Transcript Document

THE
CAMBRIDGE PRIMARY REVIEW:
WHAT NOW?
Robin Alexander
University of Cambridge
www.primaryreview.org.uk
www.routledge.com/education
www.teachersfirst.org.uk/cpr
THE FINAL REPORT
Editor
Robin Alexander
Authors
Robin Alexander
Michael Armstrong
Julia Flutter
Linda Hargreaves
Wynne Harlen
David Harrison
Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer
Ruth Kershner
John MacBeath
Berry Mayall
Stephanie Northen
Gillian Pugh
Colin Richards
David Utting
‘The formal conclusions and recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review have been
agreed by the 14 authors of this report. They are fully supported by members of the Review’s
Advisory Committee other than those whose observer status requires them to remain neutral.’
Report, p xvi
PLOWDEN: A CAUTIONARY TALE

Plowden as written

Plowden as sanctified

Plowden as demonised
There’s a simple test of the changes announced in the June 2009 white paper,
and of the wider democratic reforms promised in the wake of the May 2009
parliamentary expenses scandal: will this final report from the Cambridge Review
be dismissed in the same summary fashion as its 31 interim predecessors - and
indeed those many other contributions to the educational debate which were
constructive and authoritative but ‘off message’ or ‘not invented here’?
Children, their World, their Education, p 514
THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE
(DCSF press release, 16.10.09)
It's disappointing that a review which purports to be so comprehensive is simply not up to speed on many major
changes in primaries. The world has moved on since this review was started. If every child making progress and
reaching their potential is what matters then Professor Alexander’s proposals are a backward step.
We're already putting in place the most fundamental reforms for decades following Sir Jim Rose's primary review –
to make the curriculum less prescriptive and free it up for teachers.
He suggests a school starting age of six but this would be a completely counterproductive – we want to make sure
children are playing and learning from an early age and to give parents the choice for their child to start in the
September following their fourth birthday.
Our expert group on testing said it would be a backward step to scrap English and maths tests at 11 and we are
piloting a School Report Card, which will give parents a far broader picture of how schools are doing.
The report is at best woolly and unclear on how schools should be accountable to the public – we're clear that it
would be a retrograde step to return to days when the real achievements of schools were hidden.
And he completely fails to mention [the Williams report, the ‘expert group’ on assessment and] our own major review
to transform SEN education and support for parents.
We completely refute the claim that primary standards have not risen across the board. Independent Ofsted
inspections shows there have never been so many outstanding and good primary schools, and Key Stage 2 results
show huge progress over the last decade – a tribute to the outstanding quality of teaching, training and heads.
… The Cambridge Primary Review is for the longer term, not the next election;
and as an exercise in democratic engagement as well as empirical enquiry and
visionary effort its final report is not just for transient architects and agents of
policy. It is for all who invest daily, deeply and for life in this vital phase of
education, especially children, parents and teachers.
Children, their World, their Education, p 514
WHAT NOW?
RECLAIM THE TEXT
The report - Routledge
The companion research volume - Routledge
The briefing - download
The booklet - widely circulated in hard copy; download
RECLAIM THE DEBATE
The media, the politicians and the public
National events
The regional conferences
Other conferences and meetings
The February 2010 conference
‘A NEW WAY OF THINKING AND TALKING ABOUT PRIMARY EDUCATION’
The role of teacher education, UCET and the UDEs?
THE REGIONAL CONFERENCES
For professional leaders in schools, local authorities, teacher education and
research, and others who are interested
Organised by Teachers First: [email protected] / 0844 800 5317
November 5: Cambridge
November 26: Southampton
December 2: York
November 18: Birmingham
November 27: London
December 3: Newcastle
January 13: Manchester
January 19: Bristol
January 28: Norwich
February 4: Cambridge
January 14: Preston
January 20: Exeter
January 29: London
Format: presentations, commentaries, discussion groups, panel/plenary
Speakers …….
