The Cambridge Primary Review Trust

News

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The CPR Research Surveys – one of most read ebooks at the IoE

The Cambridge Primary Review Research Surveys, the companion volume to the Review’s final report, has made Taylor and Francis’s Top 10 most read ebooks at the Institute of Education, out of over 400 titles.

The volume contains CPR’s commissioned surveys of published research, which were a substantial and distinctive component of the Review. It represents an excellent free-standing resource for teachers, students, researchers and policy-makers which is able powerfully to illuminate many of the most important problems in primary education.

Order your copy here.

 

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Gove out, Gibb back in: all change at DfE?

David Cameron’s pre-election ministerial reshuffle has yielded both new and old faces. Michael Gove is replaced as Secretary of State for Education by Nicky Morgan, formerly Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Minister for Women. Education Minister Elizabeth Truss moves to DEFRA. After a period on the back benches Nick Gibb is returning to DfE as Minister of State. Sam Gyimah becomes a junior minister. For a full list of changes click here.

Also see our blog for further comment on the reshuffle, and join in the conversation.

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CPRT: Cambridge Primary Review enters exciting new phase

Monday 23 September saw the launch of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust, successor to the Cambridge Primary Review. The launch took place at the British Academy from 5 to 7.30 pm, and included a keynote address from Robin Alexander, the Trust’s chair, and ‘Any Primary Questions?’ with Jonathan Dimbleby, chair of the BBC Radio 4 current affairs programme on which Monday’s event was based. The panellists were: Kevan Collins, Chief Executive of the Educational Endowment Foundation and former CEO for Tower Hamlets and Director of the Primary National Strategy; Wynne Harlen, Honorary Visiting Professor at Bristol University and former Director of the Scottish Council for Research in Education; Alison Peacock, Head Teacher of the Wroxham Primary School, Hertfordshire and former leader of the CPR national network; and Graham Stuart MP, Chair of the House of Commons Education Committee and MP for Beverley and Holderness.

The occasion also celebrated the Trust’s sponsorship by Pearson, the world’s largest learning company, and initiated the two organisations’ collaboration in developing support services and materials for primary schools. Brendan O’Grady, Pearson’s Director of Communications, opened the event.

Guardian Teacher Network has now launched an online debate on the Trust’s priorities as outlined at the launch.

Read the media release
Read Robin Alexander’s keynote
Read the CPRT leaflet
Join the Guardian debate about the Trust’s priorities for primary education

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New National Curriculum published

It was on 20 January 2011 that the UK government’s review of England’s national curriculum was announced. On 11 September 2013 the final version was published. Meanwhile, the Expert Panel rose and fell, drafts were published, petitions were submitted, petitioners were abused and it was altogether a rather noisy affair. CPR/CPRT submitted evidence in several instalments and we had numerous meetings with DfE officials and a few with ministers. It is clear that our views have been heeded on curriculum breadth and spoken language, though we would have liked DfE to go much further on both of these vital matters, but elsewhere we made less progress than we would have liked and overall the new framework retains most of the features of its earlier drafts.

One of the first fruits of CPRT’s collaboration with Pearson will be Primary Curriculum 2014, a series of 18 regional conferences designed to help teachers implement the new national curriculum in a way that also does justice to the CPR/CPRT imperatives of breadth and richness, both within subjects and across the curriculum as a whole.

Download the new national curriculum
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education/series/national-curriculum

Find out more about the CPRT/Pearson primary curriculum conferences
www.pearsonschools.co.uk/pearsonandcprt

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National Curriculum Proposals for England Published

On 11 June 2012 the Secretary of State published his response to the ʻExpert Panelʼ report together with draft programmes of study for English, mathematics and science. CPR is hosting two DfE consultation sessions on the proposals, on 20 and 29 June: see events listings on this page. Meanwhile, itʼs clear from the blog of one of the Expert Panelʼs members that not all of them are happy with what the Secretary of State has done (or not done) with their report, and The Guardian detects divisions within the Expert Panel itself. Watch this space! 

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Cambridge Primary Review royalties to go to organisations tackling disadvantage

Those who are familiar with Children, their World, their Education: final report of the Cambridge Primary Review will know that its contributing authors decided that royalties from the bookʼs sales should go to organisations that support children who are vulnerable, marginalised or otherwise disadvantaged (see the reportʼs Introduction, pxvi). Their decision reflected one of CPRʼs key recommendations:

While recent concerns should be heeded about the pressures to which todayʼs children are subject, and the undesirable values, influences and experiences to which many are exposed, the main focus of policy should continue to be on narrowing the gaps in income, housing, care, risk, opportunity and educational attainment suffered by a significant minority of children, rather than on prescribing the character of the lives of the majority. The governmentʼs efforts to narrow the gap in all outcomes between vulnerable children and the rest deserves the strongest possible support. (Children, their World, their Education, p 488).

CPR argued this not just because such inequalities represent a massive social blight but also because the evidence shows that the maps of social disadvantage and educational underachievement tend to coincide. (The reference above to ʻthe governmentʼs effortsʼ related to Labour initiatives such as the Childrenʼs Plan and Narrowing the Gap. The present government has introduced the Pupil Premium).

to continue reading, download the full article as a pdf

Contact

Cambridge Primary Review Trust - Email: administrator@cprtrust.org.uk