ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters attention has been paid to various features associated with curriculum provision in small schools. First the teachers’ own opinions were sampled and then succeeding chapters described the observed curriculum and the behaviour of pupils and of teachers. Then, the performance of the pupils on standardized tests and also on a range of other skills associated with independent study were presented. These findings, when considered as a whole, suggest that it is inappropriate to provide a portrait of the small school solely in terms of a ‘typical’ or average member of the sample. The data generally suggest that the variations from the average are sufficiently large to justify the need for extreme care when attempting to apply the results to particular cases. Nevertheless, these findings are interesting in that they tend to contradict some of the myths associated with the small schools debate.
