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PRIMARY REVIEW

Primary perspectives

October saw the publication of the Cambridge Primary Review, a report of a three-year enquiry into primary education in England – the largest such study for over 40 years. The government dismissed it as outdated, while many media reports inaccurately said it advocated raising the school starting age to six. Education journalist Warwick Mansell looks at what the review really says, and assesses its value to teachers and pupils.

Alison Peacock can hardly contain her enthusiasm. “I feel so excited,” says the headteacher of Wroxham school in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. “What we are being presented with is an informed alternative on school improvement: an evidence-based alternative. People need
to read this report.”

The object of Alison’s interest is the final report of the Cambridge Primary Review, the largest inquiry into English primary education for 40 years. To the many in the profession who have welcomed it, the review is a much-overdue counterpoint to decades of top-down government intervention in the way schools are run.

For those alongside Alison at a conference in Cambridge to launch the report to teachers, the key question will be whether it has the impact in schools they overwhelmingly believe it deserves. By contrast the response of ministers, who dismissed the findings as soon as they
were published, has provoked dismay.

The final report, and interim reports released over the past two years, have dominated the headlines with their calls for, among other things, the replacement of SATs, delaying the start of formal learning until the age of six, and a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils.

The review was funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, a charity, and led by Professor Robin Alexander, a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Its findings are based on more than 4,000 research sources, 1,000 written submissions, 28 surveys, 31 interim reports and 237 meetings with teachers, parents, pupils, education groups, politicians and others. Professor Alexander led a team of 14 educationists writing the final review.

Findings
The report’s central finding is that primary schools are doing a good job. It says: “What we must emphatically report is that primary schools appear to be under intense pressure but in good heart. They are highly valued by children and parents.”

It adds: “Indeed, as was noted by many witnesses, primary schools may be the one point of stability and positive values in a world where everything else is changing and uncertain. For many, schools are the centre that holds when things fall apart.”

Professor Alexander told the Cambridge conference that schools were “bedrocks”
of their communities. “This, in a society which is changing rapidly, is no
mean achievement.”

The report also asserts that claims that childhood in Britain is in crisis may be overblown. Children themselves were the review’s most upbeat witnesses, it says, and

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Regional events...
Conferences on the Cambridge Primary Review will be held in:
Manchester 13 January
Preston 14 January
Bristol 19 January
Exeter 20 January
Norwich 28 January
London 29 January
The cost is £225 + VAT. For more information and to book, visit www.teachersfirst.org.uk/cpr.