Motivational and other personality factors are major determinants of children's response to schooling and of their acquisition of basic educational skills. In a longitudinal study of children beginning school in an industrial, urban area of the West Midlands, in England, teachers identified the pupils observed to show seven kinds of inappropriate learning behaviour on the Guide to the Child's Learning Skills. Their assessments were more predictive of attainments in reading, spelling and number, two years later, than reported coefficients from studies using intelligence tests as predictors.