Figure 1.--The Scootish prep school classroom looks very mnuch like the comparable English classroom. We would be hard put to identify any major differencves. |
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The modern prep school both in Scotland and in England is a place bustling with activity. For the most part we see very little difference. Academic subjects dominate the morning classes. Going from class to class one sees a wide range of academic activities. The teaching styles varies at different schools as well as from teacher to teacher. Some schools persue rather traditional approaches with the children quietly listening or intent on the assignments at hand. Several Scottish prep schools, especially those outside the major cities are based on large country house serving as the school's main building. Most schools have adopted a variety of modern, innovative approaches. The children seem alert and eager to engage the teachers. The authors have been uniformily impressed with the purposeful activity that almost always is observeable.
Going from class to class one sees a wide range of academic activities. The teaching styles varies at different schools as well as from teacher to teacher. Some schools persue rather traditional approaches with the children quietly listening or intent on the assignments at hand. Most schools have adopted a variety of modern, innovative approaches.
Several Scottish prep schools, especially those outside the major cities are based on large country house serving as the school's main building. This is also the case at quite a number of English prep school, especially the boarding schools.
The children seem alert and eager to engage the teachers. The authors have been uniformily impressed with the purposeful activity that almost always is observeable.
One of the great advantages of private schools are small class sizes affording the teachers the ability to provide individual attention to their students. This varied from school to school, but all the schools had relatively small class sizes. We did not see anu classes with more than 25 children and classes were often smaller, commonly from 15-20 children. Scholarship classes were much smaller. These are class sizes that few teachers in the state system have the opportunity to experience. These small class sizes are especially critical for the younger children lear to read. Children experiencing problems are thus easilly identified and appropriate actions taken. Of course the class size also affected the activities that could be persued. Small classes provide teachers the flexibility to experiment with varied learning activities.
Many of the schools are quite traditional with the teachers seated at their desk giving a lesson to the children facing him or her lestening and taking notes. Some schools had the older style classroom furniture that was heavy and difficult to move about. In some cases there were desks made for two to share. Given the weight and size, this meant that there was little flexibikity in how theclass was set up. But we notice many schools with lighter more modern class furniture which did allow for a fegree of flexibikity. Increasingly younger teachers are introducing all kinds of innovations to classroom work. We noted the children ebgaged in a rang of projects as well as lessons done from work books. Of course this varies with the subject matter. And there was more flexibility innthe classrooms with younger children. The older children were more likely to have formal classroom arrangements and lessons.
Scittish prep schools like preps schools in England were beginning to make use of the computer. The computer is also making a difference in some classes, although this was still relaively limited in the 1980s. All but the younger teachers were not quite sure what to make of the computer. Many schools were just beginning to install computer rooms and introduce the computer into the classroom.
And during the summer term there were a variety of activities that can be conducted outdoors.
