Fans of television comedy may remember Jack Dee's programme Happy Hour. For those who missed it, it is worth explaining that it wasn't an hour long, neither did it make all the viewers happy. Anyone who has had recent contact with primary schools in England will also have heard about hours in the shape of the literacy and numeracy hours. The Literacy Hour is an hour long, unlike the Happy Hour, with guidance to teachers specifying how the hour should be divided up. There is also detailed guidance of what should be taught to pupils of given ages. Although the term Numeracy Hour is in common use, the official term is Daily Mathematics Lesson, which is supposed to last about forty-five minutes for infants and between fifty and sixty minutes for juniors. Strong recommendations are made about how mathematics lessons should be structured, starting with oral and mental work. Details are also given about the work likely to be covered by children of given ages.

A recent report shows that, by the end of primary school, pupils are spending about half their lesson time on English and Mathematics. There is less prescription about how the rest of the school day should be structured, though no shortage of lists of things to be covered. In many cases it is likely that much of the school day will be divided into lessons where it is clear which subject is being taught.

The structure described above is relatively new, yet it sounds surprisingly familiar. Most fictional accounts of classrooms, from Dickens to the Beano, have children sitting in rows and being taught subjects formally. Some writers are more imaginative, with Lewis Carroll's work, for example, suggesting that lessons were so-called 'because they lessen from day to day' and that mathematics had four important components: 'ambition, distraction, uglification and derision'. The real system in Victorian times was, not surprisingly, closer to the picture of Dickens than that of Carroll. Over the years the school curriculum developed and - hopefully - teachers became more sympathetic than those Dickens portrayed. Nevertheless, a system based on lessons and formal instruction persisted in English primary schools till well after the Second World War.

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