ABSTRACT
The inter-war period saw a far-reaching reorganisation of elementary school education, the shifting background against which the history of the particular school being studied may need to be set. Generally speaking, elementary schools and departments before the Great War were of two types—infants, taking children from 5 to 7, and mixed, taking children from 7 to 14. The Hadow Report urged that every child over 11 should receive a truly secondary education. Those not selected for grammar school should move at 11 to separate senior schools or departments. The carrying out of this policy of separating senior and junior children is generally known as the ‘reorganisation’ of elementary education. The main point was that the reorganisation of elementary education did not involve the building of new schools but the adaptation of existing buildings, with a consequent lack of major expense (the economic arguments now being used by supporters of two-tier comprehensive schools).
