Cambridge Primary Review

Now the Review presents Children, their World, their Education: final report and recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review.

Among the many positives of modern childhood, the report celebrates the
research evidence on just how much young children know, understand and can do, and argues for an education which heeds their voices and empowers them for life as both learners and citizens.

The report also argues that childhood.s rich potential should be protected from a system apparently bent on pressing children into a uniform mould at an ever-younger age.

Matching ages, stages and structures. The English insistence on the earliest possible start to formal schooling, against the grain of international evidence and practice, is educationally counterproductive.

The Early Years Foundation Stage should be renamed and extended to age six, and early years provision should be strengthened in its quality and staffing so that children are properly prepared - socially, linguistically and experientially - for formal learning, yielding seamless progress through Foundation (0-6) and Primary (6-11). The desirability of raising the school starting age in line with these changes should then be examined

http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/downloads/revised_2011-02/FINAL_REPORT_BRIEFING_REVISED_2_11.pdf
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