Cambridge Primary Review Trust:
The National Primary Network
The National Primary Network is part of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust (CPRT), successor to the Cambridge Primary Review - (CPR). Funded by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation; and directed by Professor Robin Alexander, the CPR remains the most comprehensive enquiry into England’s system of primary education for nearly half a century. Between 2006 and 2012, and supported by researchers from 20 other universities, the CPR’s Faculty-based team assembled a vast array of evidence and published 31 interim reports, many of which generated considerable media, political and public interest. In October 2009 CPR published its 600-page final report and recommendations together with an 850-page volume of research surveys.
The Cambridge Primary Review Trust is a not-for-profit company committed to building on the work of the Cambridge Primary Review. It receives core funding from Pearson and additional research funding from other organisations. Its chair is Professor Robin Alexander. It has four programmes: policy engagement, research, school leadership and professional development, and through these it pursues seven priorities carried forward from CPR and the discussion generated by its final report. For further information about the Trust, its programmes, priorities, personnel and publications, go to http://cprtrust.org.uk/ .
Initiated in 2010, the CPR national primary network was a direct response to requests from teachers, teacher educators and others who attended the regional and national dissemination events that followed the final report’s launch. Most participants supported the Review’s ideas and proposals and indicated their eagerness to take them forward, but many feared that they could not do so without ‘permission’ from national agencies and local authorities. The CPR strongly criticised this culture of control and compliance and argued that ‘children will not learn to think for themselves if their teachers are expected merely to do as they are told.’
The network was set up both to begin the process of professional re-empowerment and to support and disseminate the work of those schools, local authorities, teacher educators and others who are keen to explore and build on the CPR’s ideas, findings and proposals. Such freedoms will remain illusory unless teachers grasp the opportunities now open to them, and realise the advantage of working together, through organisations like the CPRT, rather than in isolation.
The Regional Centres
CPRT’s national office, now based at the University of York, links to ten regional centres which work closely with schools, local authorities and voluntary agencies to identify local educational needs and opportunities and advance the principles of local partnership and community engagement to which the Trust, like the Review before it, is firmly committed.
Eastern Regional Centre
Practice, policy, research: resources for teachers and researchers
This page is a taster for the Trust’s dedicated website http://cprtrust.org.uk/. In addition to detailed information about the Review and its network, the site also offers an unrivalled and fast-expanding collection of resources for teachers and researchers.
The Review’s 28 specially-commissioned surveys of research relating to childhood, primary education and their social contexts are generally acknowledged as the most comprehensive of their kind. Alongside them is available alongside a wealth of other evidence and a fast-growing bank of material to support the work of teachers and teacher educators. For schools, all this is supplemented by material with a practical focus which they themselves have provided and will supplement as the network progresses. For those investigating policy or media matters, the considerable political and media interest which the Review prompted is recorded in an extensive archive going back to 2006. Researchers who wish to discuss any of this material are invited to contact the Review’s Administrator, Greg Frame (link to email@example.com )