Some Aspects of Intellectual Development in Children Aged Six to Nine Years: a Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Is there a marked change in the nature of children’s intellectual capacities at about the age of seven years a change of sufficient significance to justify the division of the primary school into two departments? In 1962, for instance, the Commission on Education in New Zealand recommended. that the age of transfer from the infant to the standard department should be raised to eight years on the average: the Commission does not appear, however to have considered the more fundamental question of whether or not there is any value in having two separate departments.