Many influences have affected the primary school curriculum since it was first issued in 1878. One of the strongest has been the implications, for both teaching and learning, of the fact, now completely accepted, that in the ordinary primary class children differ quite widely from one another in ability and temperament. The official syllabus in reading puts the problem plainly:

“We must accept the fact that each child is a unique personality whose capacities differ from those of his classmates. A uniform standard of achievement throughout an ordinary class is a mistaken aim. Uniformity will be achieved only if we neglect a number of highly intelligent readers, who will waste their time, and put pressure upon a number of ‘poor’ readers, who will tend to become maladjusted, and increasingly so as they struggle with material beyond their scope.”

Other syllabuses are explicit on the same point. Teachers have considerable freedom to choose their own methods of teaching, and it has been officially stated that “every teacher should have reasonable scope to do his job in his own way”. (Annual Report (E.1.) 1957.) It would be expected, however, that some general methods have evolved to cater for the varying abilities of children. Chief among them is the grouping of pupils within a class on ability or achievement for subjects like arithmetic and reading. Such groupings are practically universal except in some small country schools, where teachers are able, often with great success, to work out individual programmes. Behind this method is the desire to give children the help and impetus that will bring out their best efforts. In most schools the teaching programme is a mixture of group work and of class teaching where the class is taught as a whole — for example, in introducing a new process in arithmetic or a new topic in social studies.

For a time there was evidence of some misunderstandings about group work and its relationship to class teaching, but these have now largely disappeared. A much more widespread misunderstanding, and one not confined to New Zealand, concerns methods developed by teachers and inspectors to approach syllabus topics through both children's interests and, wherever possible, their first-hand experience. Out of these methods have come such things as the classroom shop and post office, the class magazine or wall newspaper, the nature-study table, the individual or group project, the class visit to a farm, or a factory, or to the museum, and letters to business firms asking for information. They are all aimed at giving some sense of reality and purpose to school work, of quickening children's interest in it, and of giving them a measure of responsibility. Such methods referred to variously as “activity methods” or “the play way” have at times been strongly criticised on the grounds that they tend to dilute the intellectual side of school work. There is little evidence to support this view. Activity work of the kind mentioned needs very careful and methodical planning. Admittedly it is not always successful, but schools with “activity programmes” that are carried out successfully almost always have a high standard of work in the three R's.