Primary Schools 'have got worse'

RESEARCH from MMU's Institute of Education into the state of English primary schooling has received huge national media attention.

The report, which presents evidence that political interference is damaging children's learning and teachers' ability to teach, was published on the front page of The Independent and picked up by the BBC, Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Yorkshire Post and 25 other media outlets.

Authors Professor Harry Torrance and Dr Elaine McCreery from the Education and Social Research Institute, looked at the effects of an increasing government control of the curriculum between 1988 and 2007.

Their report co-written with Dominic Wyse from the University of Cambridge said: "The evidence on the impact of various initiatives on standards of pupil attainment is at best equivocal and at worst negative.

Testing times

"While test scores have risen since the mid 1990s, this has been achieved at the expense of children's entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum and by the diversion of considerable teaching time to test preparation."

Their report found some improvements, for instance the curriculum was "more transparent and consistent" and the need for more collaborative lesson planning and management led to teachers feeling "an enhanced sense of professionalism".

But they noted a "decrease in overall quality of primary education experienced by pupils because of the narrowing of the curriculum and the intensity of test preparation".

Even science had been in marginal decline in a curriculum increasingly dominated by literacy and numeracy, they found.

Narrower than in 1970s

It also suggested that the range of teaching methods employed was probably even narrower than in the 1970s and that teacher-pupil interaction has been "negatively affected" by the new testing and targets regime.

The research was part of the Cambridge-based Primary Review, a series of reports comprising the largest inquiry into primary education for 40 years.

The Trajectory and Impact of National Reform: curriculum and assessment in English primary education (2008 Primary Review Research Survey 3/2) – Dominic Wyse, University of Cambridge, Elaine McCreery and Harry Torrance, Manchester Metropolitan University. ISBN 978-1-906478-22-3. The report is available at www.primaryreview.org.uk.

For more information about research at MMU's Institute of Education go to www.esri.mmu.ac.uk.