Professor Maurice Galton is Director of the School of Education, University of Leicester. His research, beginning with the ORACLE project, has embraced all aspects of primary education and he was one of the first university professors to return to the school classroom to acquire recent and relevant teaching experience. His publications include Inside the Primary Classroom, and Curriculum Provision in the Small Primary School. John Williamson is Head of the School of Teaching Studies at the Curtin University of Technology, Perth. Western Australia.

`A new book from Maurice Galton and one or more of the regular co-authors is always eagerly awaited. They rarley disappoint. Group Work in the Primary Classroom measures up well. It is a characteristically practical and entertaining book which contrives to challenge, provoke and inform in roughly equal measure.' - Dr Phil Hegarty, Faculty of Teacher Education and Training, Lancaster University - Dec 92`This book covers a wide range of issues related to group work in the primary classroom and is written in a direct and non-fussy way that will be appreciated by teachers.' - Sue Billet, NUT Education Review - Autumn 1992

• Preface 1 GROUPING AND GROUP WORK 2 GROUP WORK AND TASK COMPLETION: THE RESEARCH EVIDENCE 3 GROUP WORK IN THE ORACLE STUDY: THE PUPILS’ PERSPECTIVE 4 A TALE OF TWO TEACHERS: INITIAL ENCOUNTERS 5 A TALE OF TWO TEACHERS: FACILITATING COLLABORATION 6 GROUP WORK: FROM PRACTICE TO THEORY 7 BEGINNING AND MAINTAINING GROUP WORK 8 CHANGING CLASSROOM PRACTICE