ABSTRACT
The need for continuity has been almost obligatory within reports and surveys emanating from central government. The essence of continuity problems lies in the nineteenth century origins of primary and secondary schools 'conceived of as giving qualitatively different kinds of education, with different aims, different curricula, different teaching methods, and a different spirit'. A Department of Education and Science as intent upon promoting continuity as advisory reports suggest would have taken more positive steps to promote middle schools, for the development of a national three-tier system would have been an effective means of requiring the education service to see schooling as a continuum. Middle schools have been suggested as an administrative solution to problems of continuity. When middle-school teachers cling to their autonomy and promote innovation, they tend to inhibit continuity. A consideration of middle schools within the context of continuity must address itself to what is distinctive about middle-school curricula.
