Topic work 'keeps pupils motivated': The focus of education for younger children is to be switched to more specialist subject teaching and increased 'setting' within ability groups

'I LIKE maths and English and doing my topics,' Gurbir Chohan, 10, said. She and the other year six pupils at St Andrew's Church of England School in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, have done topics on the Tudors, Vikings and Saxons. 'Now we're doing space.'

Sukhinder Barhey, the teacher, gathered the whole class together by the blackboard to outline the next stage of the project: making planets out of balloons.

Groups of children - they sit with friends, rather than being put into ability sets - put themselves forward to make the different planets.

The class then dispersed into groups, one covering their balloon planet with gluey strips of paper, another researching Pluto, others carrying on stories on 'a letter through the post' which they had started earlier. Meanwhile, Mrs Barhey keeps a watchful eye on all this activity and deals with a stream of questions and requests.

The space topic will take in science attainment targets in the national curriculum, creative writing, maths, music and movement - Holst's Planets, naturally.

Mrs Barhey is a firm believer in topics that cut across subject boundaries. 'A cross-curricular approach is better because it keeps them motivated,' she said.

Colin Abbott, teaching six- and seven-year-olds in year two at the other end of the school, sees the traditional versus progressive argument as irrelevant. A former secondary science teacher, he has brought specialist knowledge which as science co-ordinator for the 245-pupil school he is trying to pass on to colleagues. But he said: 'I soon came to realise that primary schools had a lot to teach secondary schools. I think children learn by doing things.'

But he believes teachers have to explain to parents and the general public what they are doing. At St Andrew's parents' evenings, each teacher's plan for the year and the term is displayed in the classroom. Parents are brought into the school to help, especially with specialist skills and knowledge.

'Perhaps we should lose the word 'topic' and call it 'area of study',' Diane Pickover, the head teacher, mused. 'It is like a red rag to a bull to politicians.' She welcomes the framework of the national curriculum, but said: 'School life is more than the national curriculum. The school should harness children's enthusiasm rather than treating them as empty vessels to be filled.

'Learning with young children is responding to their interests and curiosity and is not about saying 'come and do a bit of history',' she said.

(Photograph omitted)