ABSTRACT
There was a time when the school gates were clearly intended to keep pupils in and the outside world very firmly out. Even the design of our older school buildings reflected this philosophy: walls were high, windows deliberately above the line of sight to avoid distraction, the playground railed off from the street and the gates firmly closed from the first bell of the day to the last. The curriculum, it seemed, was rooted in an artificial world of textbooks and blackboards, and had little relationship with the community outside the school boundaries, let alone the countryside or urban environment beyond.
