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Reports from the review
News on the primary review
The primary review is a wide-ranging and independent enquiry into the condition and future of primary education in England. It is supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and based at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. It is considered to be the most comprehensive such investigation since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967.
The review concentrates on ten broad themes, central to which are questions of value, purpose, process, content and quality in England’s primary schools. The review is combining analysis of the current system with exploration of the national and global challenges which lie ahead; and it is considering how, in the interests of both children and society, primary education should respond to these.
There are four evidential strands to the review:
- submissions, written and electronic, which are open to all who wish to contribute
- oral soundings taken from identified individuals and groups, including parents and children
- systematic searches of official data
- comprehensive surveys, commissioned from leading national experts, of published research relating to the review’s ten themes.
The review runs from 1 October 2006 to 1 October 2008, and will culminate in a report containing recommendations for future policy and practice. Interim reports and briefings will be published along the way in order to stimulate debate.
The Review is directed by Professor Robin Alexander, Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge.
The work of the review’s Cambridge-based central team is supported by about 60 research consultants, and an advisory committee which contains 21 members drawn from varied walks of life both inside and outside education.
- Learning and teaching in primary schools: processes and contexts
- Primary teachers: training, development , leadership and workforce reform
- Governance, Funding, Reform and Quality Assurance: policy frameworks for English primary education
- The structure and content of English Primary Education: international perspectives
- Aims and Values in Primary Education: national and international perspectives
- Children in Primary Schools: research and development, learning, diversity and educational needs
- Children's Lives and Voices: research on children at home and school
All available at www.primaryreview.org.uk/publications/interimreports
Underfunded primary schools fail to teach basic literacy - primary review report (29.02.08)
Primary review should consider more play in primaries (11.01.08)
School lessons may start later for children born in summer (10.01.08)
The Guardian has covered a new report from the primary review which suggests that the government should increase primary school budgets to match those in secondary schools to pay for specialist teachers to tackle illiteracy. The multibillion pound investment in education since 1997 has been undermined by a failure to teach pupils the basics by the time they are 11, according to the biggest review of primary education in 40 years.
The funding gap between secondary and primary schools has grown since 2002, the researchers found. Anne West of the London School of Economics, co-author of the report, said: "There is no sound justification for children aged 11 to be getting more than children aged 10 when it's crucially important that children at the end of primary school are functionally literate and numerate. Later attainment is clearly reliant on early attainment. If you get children literate at an early age it allows them to access the rest of the curriculum at secondary school."
The findings come after the government this week published data on test results for 14-year-olds which suggested a quarter are not reaching expected levels in English, maths and science, falling substantially short of government targets.
Although more money has been spent on education since 1997 than at any other period in history, primary schools receive only 80% of the funding given to secondaries. In comparison, some Scandinavian countries, which have far better literacy rates, allocate more than 100%. Spending varies wildly across the country: in Northumberland primary school budgets are 94% of the secondary school budget a pupil, while in Middlesbrough it is 66%.
(Guardian, 29 February 2008)
The TES has reported on suggestions made by Ed Balls, the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, that the forthcoming review of the primary curriculum should consider cutting the number of subjects studied. He also recommended extending the areas of learning used in pre-school into primary schools.
Lesley Staggs, an early years consultant, said: "This is brilliant. It is not about pushing anything back; it’s about doing things in a way that is appropriate to young children. It’s about going with, rather than against, the flow of how they learn."
(TES, 11 January 2008)
The Guardian has reported on plans by the government to investigate whether it would be appropriate to allow August-born children to stave off starting full-time schooling in September, just after their fourth birthday. This will be considered as part of the review of the primary curriculum, as laid out in the Children’s Plan, to be conducted by Jim Rose.
(Guardian, 10 January 2008)
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