THEMES AND EVIDENCE:
THE REVIEW MATRIX
EVIDENTIAL STRANDS
PERSPECTIVES:
Children
Society
Education
THEMES:
Purposes & values
Learning & teaching
Curriculum & assessment
Quality & standards
Diversity & inclusion
Settings & professionals
Parenting, caring & educating
Beyond the school
Structures & phases
Funding & governance
Submissions
Soundings
Surveys
Searches
THE FINAL REPORT:
SCOPE OF THE CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The overall picture
Children’s lives
Understanding childhood
Childhood, difference and diversity
Foundations and stages
Aims and values
The curriculum
Pedagogy
Assessment and testing
Quality, standards and accountability
Primary schools
Schools and other agencies
Teachers: expertise, training and deployment
Teachers: status, leadership and workforce reform
Governance, funding and policy
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: EXPERTISE AND STAFFING
The long-standing failure to resolve the mismatch between the curriculum to be taught, the focus of
teacher training and the staffing of primary schools must be resolved without further delay. The principle
to be applied is the one of entitlement adopted throughout this report: children have a right to a
curriculum which is consistently well-taught regardless of the perceived significance of its various
elements or the amount of time devoted to them … Primary schools should be staffed with sufficient
flexibility to allow this principle to be applied … The urgency of this task, and its potential cost, require a
full national primary staffing review,
Review primary school staffing (recommendations 118-19, 124-28, 132-33)
 Undertake a full review of current and projected primary school staffing.
 Ensure that schools have the teacher numbers, expertise and flexibility to deliver high
standards across the full curriculum.
 Develop and deploy alternative primary teaching roles to the generalist class teacher
without losing its benefits.
 Clarify and properly support the role of teaching assistant.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE:
TEACHER EDUCATION,TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Initial teacher training and continuing professional development should move from models premised on
compliance with received official wisdom to critical engagement, on the basis that this not only makes for
better teaching, but is a minimal position from which to advance the learning, empowerment, autonomy and
citizenship of the pupil …
Reform teacher education (recommendations 119-23, 128-31)
 Align teacher education with new aims, curriculum, and approaches to pedagogy.
 Refocus initial training on childhood, learning, teaching, curriculum and domain knowledge,
together with open exploration of fundamental questions of value and purpose.
 Examine alternative ITT routes for different primary teaching roles and re-open debate about
a 2-year primary PGCE.
 Replace current TDA professional standards by a framework validated by professional
development research and pupil learning outcomes.
 Balance CPD support for inexperienced and less able teachers with freedom and respect for
the experienced and talented.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: CHILDHOOD
The Review is convinced by the evidence that a sense of agency is vital for both learning and
wellbeing, and this features prominently both in our proposed aims for primary education and in our
account of pedagogy …
There is much more to children’s lives than school … The worth and impact of children’s lives outside
school should be respected, as should the rights of parents and carers to bring up children in their own
ways, and home-school relations should be seen as respectful and reciprocal rather than unilateral.
Childhood should be understood in terms of children’s present as well as future needs and capabilities,
and their right to a rich array of experiences which will lay the foundations for lifelong learning …
Children should be actively engaged in decisions which affect their education … Children are now
viewed as competent and capable learners, given the right linguistic and social environment and
teaching which engages, stimulates, challenges and scaffolds their understanding.
Respect and support childhood (recommendations 4-21)
 Respect children’s experience, voices and rights
 Build on new research on children’s development, learning, needs and capabilities
 Ensure that teacher education is fully informed by these perspectives.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: FOUNDATIONS AND STRUCTURES
The central issue is the character and quality of what our youngest children encounter, whether in preschool or school settings, What matters is that the provision is right. At the moment … in reception classes
it often is not …If the provision is right, then starting age ceases to be an issue.
New structures for early years and primary education (recommendations 22-31)
 Strengthen and extend early learning provision: secure proper learning entitlement for
children aged 3-6 and extend to age 2 in areas of social disadvantage and for children with
special educational needs.
 Extend the EYFS to age 6.
 Replace KS1/2 by a single primary phase from 6-11.
 Initiate full and open debate about the starting age for compulsory schooling.
 Raise the qualifications of those working in the EY sector within the framework of a unified
EY workforce strategy.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: AIMS, VALUES AND PRINCIPLES
Policies on the curriculum, assessment, standards, inspection, teacher training and much else relating
to primary education lack direction unless or until we ask what primary education is for …
Although it is desirable to have a single set of aims for the whole of schooling, the needs of children
and the imperatives of their education at different stages are also quite distinct …
We reject the claim in the final Rose report that there is a ‘considerable match’ between our aims for
primary education and the QCA secondary aims which Rose proposes should now apply to primary
education as well.
