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The Early Years Listening and Talking Project Archives is under construction - it is hoped that it will be completed during the winter period 2003-4.

The Early Years Listening and Talking Project Archives

The project took place 1988-9. It grew from the experience of working with a teacher based research group initiated by John Schostak who at that time was a lecturer in education at the university of East Anglia. The principles underlying the project were democratic. Its outcomes for the schools were dramatic.

Since that time the school climate in the UK changed and made such teacher led experiments difficult if not impossible. Just as the UK was turning the clocks back to notions of 'learning the basics', standardisation and testing as the basis for 'schooling efficiency', other countries such as Finland were moving away from regimented forms of learning. It was ironic. The country that had led the way in teacher led curriculum development and child centred forms of education abandoned the experiment before it could be fully developed and explored.

These archives are being developed in order to preserve the history of one experiment.

Articles

1. Developing More Democratic Modes of Teacher-Pupil Relationships: 'The Early Years Listening and Talking Project'
2. Practical Policy Making in a Primay School

School documents

1. School based Working Policy: Personal and Social Development

Video