13.10.06 - Launch

Broadcast media:
• BBC R4 Today Programme – interview with Robin Alexander.
• BBC R5 Breakfast Programme – interview with Robin Alexander.
• BBC R5 Breakfast Programme – interview with Barry Sheerman MP, Chairman of the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee.
• BBC Radio York – interview with Robin Alexander.

Print media:
• Times Educational Supplement - Platform article by Robin Alexander.

• Independent - '...the biggest independent inquiry into primary school education for 40 years is [...] being launched today.  The investigation will be the first in-depth look at the sector since the introduction of national testing at seven and 11..."

• Daily Mail - 'The first review of primary education for 40 years is launched on Friday amid fears that schools have been landed with too many ill-conceived initiatives.

•BBC Online - '...National Union of Teachers general secretary Steve Sinnott said: "Such a review is long overdue"...'

•24dash.com - '...The two-year review aims to help shape the future of how children are taught in their first years of formal education...'

• Education Guardian - '...an independent inquiry into primary education in England is launched today. The two-year review based at Cambridge University and financed by a £350,000 grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Trust hopes to shape the future of schooling for young children for a generation, assessing the impact of political initiatives such as the national curriculum and reading and literacy drives.'

•NAHT (National Association of Head Teachers) - '...The most comprehensive such enquiry since the Plowden Report of 1967...'

•NUT (National Union of Teachers) - Press release from Steve Sinnott, NUT General Secretary at the time.

14.10.2006
• Cambridge Evening News - 'Primary Education up before the beak'
'...A massive review of primary school education was launched yesterday (Friday, 13 October) - and the man directing the inquiry is Professor Robin Alexander, a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge...'

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Correction: In some newspapers the figure given at the launch for Esmée Fairbairn's grant for the Review was incorrect.  The correct figure to date is £450,000.