PUPIL BEHAVIOUR IN JUNIOR CLASSROOMS

S ummary . The nature of children's behaviour in six informal junior school classrooms was examined using an observation schedule modelled on Medley's Personal Record of School Experiences. The classes were unstreamed, the children sat in small groups and there was a high incidence of private teacher talk to small groups and individual children. The observer focused on children one at a time using a time sampling procedure and recorded his observations by multiple coding. Children spent about a third of their time interacting with other children and rather more than half the lesson out of contact with everyone. Despite a low incidence of teacher contact children were predominantly involved in their work.