ABSTRACT
Our first version of primary education is the one indicated by the word ‘informal’ – popularly presented as the antithesis of the ‘formal’ or traditional primary education of regimented classrooms, didactic teaching and a subject-bound curriculum, but in reality something considerably more complex. The study combines historical and classroombased perspectives to home in on some of the core dilemmas of day-to-day work experienced by a group of experienced teachers in 1986, the year before the National Curriculum was announced. Thus, though the storm clouds are gathering in the educational sky, few working in the education service at this time have any idea of the thunderbolt which, a year later, the government will unleash. For them, the goal of informality remains as central to professional consciousness as the National Curriculum was to become a few years later.
