A 3-day conference on the child-oriented primary school was convened in Vienna for the purposes of disseminating findings of the Council of Europe's Council for Cultural Cooperation's (CDCC) Project No. 8, Innovation in Primary Education (IPE), and examining issues relating to a review of Austria's primary school curriculum. Participants were academics, teacher educators, inspectors, head teachers, lower secondary and primary teachers, and representatives of teacher unions and parent associations. A total of 11 member states of the Council of Europe were represented. A review of CDCC's elementary school project was followed by lectures on: (1) tasks and aims of the primary school; (2) opportunities and limits of integration for pupils with special needs; (3) new approaches to learning and teaching in primary school; and (4) alternative models for the organization of the introductory period of schooling. Interrelated topics were discussed in group sessions; these concerned individualization of instruction, various types of primary schools, integration of special needs students, new approaches to teaching and learning, organization of the school entrance phase, new information technologies, school libraries, and the effect of elementary school change on schools of higher education. The concluding presentation compared elementary schools in several countries. (RH)