RESOURCE BANK

Introduction

The final report of the Cambridge Primary Review was published in October 2009. Since then, many heads, teachers, teacher educators, local authority personnel and other interested groups and individuals have joined the discussion about the report's findings and implications, whether at the London launch, the regional dissemination conferences, the many other events, or in their own places of work.

We have circulated PowerPoints and documents from the regional conferences to all who attended them, to support their efforts to 'cascade' the report's ideas and extend the debate. We have now greatly extended this resource and are making it more widely available. If you work in a school, local authority, teacher education institution or other organisation and wish to spread awareness of the Cambridge report and/or encourage discussion of the issues it raises, please feel free to draw on the material in this collection. To download an item from the resource bank, use the links below labelled '(PDF)', '(PowerPoint)','(Word)' or '(Link)'.

First, though, we should issue a health warning born of hard experience. History shows that major reports are frequently misrepresented and misunderstood because too many people rely on second or third-hand versions rather than read the reports for themselves. That was certainly the fate of Plowden, which, forty years on, is still characterised - and caricatured - in ways which bear very little relation to what it actually said, and readers will by now be aware that the final report of the Cambridge Primary Review has suffered the same fate in some quarters. There has been both media and political misrepresentation of what the report said on matters such as school starting ages, assessment, testing, accountability, curriculum, generalist and specialist teachers and teacher education; we have also come across several well-intentioned documents and PowerPoint presentations from apparently authoritative sources, designed for use in schools, which have repeated these or other errors.

So we urge all those who are interested in a fair and informed debate about the issues raised by our report to start with the report itself - or at least with this Review's own summaries of it - and not to rely on the inevitably selective and sometimes inaccurate summaries which are available from other sources.

The final report of the Cambridge Primary Review, Children, their World, their Education , is published by Routledge and is available through the usual commercial channels or direct from the publisher: http://www.routledge.com/9780415548717. Routledge are prepared to offer discounts for multiple orders for dissemination events: contact Christina.Lindeholm@informa.com.

Index

ELECTION BRIEFING

• Policy Priorities for Primary Education briefing (PDF)

• Press Release (PDF)

• Where Next for Primary Education? Guardian, 27th April 2010 (PDF)

ABOUT THE REVIEW AND ITS FINAL REPORT

• Routledge publication details and order form for the final report and companion research volume (PDF)

• A 4-page briefing on the report (PDF)

• The 41-page booklet Introducing the Cambridge Primary Review - circulated in hard copy to every school, local authority and teacher education provider in the UK, though many tell us they haven't received them (PDF)

• A 4-page leaflet about the Review, giving background information and a full list of its interim and final reports (PDF)

POWERPOINT SLIDE BANK

• A large collection of PowerPoint slides covering various aspects of the Cambridge Primary Review and its final report from which shorter sequences may be made for particular audiences (PowerPoint). We would be grateful, however, if the source of the slides which are selected could be acknowledged. The slides are grouped as follows:

1. The Review

2. The final report

3. Children and childhood

4. Ages and stages

5. Aims and principles

6. The curriculum

7. Pedagogy

8. Assessment, testing, standards, accountability

9. Primary teachers: expertise, roles, training, development

10. Schools

11. Policy
    

EARLY REACTIONS TO THE REPORT

• Robin Alexander's keynote at the RSA launch of the report in October 2009 (PDF)

• The statement by Schools Minister Vernon Coaker and Robin Alexander's Guardian response (PDF)

• Newspaper articles/blogs by Matthew Taylor (Link), Mike Baker (Link) and Peter Mortimore (PDF / Link)

• Commentaries from the conferences by Jim Cobbett, Mary James , Michael Armstrong, Richard Howard, Tony Birch and Gordon Kirk (Word)

• Presentation from Carol Robinson (PowerPoint)

MEDIA COVERAGE

• Spreadsheet (Excel), with links where possible, showing nearly 350 media 'events' referring to the Cambridge report, both national and international - radio, television, national newspapers, magazine articles, blogs...

• A sample from this material is available in PDF form on our website home page.
  

INTERIM REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS

Between October 2007 and February 2009 the Review published 31 interim reports: the Community Soundings report (October 2007), the 28 commissioned surveys of published research (November 2007-May 2008), and the two-volume report on the curriculum. Each report was accompanied by a 4-page briefing, and each thematic group of research surveys also had its own overview briefing.

