Curriculum
Take a fresh look at primary curriculum reforms, says Cambridge Review head
The new Government should revisit plans to reform primary education and extend the EYFS to age six, says the director of the Cambridge Primary Review.
Professor Robin Alexander said, 'Drawing on the Cambridge Primary Review's evidence and on the many regional and national consultations since our final report was published last October, we have set out 11 post-election policy priorities for primary education.
'We are sending our statement to Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and other party leaders, as well as to education stakeholders.'
In a report published last Tuesday (27 April), called After the Election: Policy Priorities for Primary Education, the Review set out 11 post-election priorities. They include extending the EYFS, which the report says would give young children the best possible foundation for oracy, literacy, numeracy and the wider curriculum; scrapping SATs; ending the Government's 'micro-management of teaching'; helping schools to work in partnership with each other rather than in competition; and rethinking the purpose of primary education, its aims and values.
The priorities are based on the Review's final report and discussions between the researchers and teachers in the six months since then.
Professor Alexander added, 'The Cambridge Review is the most comprehensive inquiry into English primary education for half a century, it is genuinely independent, and its findings and recommendations are widely supported, so we expect political leaders to respond constructively.'
The report also criticises the Government-commissioned Rose Review for its 'narrow remit' and for not addressing how a 'restricted notion of standards' is compromising the quality of the curriculum.
The DCSF has largely dismissed the recommendations made in the Cambridge Review in favour of those made by Sir Jim Rose.
However, supporters of the Cambridge Review have been given renewed hope after the Government's proposals to change the primary curriculum failed to make it to the final stages of the Children, Schools and Families Bill before Parliament was dissolved for the General Election (News, 14 April).
The proposals were taken out of the Bill, along with other education policies, because no agreement could be reached between the Government and opposition parties.
Further information www.primaryreview.org.uk
