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The Primary
Review home > Evidence
> Progress report
After a three-year period of preparation and consultation, the Review was launched on 13 October 2006 and will publish its final report in early 2009..
Infrastructure. The
Cambridge team, Advisory Committee, Management Group and research consultants were all in place well in time for the Review launch on 13 October 2006. The website was also fully functioning by that date.
Submissions. Following the convention in enquiries of this kind, submissions were invited from all who wished to contribute. By June 2007, 550 submissions had been received and more were arriving daily. The submissions range 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. They came from an exceptionally diverse array of individuals and organisations both inside and outside education, and highlight strengths and weaknesses of the current system as well as identifying priorities for the future.
Soundings. This strand has two parts. The Community Soundings are a series of nine regionally-based one to two day events, each comprising a sequence of meetings with representatives from schools and the communities they serve. The Community Soundings took place between January and March 2007, and entailed 87 witness sessions with groups of pupils, parents, governors, teachers, teaching assistants and heads, and with educational and community representatives from the areas in which the soundings took place.
Click here to access the Community Soundings report.
Click here to access the Community Soundings briefing document.
The National Soundings are a programme of more formal meetings with national organisations both inside and outside education. Some of these, with government, statutory agencies, public bodies and unions, take the form of regular consultations throughout the Review’s duration. Others, which include seminars with a specially-convened group of teachers and other practitioners, and sessions with representatives of major non-statutory organisations, took place between January and March 2008 and explored issues arising from the Review’s now considerable body of evidence. The National Soundings have helped the team to clarify matters which are particularly problematic or contested in preparation for the writing of the final report.
Surveys. Several months before the launch of the Review, 30 (now 29) surveys of published research relating to the Review’s ten themes were commissioned from 70 academic consultants in universities in Britain and other countries. Taken together, these surveys provide the most comprehensive review of research relating to English primary education yet undertaken. The research reports and their accompanying briefings were published in thematic groups over several months, starting in autumn 2007. They provoked considerable media, public and political interest, and provided the top UK news story on several occasions. All the research reports and briefings may be downloaded from the Review website:
Click here for a full list of the research surveys.
Click here to download and read the published research reports and their accompanying briefing documents.
Searches and policy mapping. With the co-operation of DfES/DCSF, QCA, Ofsted, TDA and OECD, the Review is tracking recent policy and re-assessing a range of official data bearing on the primary phase. This will provide the necessary legal, demographic, financial and statistical background to the Review and an important resource for its later consideration of policy options.
The four evidential strands seek to balance opinion-seeking with empirical data; non-interactive expressions of opinion with face-to-face discussion; official data with independent research; and material from England with that from other parts of the UK and from international sources. This enquiry, unlike some of its predecessors, will look outwards from primary schools to the wider society, and will make full but judicious use of international data and ideas from other countries.
Other meetings. In addition to the formal evidence-gathering procedures, the Review team is meeting members of national and regional bodies for the exchange of information and ideas. To date there have been 120 such meetings apart from the 94 community and national soundings, including two dedicated sessions of the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee.
Next steps
Reports. The Primary Review is publishing interim and final reports. The 29 interim reports, which include most of the commissioned research surveys and the report on the community soundings, have a formative function, seeking to provoke further debate which feeds back into the Review. Electronic and print versions of the reports and briefings have been widely circulated. To be included on the final report alert list email e-notification@primaryreview.org.uk.
The final report, which is now in preparation, will draw on the various strands of evidence outlined above to address the ten structural themes and attendant questions. It will combine findings, analysis, reflection and conclusions, and recommendations for both policy and practice. The commissioned surveys of published research, updated in light of the most recent research and policy, will appear in a supplementary volume. Taken together, it is hoped that this material will both provoke immediate responses from stakeholders and provide a significant empirical and reflective resource for the longer term.
Click here to view the interim reports already published by the Primary Review.
TIMETABLE
Phase 1: Preparation (January 2004 – October 2006)
Phase 2: Implementation (October 2006 – summer 2008)
• Submissions (October 2006 – April 2007)
• Community Soundings (January – March 2007)
• National Soundings (January – March 2008)
• Research Surveys (July 2006 – May 2008)
• Searches (November 2006 – summer 2008)
• Other meetings (government, opposition, Select Committee, DCSF, national agencies, teaching unions etc (October 2006 – October 2008).
Phase 3: Dissemination (October 2007 – late 2008/early 2009)
• Research surveys and other interim reports and briefings (from October 2007)
• Final report and associated dissemination events (from early 2009)
Phase 4: Follow-up (from early 2009)
• Programme to be agreed.
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