The education children receive during their primary years is crucial for both their personal development and the country as a whole. But times are changing fast. We know that we must ask whether today's education is fit for tomorrow's world. We might also ask, no less insistently, whether tomorrow's world will be fit for today's children.

Meanwhile, our primary schools have experienced two decades of reform but much remains unchanged, and there are questions to ask about the reforms themselves. What has been their impact? Is the balance of change and continuity as it should be? What is England's system of primary education trying to achieve? How well is it doing? How can it be improved?

The Cambridge Primary Review drew on a wide range of evidence in order to answer these and many other questions in its final report. It combined analysis of current practice with a vision for the future. The Cambridge Primary Review was fully independent.

England's system of primary education is publicly funded. It belongs to all of us. We invite you to engage with the first comprehensive review of English primary education for 40 years.

This leaflet summarises the Cambridge Primary Review's remit and background. 

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The Cambridge Primary Review is a wide-ranging and independent enquiry into the condition and future of primary education in England. It was supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and based at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. It has been perhaps the most comprehensive such investigation since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967.

Following extensive professional, political, academic and lay consultations going back to 2004, we decided to concentrate on ten broad themes, central to which are questions of value, purpose, process, content and quality in England’s primary schools. The Review combines analysis of the current system with exploration of the national and global challenges which lie ahead; and it considers how, in the interests of both children and society, primary education should respond to these.

The Review was firmly grounded in both national and international evidence. There were four evidential strands:

• submissions, written and electronic, which were open to all who wished to contribute, 
• oral soundings taken from identified individuals and groups, including parents and children,
• systematic searches of official data, and 
• comprehensive surveys, commissioned from leading national experts, of published research relating to the Review’s ten themes.

This range of evidence enables the Review to be authoritative, balanced, responsive and visionary.

The Review ran for three years from 1st October 2006, and has culminated in a report containing recommendations for future policy and practice. Interim reports and briefings were published along the way in order to stimulate debate.

The Review was directed by Professor Robin Alexander, Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, Professor of Education Emeritus at the University of Warwick, and past member of CATE, QCA and other public bodies, and of the ‘three wise men’ primary enquiry of 1991-2.

The work of the Review’s Cambridge-based central team was supported by about 60 research consultants, an Advisory Committee chaired by Dame Gillian Pugh, a Management Group led by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, and a Director of Communications, Richard Margrave. In recognition of the importance of locating questions about primary education in their wider social, cultural and economic context, the Advisory Committee contained 21 distinguished members drawn from varied walks of life both inside and outside education.

See the sidebar for answers to frequently-asked questions about the Cambridge Primary Review.

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THE CAMBRIDGE PRIMARY REVIEW REPORT ON THE CURRICULUM

‘This readable, humane and rational report ... is one of those rare documents which one reads and then says: yes, that’s exactly how it is, that’s what is wrong with the way things are being done and, yes, that’s the way a better system ought to be run ... a report that ought to define the collective approach to primary education for a generation’

The Guardian, 21 February 2009, referring to The Cambridge Primary Review's special report on the primary curriculum (released 20 February, 2009)

Click here for the curriculum report and briefing.

What the papers said: click here for part of the extensive media coverage.

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INTERIM REPORTS

The Review published 31 interim reports and held meetings with organisations and practitioners to discuss their implications.

Download copies of the report briefings and press releases from this page.
Read them. Join the discussion.

The interim reports provoked considerable media, public and political interest, and provided the top UK news story on several occasions.

Read media coverage of the Cambridge Primary Review interim reports here.

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