Cambridge Primary Review
[3] The scope of the Review and the depth of its evidence have made it the most comprehensive enquiry into English primary education since the Plowden Report of 1967.
The Review's remit, as agreed between the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the University of Cambridge in 2005–06, was as follows: 1.With respect to public provision in England, the Review will seek to identify the purposes which the primary phase of education should serve, the values which it should espouse, the curriculum and learning environment which it should provide, and the conditions which are necessary to ensure both that these are of the highest and most consistent quality possible, and that they address the needs of children and society over the coming decades.
The Review will pay close regard to national and international evidence from research, inspection and other sources on the character and adequacy of current provision in respect of the above, on the prospects for recent initiatives, and on other available options.
It will seek the advice of expert advisers and witnesses, and it will invite submissions and take soundings from a wide range of interested agencies and individuals, both statutory and non-statutory.
They ranged from brief single-issue expressions of opinion to substantial documents of up to 300 pages covering several or all of the themes and comprising both detailed evidence and recommendations for the future.
In addition to the formal evidence-gathering procedures, the Review's director and other team members met representatives of many national and regional bodies for the exchange of information and ideas.
The resulting research reports and their accompanying briefings and media releases were published in cross-thematic groups over several months, starting between October 2007 and May 2008.
They provoked considerable media, public and political interest, and provided the top UK news story on several occasions.
This provided the necessary legal, demographic, financial and statistical background to the Review and an important resource for its consideration of policy options.
This enquiry, unlike some of its predecessors, looked outwards from primary schools to the wider society, and made full but judicious use of international data and ideas from other countries.
Apply the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in ways which reinforce what we now know about how children most effectively learn, but do so with common sense and an understanding of context so that "pupil voice" does not degenerate into tokenism or fad.
Aims must be grounded in a clear framework of values – for education is at heart a moral matter – and in properly argued positions on childhood, society, the wider world and the nature and advancement of knowledge and understanding.
Look instead at the Cambridge model: an aims-driven entitlement curriculum of breadth, richness and contemporary relevance, which secures the basics and much more besides, and combines a national framework with a strong local component.
Stop making Year 6 tests bear the triple burden of assessing pupils, evaluating schools and monitoring national performance.
Recognise that this is no soft option, for in place of mere compliance with what others expect we want teachers to be accountable to evidence so that they can justify the decisions they take.
Note that the CPR's evaluation of over 4000 published sources shows how far that evidence differs from some versions of "best practice" which teachers are currently required to adopt.
Retain guidance and support for those who need it, but liberate the nation's most talented teachers – and hence the learning of their pupils – from banal and bureaucratic prescriptions.
Help schools to work in partnership with each other and with their communities rather than in competition, sharing ideas, expertise and resources – including across the primary/secondary divide – and together identifying local educational needs and opportunities.
Require national agencies and local authorities to be independent advisers rather than political cheerleaders or enforcers, and to argue their cases with due rigour.
