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The Primary
Review home > Evidence
> Cambridge Primary Review progress report
After a three-year period of preparation and consultation, the Review was launched on 13 October 2006 and published its final report on 16 October 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 early 2009, 1052 submissions and thousands of emails 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 were 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 were 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, took the form of regular consultations throughout the Review’s duration. Others, which included 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 helped the team to clarify matters which were particularly problematic or contested in preparation for the writing of the final report.
Surveys. Several months before the launch of the Review, 30 (now 28) 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 report briefings may be downloaded from the Review website:
Click here for a full list of the research surveys, and to download copies of the briefing documents.
The survey reports themselves have now been withdrawn pending their revision for publication in autumn 2009.
Searches and policy mapping. With the co-operation of DfES/DCSF, QCA, Ofsted, TDA and OECD, the Review tracked recent policy and re-assessed a range of official data bearing on the primary phase. This provided the necessary legal, demographic, financial and statistical background to the Review and will be an important resource for its later consideration of policy options.
The four evidential strands sought 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, looks outwards from primary schools to the wider society, and sought to 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 has met members of national and regional bodies for the exchange of information and ideas. To date there have been over 150 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
The Cambridge Primary Review final report was published by Routledge and released on October 16, 2009:
Children, their World, their Education: final report and recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review.
This contains the report proper, presenting evidence and analysis together with conclusions and recommendations for policy and practice.
As a companion volume, we published, updated and re-edited, the 28 research surveys which were released between October 2007 and May 2008:
The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys.
Download the briefing document to the final report here.
The final report drew on the various strands of evidence outlined above to address the ten structural themes and attendant questions. It combined findings, analysis, reflection and conclusions, and recommendations for both policy and practice. When taken together with the companion volume, 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 see details of the interim reports published by the Cambridge 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 2009).
Phase 3: Dissemination (October 2007 – late 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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