It has been long accepted that primary schooling in New Zealand should aim to give all children the foundation of a broad general education. This aim is reflected in the official curriculum and in school programmes. The curriculum includes language (that is, oral and written English, reading, spelling, and handwriting), arithmetic, social studies (which combines history and geography), nature study and elementary science, art and crafts, music, physical education, needlework, “and such lessons on the chief laws of health, on the duties of citizens, and on other subjects or moral instruction as may be prescribed”. (Education Act, section 56.) Work in crafts is broadened to include woodwork and metal-work (for boys) and homecraft (for girls). New Zealand is one of the very few countries in which the curriculum is prescribed by a central Department for every school. This has the advantage of ensuring that all schools, urban and rural, are covering the same programme, and moreover the programme can be readily amplified by in-service courses for teachers, by official textbooks and bulletins, and by a supply of teaching equipment. Further, children changing schools have little difficulty in settling down to the programme in their new environment. On the other hand, observers have criticised our schools as being more uniform than is necessary, and consequently unadventurous in studies where uniformity is not essential. There is some truth in this criticism, but against it must be reckoned the fact that, over the past 25 years, the primary schools have been struggling to subdue a tradition of extreme standardisation which reduced teaching in the main to a mechanical, abstract, bookish business wherein little or no account was taken of the children to be taught. In earlier years the head teacher had little part in planning a programme for his school; today, however, he has considerable responsibility for the way in which the official syllabuses are handled in his school, even though his programmes are ultimately subject to the approval of an inspector of schools.

When children begin school at the age of five, they spend a period, varying in length with their progress, in the first primer classes. In these classes most of the mornings and often part of the afternoons are usually spent on the early stages of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Some of this work is informal, using children's interests and experience as its basis; part of it is a more formal approach to the three R's. In reading, for example, the teacher aims first towards helping children to distinguish shape and form and next to recognise the printed word. Then the children begin learning to read from the first graded reader. Music, rhythm, drama, and story all have a place in the daily programme. Most primer rooms have a nature table which is the centre of talks and discussions about plants, insects, and the like. Painting, crayon drawing, modelling and other crafts are organised during the day. In Form II, the senior primary class, the programme usually plans for the three R's in the mornings and other subjects in the afternoons. In a typical week in a Form II class, time is allotted among the various subjects on the following general pattern: