Policy and Practice in Primary Education

by RobinAlexander (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  1997

  $59.51

  Detailed accounts of two influential initiatives of the 1990s, whose educational and political lessons remain highly relevant: systemic and pedagogic reform in one of Britain's largest cities, and the controversial 'three wise men' government enquiry into primary teaching to which it led. Alexander's controversial and widely-read report on primary education in Leeds has now been revised as a major study of policy initiatives in primary education and their impact on practice. The book examines an ambitious programme of local reform aimed at improving teaching and learning in the primary schools of one of Britain's largest cities. It addresses important questions about children's needs, the curriculum, classroom practice and school management. When first published, Robin Alexander's report was hailed as 'seminal' and 'the most important document since Plowden' but it was also quoted and misquoted in support of widely opposed political and media agendas. This new edition retains Part I from the first edition, detailing the impact of Leeds LEA's programme for educational reform. However, it also provides a totally new and greatly extended Part II, which gives an insider's account of the sequel to the Leeds report - the government's 1992 'three wise men' report. There is also a new introduction.

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $3.39

  Between 1985 and 1989 the city of Leeds spent #14 million on its primary schools, especially those in the deprived inner-city areas. At the end of this period, there were noticeable improvements in the conditions in which children were taught and often in the quality of the teaching they received, but the reading scores were marginally lower than they had been at the beginning and the gap in achievement between children in the inner city and those in the affluent suburbs was as great as it had ever been. Robin Alexander, head of the team which evaluated the Leeds project, here uses the Leeds example to consider the aims and direction of primary education today. In particular he examines the notion of good practice which has dominated the debate since the publication of the Plowden report in 1967. He argues that unquestioning acceptance of its basic tenets has led to a dangerous separation of rhetoric and practice and a failure of the very children it was intended to serve. Primary education will only improve, he concludes, when teachers themselves are allowed to define good practice according to what is possible in their own classrooms. This book should be of interest to primary education, educational policy and curriculum studies.