Start with aims (recommendations 32-37)
 Establish a new and coherent set of aims, values and principles for 21st century primary
education, in addition to any wider aims for the schooling system as a whole
 Make the aims drive rather than follow curriculum, teaching, assessment, schools and
educational policy.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: AIMS
THE INDIVIDUAL
Well-being
Engagement
Empowerment
Autonomy
SELF, OTHERS AND THE WIDER WORLD
Encouraging respect & reciprocity
Promoting interdependence & sustainability
Empowering local, national & global citizenship
Celebrating culture & community
LEARNING, KNOWING AND DOING
Exploring, knowing, understanding, making sense
Fostering skill
Exciting the imagination
Enacting dialogue
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: THE CURRICULUM ‘PROBLEM’
As seen by the Rose Review
‘How can we best help primary class teachers solve the “quarts into pint pots problem” of teaching 13
subjects, plus religious education, to sufficient depth, in the time available? The QCA, with the help of
subject experts, is on the case and we will do our best to solve it by the time we get to the final report.’
As seen by the Cambridge Primary Review
As children move through the primary phase, their statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced
education is increasingly but needlessly compromised by a ‘standards’ agenda which combines high
stakes testing and the national strategies’ exclusive focus on literacy and numeracy. The most
conspicuous casualties are the arts, the humanities and those kinds of learning which require time for
talking, problem-solving and the extended exploration of ideas. Memorisation and recall have come to be
valued more than understanding and enquiry, and transmission of information more than the pursuit of
knowledge in its fuller sense.
Plus The detachment of curriculum from aims … Prescription and micro-management … A divided curriculum:
the ‘basics’ and the rest … The pernicious dichotomy: standards vs breadth … A muddled discourse:
subjects, knowledge and skills …A nettle ungrasped: expertise, staffing and training.
Rose is a tidying-up operation rather than the promised root and branch reform … The debate about the
purposes, content and quality of the primary curriculum remains wide open.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: CURRICULUM IMPERATIVES
A new curriculum (recommendations 38-53)
 Introduce a new primary curriculum which:
is firmly aligned with the proposed aims, values and principles
Is grounded in the Review’s evidence about childhood, society, the wider world and
primary education
guarantees children’s entitlement to breadth, depth and balance, and to high
standards in all the proposed domains, not just some of them
ensures that language, literacy and oracy are paramount
combines a national framework with protected local elements
encourages greater professional flexibility and creativity
Wind up the primary national strategy and re-integrate literacy and numeracy with the rest of
the curriculum.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: CURRICULUM ALTERNATIVES
The National
Curriculum
70% of teaching time
Aims
• Wellbeing
• Engagement
• Empowerment
• Autonomy
Domains
• Arts and creativity
• Citizenship and ethics
• Faith and belief
• Language, oracy and
literacy
• Encouraging respect
and reciprocity
• Promoting interdependence
and sustainability
• Empowering local, national
and global citizenship
• Celebrating culture
and community
• Exploring, knowing,
understanding
and making sense
• Fostering skill
• Exciting the imagination
• Enacting dialogue
• Mathematics
• Physical and emotional
health
• Place and time
• Science and technology
Overall framework
Nationally determined
STATUTORY
Programmes of study
Nationally proposed
NON-STATUTORY
The Community
Curriculum
30% of teaching time
Overall framework and
Programmes of study
Locally proposed
NON-STATUTORY
A New Primary
Curriculum
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: PEDAGOGY
It is of course teaching, not testing, which drives up standards … We must now work to strengthen what,
according to international research, separates the best teachers from the rest: their depth of knowledge and
engagement with what is to be taught, the quality and cognitive power of the classroom interaction they
orchestrate, and their skill in assessing and providing feedback on pupils’ learning – all day, every day, not
just in Year 6 and not just in literacy and numeracy.
Central prescription of teaching methods and lesson content should now cease … Teaching should be taken
out of the political arena and given back to teachers. There is a necessary relationship between how
teachers think about their practice and how children learn. Pupils will not learn to think for themselves if their
teachers are merely expected to do as they are told.
A pedagogy of evidence and principle (recommendations 54-61)
 Work towards a pedagogy of repertoire rather than recipe, and of principle rather than
prescription.
 Ensure that teaching and learning are properly informed by research.
 Re-instate the principle that it is not for government or government agencies to tell teachers
how to teach.
 Avoid pedagogical fads and fashions and act instead on those aspects of learning and
teaching, notably spoken language, where research evidence strongly converges.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: ASSESSMENT
SATs are emphatically not the only available form of summative assessment … There is an urgent need
for a thorough reform of the assessment system, going well beyond the May 2009 report of the DCSF
‘expert group’ … Children’s learning across all aspects of the curriculum, including their developing
capacity to learn, should be assessed formatively throughout the primary phase and summatively before
transfer to secondary school … No single assessment procedure should be expected to perform both
formative and summative functions … Moving to valid, reliable and properly moderated procedures for a
broader approach to assessment will require careful research and deliberation.
