A systematic observation study of children's behaviour at infant school

Abstract There have been very few systematic observation studies of children's behaviour in British infant schools. This paper provides a descriptive account of children's behaviour over the three years of their infant schooling, when aged five to seven years. The results come from a longitudinal study of children entering reception classes in 33 Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) schools in September 1982. The observation sample consisted of four children from each school, two of whom had parents of Afro‐Caribbean origin and two who had white indigenous parents. As far as possible each pair comprised a boy and a girl, and were matched by nursery scores. The children were observed with a systematic observation schedule that describes classroom behaviour in relation to teachers, other children and on their own. Each child was observed with the five‐minute schedule (divided into continuous time intervals), six times on five observation days during the first year, six times on three separate days during...