Survival: ‘Schools may be getting good academic results but they are not helping the pupils as individuals’

The need to create school settings that provide for children’s well-being to flourish was recognised as early as the seventeenth century by Comenius (Forster, 2001). For exponents of early years and nursery education, such as Margaret McMillan at the beginning of the twentieth century, providing for children’s physical and emotional health was a priority (Moriarty, 1998). Schools have, together with the development of welfare services, historically been regarded as one key element in promoting child health and survival. From the beginning of state education at the end of the nineteenth century, the home and the street were considered in many instances to be dangerous places for children and the school was regarded by many as a kind of ‘life boat’, saving children from potential degeneracy and immorality.