ABSTRACT
The Contact School Plan was a network of 12 contact schools providing liaison between primary schools engaged in innovation. It was a part of Project No. 8 'Innovation in primary education of the Council for Cultural Cooperation of the Council of Europe during the period 1982-1987. In the Italian case study, the programme was experimental in that the teachers were attempting to reconstruct their way of working in a manner that differed appreciably from accepted practice. Linnala Comprehensive School is situated in the centre of the town of Imatra. The school's catchment area covers a wide range of social strata with a large number of single-parent families. Freiburg-Landwasser is a new satellite town and part of the town of Freiburg, which is close to the French border and has approximately 180,000 inhabitants. The five-zone model which has been developed on the basis of the contact school experiences, proved a very helpful instrument for teachers, consultants and authorities.
