ABSTRACT
In physical terms, late childhood and pre-adolescence appear to be almost identical as, on average, early pubertal development is occurring. As the age of the onset of puberty comes earlier, so childhood seems to become foreshortened for large numbers of our children. Intellectually, they retain the characteristics of childhood, thinking still at a very concrete level, able to classify and relate factual material together with increasing skill. Thirteen, on average, appears to be the decisive age for most children, when they move forward into more adult thinking about religion. The rapid acquisition of facts and the eagerness of junior school children to learn on a broad front of experience, reveal their need to relate all that they learn to a significient pattern. The children see themselves in the great human tradition, and the Bible, early stories and the like are all related to what the child is now.
