]] of 1179. Elementary education was mainly to teach sufficient Latin for the trivium and the quadrivium that formed the basis of the secondary curriculum.<ref name=black>{{cite journal |last1=Black |first1=Robert |title=Humanism and Education in Medieval and Renaissance Italy: Tradition and Innovation in Latin Schools from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century |journal=Journal of Interdisciplinary History |date=2001 |page=489 |issn=1530-9169}}</ref>

====Renaissance====
{{further|List of oldest schools}}
[[File:Priscianus della Robbia OPA Florence.jpg|thumb|Priscian]]

While Humanism had a great change on the secondary curriculum, the primary curriculum was unaffected.<ref name=black/> It was believed that by studying the works of the greats, ancients who had governed empires, one became fit to succeed in any field. Renaissance boys from the age of five learned Latin grammar using the same books as the Roman child. There were the grammars of [[Aelius Donatus|Donatus]] and [[Priscian]] followed by ''[[Caesar's Commentaries (disambiguation)|Caesar's Commentaries]]''<!--intentional link to DAB page--> and then [[St Jerome]]'s Latin [[Vulgate]].<ref name="Bartlett">{{cite web |last1=Bertlett |first1=Kenneth |title=The Italian Renaissance - The Education and Learning During the Renaissance |url=https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/education-in-the-renaissance/ |website=The Great Courses Daily |access-date=19 April 2019 |location=University of Toronto |date=15 December 2016 |archive-date=19 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190419082615/https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/education-in-the-renaissance/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Wealthy boys were educated by tutors. Others were educated in schools attached to the parishes, cathedrals, or abbeys. From the 13th century, wealthy merchants endowed money for priests to "establish as a school to teach grammar". These early grammar schools were to teach basic, or elementary grammar, to boys. No age limit was specified. Early examples in England included [[Lancaster Royal Grammar School]], [[Royal Latin School]], Buckingham, and [[Stockport Grammar School]]. The [[Reformation]] and the [[Dissolution of the Monasteries]] (1548) disrupted the funding of many schools. The schools petitioned the King, [[Edward VI]], for an endowment. Examples of schools receiving endowments are [[King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth]], [[Norwich School|King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich]] and [[King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon]], where [[William Shakespeare]] was thought to be a pupil from the age of 7 to 14.

====Paupers and the poor====
Though the Grammar schools were set up to deliver elementary education, they did require their entrants to have certain skills on admission. In particular, they expected them to be able to read and write in the vernacular. There was a need for something more basic.<ref name=WCEd>{{cite book |title=The Education of the Working Classes to 1870 {{!}} British History Online |date=1969 |location=London |pages=240 |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol1/pp213-240 |access-date=22 April 2019 |archive-date=22 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422231650/https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol1/pp213-240 |url-status=live }}</ref>

This was addressed by [[Dame school]]s, then [[charity school]]s, often set up by the churches ([[Church of England school|C of E schools]]), Bell's [[British and Foreign School Society|British School]]s and 
Joseph Lancaster's [[National school (England and Wales)|National School]]s.<ref name=WCEd/> <!--

Sunday School movement [[Robert Raikes]]
[[Ragged Schools]] -->

====Educational philosophies====
{{main|Learning theory (education)}}
[[File:Het Hoogeland openluchtmuseum in Warffum, oud klaslokaal.jpg|thumb|Classroom from 1910 in a late 19 century elementary school, Het Hoogeland Openluchtmuseum]]

Certain movements in education had relevance in all of Europe and its diverging colonies. The Americans were interested in the thoughts of [[Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi|Pestalozzi]], [[Monitorial System|Joseph Lancaster]], [[New Lanark|Owen]]<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|208}} and the [[Prussian education system|Prussian school]]s.<ref name="Gutek1994"/>{{rp|4}}

===History of primary education in England===
In England, 1870 was the beginning of compulsory state education.<ref name="Shaw">{{cite web |last1=Shaw |first1=Susan |title=History of Education |url=https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/41969_9780857027382.pdf#page=3&zoom=auto,-74,496 |access-date=8 March 2021 |page=5}}</ref> [[Elementary school (England and Wales)|Elementary schools in England and Wales]] were publicly funded schools which provided a basic standard of education for children aged from six to 14 between 1870 and 1944. These were set up to enable children to receive manual training and elementary instruction, and provided a restricted curriculum with the emphasis on [[Reading (process)|reading]], [[writing]] and [[arithmetic]] ([[the three Rs]]). The schools operated on a [[Monitorial System|monitorial system]], whereby one teacher supervised a large class with the assistance of a team of monitors, who were quite often older pupils. Elementary school teachers were paid based on students' results. Their pupils were expected to achieve precise standards in reading, writing and arithmetic: such as reading a short paragraph in a newspaper, writing from dictation, and working out sums and fractions.<ref name="Gillard2">Gillard D. [https://education-uk.org/history/chapter02.html "Towards a State System of Education"]. In: ''Education in England'', 2011 https://education-uk.org, accessed 20 November 2013.</ref> To achieve this, a dual education system was initiated, consisting of both voluntary  denominational schools and non-denominational state schools (Board schools) to supplement rather than replace schools already run by the churches, guilds, and private individuals or organisations.<ref name="Shaw"/>

Before 1944 around 80 percent of the school population attended elementary schools through to 14. The remainder transferred either to secondary school or to junior technical school at age 11. The school system was changed with the [[Education Act 1944]]. Education was restructured into three progressive stages, which were known as primary education, [[secondary education]] and [[further education]].<ref>Peter Anthony Newsam, 'Elementary school', ''Microsoft Encarta'' 2004 edition (CD-Rom), 1993-2003.</ref>

====Timeline of 20th century English education====
* 1912 – [[Maria Montessori]] publishes The Montessori Method.
* 1915 – John and Evelyn Dewey publish [[School of Tomorrow]].
* 1918 – [[Education Act 1918]] ends all fees for elementary education and raises the school leaving age from 12 to 14.
* 1919 – The [[Burnham Committee]] introduces national pay scales for elementary teachers.
*
* 1923 – [[Jean Piaget|Piaget]] publishes The Language and Thought of the Child.
::        [[A S Neill]] opens [[Summerhill School|Summerhill]].
* 1944 – Elementary education split by age into primary and secondary. A tripartite system with an [[eleven plus]] exam.
* 1955 – The last gas lamps are removed from London schools.
* 1957 – Britain's first school TV was broadcast by Associated Rediffusion in May, 
* 1958 – BBC Schools TV broadcasting
:        A S Neill's ''Summerhill'' published.
* 1963 – London and Manchester end 11-plus.
* 1967 – The [[Plowden Report]] advocates the expansion of nursery schooling.
* 1968 – The [[Newsom Report]] on public schools calls for integration with state schools.<ref name="TES">{{cite web |title=Timeline: A history of education |url=https://www.tes.com/news/timeline-history-education |website=Tes |access-date=8 March 2021 |language=en}}</ref>