The community soundings report is still available as published. For all the other interim reports, the briefings are available and may be downloaded, though the reports themselves have now been withdrawn as they have been revised and/or assimilated into the final report and its companion research volume.

Community soundings

• The report: Community Soundings: the Cambridge Primary Review regional witness sessions (PDF)

• Briefing (PDF)

How well are we doing? Research on standards, quality and assessment in English primary education

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Standards and quality in English primary schools over time: the national evidence (PDF)

• Research briefing: Standards in English primary education: the international evidence (PDF)

• Research briefing: The quality of learning: assessment alternatives for primary education (PDF)

Children's lives and voices: research on children at home and school

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Children's lives outside school and their educational impact (PDF)

• Research briefing: Parenting, caring and educating (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary schools and other agencies (PDF)

• Research briefing: Children and their primary schools: pupils' voices (PDF)

Children in primary schools: research on development, learning, diversity and educational needs

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Children's cognitive development and learning (PDF)

• Research briefing: Children's social development, peer interaction and classroom learning (PDF)

• Research briefing: Children in primary education: demography, culture, diversity and inclusion   (PDF)

• Research briefing: Learning needs and difficulties among children of primary school age: definition, identification, provision and issues (PDF)

Aims and values in primary education: national and international perspectives

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Aims as policy in English primary education (PDF)

• Research briefing: Aims and values in primary education: England and other countries

• Research briefing: Aims for primary education: the changing national context (PDF)

• Research briefing: Aims for primary education: changing global contexts (PDF)

The structure and content of English primary education: international perspectives

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: The structure of primary education: England and other countries (PDF)

• Research briefing: Curriculum and assessment policy: England and other countries  (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary curriculum futures (PDF)

Governance, funding, reform and quality assurance: policy frameworks for English primary education

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: The governance and administration of English primary education (PDF)

• Research briefing: The funding of English primary education (PDF)

• Research briefing: The trajectory and impact of national reform: curriculum and assessment in English primary schools (PDF)

• Research briefing: Quality assurance in English primary education (PDF)

Primary teachers: training, development, leadership and workforce reform

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary schools: the professional environment (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary teachers: initial teacher education, continuing professional development and school leadership development (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary workforce management and reform  (PDF)
  

Learning and teaching in primary schools: processes and contexts

• Overview briefing (PDF)

• Research briefing: Learning and teaching in primary schools: insights from TLRP  (PDF)

• Research briefing: Classes, groups and transitions: structures for learning and teaching (PDF)

• Research briefing: Primary schools: the built environment (PDF)

The primary curriculum: an alternative vision

• Briefing: Towards a new primary curriculum (PDF)

CHILDREN'S VOICES

Children's needs, voices and rights are an important theme throughout the final report. We have drawn on children's submissions to the Review, and on the report's conclusions and attached questions, to present a collage which may be useful for school councils and other groups - and indeed in the classroom.

• Examples from children's submissions to the Review (PowerPoint - 27MB)

• Extracts from the Community Soundings report (Word)

TEXTS OF ROBIN ALEXANDER'S PUBLIC LECTURES ABOUT THE REVIEW

• What future for primary education? (National Forum on Education, London, 31 March 2010) (PDF)

• The perils of policy: success, amnesia and collateral damage in systemic education reform (Miegunyah Lecture, Melbourne, Australia, 10 March 2010) (PDF)

• Reform, retrench or recycle? A curriculum cautionary tale (National Curriculum Symposium, Melbourne, Australia, 25 February 2010) (PDF)

• The Cambridge Primary Review and its final report (CPR final report launch at the RSA, London, 19 October 2009) (PDF)

• Plowden, truth and myth: a warning (College of Teachers Award Ceremony keynote, 15 May 2009) (PDF)

• The Cambridge Primary Review: emerging perspectives on childhood (keynote at joint CPR, GTCE and Children's Society conference, London, 17 March 2008) (PDF)

• Towards a new vision for primary education: midway through the Cambridge Primary Review (Worshipful Company of Weavers Invitational Lecture, London, 20 November 2007) (PDF)