Reform assessment (recommendations 62-74)
 Retain summative pupil assessment at the end of the primary phase, but uncouple
assessment for accountability from assessment for learning.
 Replace current KS2 literacy/numeracy SATs by a system which assesses and reports on
children’s achievement in all areas of their learning, with minimum of disruption and without
distorting what it seeks to assess.
 Monitor school and system performance through sample testing.
 Make greater use of teacher assessment.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: ACCOUNTABILITY AND STANDARDS
The official evidence on whether standards in primary education have improved is unsafe. At its heart are
two areas of difficulty: the validity and reliability of the chosen procedures, especially before 2000; and the
historical tendency to treat test scores in limited aspects of literacy and numeracy as proxies for educational
standards as a whole.
We take it as axiomatic that in a public system of education teachers and schools should be fully
accountable to parents, children, government and the electorate for what they do. We reject any suggestion
that our proposals for the reform of assessment and inspection imply otherwise. For us, the issue is not
whether schools should be accountable, but for what and by what means.
Strengthen accountability, redefine standards (recommendations 40, 47, 53, 75-85,
150)
 Move forward from debating whether schools and teachers should be accountable (they
should) and concentrate instead on how.
 Redefine primary education standards as the quality of learning in all curriculum domains,
knowledge and skills to which children are entitled, not just some of them.
 Develop a model of school inspection which is in line with the proposed aims and
principles.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: SCHOOLS FOR THE FUTURE
Initiatives like ECM and the Children’s Plan are changing the remit of primary schools, while this Review has
argued for schools’ enhanced role both in and as communities. At the same time there are pressures to
extend schools’ specialist space and resources … To avoid piecemeal development, there should be a full
discussion of the concept of a primary school for the first part of the 21st century.
Schools for the community and the future (recommendations 86-117)
 Build on recent initiatives encouraging multi-agency working, and increase support for
schools to help them ensure that the growing range of children’s services professionals work in
partnership with each other and with parents.
 Strengthen mutual professional support through clustering, federation, all-through schools
and the pooling of expertise.
 Protect small schools, especially in rural areas; heed the educational arguments for
retaining the remaining middle schools.
 Take an innovative approach to school design and timetabling which marries design and
function and properly reflects the proposed aims for primary education.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: THE FUNDING OF PRIMARY EDUCATION
The primary/secondary funding differential is based on long-outdated assumptions about
curriculum, teaching and learning at the primary stage and the professional expertise
these require, and should be eliminated … Funding should be at a level to enable schools
to meet the obligations of an entitlement curriculum … There should be a new funding
formula preceded … by a full staffing review.
Reform school funding (recommendations 149-51)
 Eliminate the primary/secondary funding differential.
 Ensure that primary school funding is determined by educational and curricular needs.
 Devise and cost alternative models of curriculum/needs led primary school staffing.
 Set increased costs against savings from terminating the primary national strategy
(PNS), transferring its budget to schools, and otherwise reducing government control and
infrastructure.
MATTERS FOR DEBATE: THE POLICY PROCESS
The experiment in centralised reform has produced important and necessary changes in relation to children
and children’s services, but in relation to curriculum and pedagogy there is widespread agreement that it has
gone too far … It has also been extremely expensive … The politicisation of primary education has also gone
too far. Discussion has been blocked by derision, truth has been supplanted by myth and spin, and
alternatives to current arrangements have been reduced to crude dichotomy.
The apparent demise of the national strategies, and the government’s promise to replace centrally-directed
reform by school self-determination, might seem to make redundant some of this report’s recommendations
… But a process which has concentrated so much power at the centre, and over the course of two decades
has so decisively re-configured the relationship between government and teachers, cannot be instantly
unpicked. Centrally-determined versions of teaching … are all that many younger teachers know.
Reform the policy process (recommendations 50-53 and 143-53)
 Re-balance the responsibilities of the DCSF, local authorities and schools.
 Replace top-down control and prescription by professional empowerment, mutual
accountability and respect for research evidence and professional experience.
 Make good the wider democratic deficit.
 Abandon the discourses of derision, false dichotomy and myth, and strive to ensure that the
education debate at last exemplifies rather than negates what education should be about.
www.primaryreview.org.uk
www.routledge.com/education
www.teachersfirst.org.uk/cpr