Elementary school

An elementary school is an institution where children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as elementary or primary education. Elementary school is the preferred term in many countries and especially in North America. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand and in most publications of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Elementary school was formerly the name given to publicly funded schools in England which provided a basic standard of education for working class children aged from five to 14, the then school leaving age. They were also known as industrial schools. Elementary schools were set up to enable working class children to receive manual training and elementary instruction. They provided a restricted curriculum with the emphasis on reading, writing and arithmetic (the three Rs). The schools operated on a 'monitorial' system, whereby one teacher supervised a... full article at wikipedia