On Wednesday, June 5, 2002, at 11:07 , Chris Puttick wrote: Sorry Matt, I slipped up slightly in my phraseology - the word missing was "Secondary" - please insert at the beginning of the original email. This is from someone who is an ex-industry IT professional and now provides ICT support services to schools in all age ranges, as well as to LEAs. Primary teachers are on the whole harder-working, more positive, more flexible, less complaining and less well-paid than their secondary counterparts. Of course, on the whole, primary children are a whole lot nicer than secondary ones... Pah! For harder-working, more positive, more flexible, less complaining read 'more stupid'. Teachers are, and have always been, their own worst enemies. I am not criticising my primary colleagues, just making an observation. I have worked in both primary and secondary and in my experience (which may count for nothing) I have observed primary teachers chasing their tails trying to implement whatever government and senior colleagues throw at them whereas secondary teachers are more likely to say 'on yer bike'. A healthy cynicism is absolutely vital in life if sanity and health are to be retained. Our government *does not* have all the answers, it just thinks it does. In reality it has only an opinion which changes according to the level of its popularity. Maybe primary children are nicer because they are younger. -- Phillip Deackes using Mac OS X