Children and their primary schools: pupils’ voices

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

The Cambridge Primary Review is the first major review of primary education in forty years since the publication of the Plowden Report in 1967 (CACE 1967). The Plowden Committee considered primary education in all its aspects as well as the transition to secondary school. However, since this time there have been various Acts and conventions which have had a significant impact on aspects of the primary curriculum. In particular, the Education Reform Act (ERA) of 1988 had a major influence on primary education in England and Wales. As a result of this Act the National Curriculum (NC) was introduced, resulting in significant changes being made within the curriculum, in teaching methods, and in forms of assessment. The Act introduced Standard Attainment Tests (SATs), a national system of assessment in the core subjects at the end of years 2 and 6 in primary schools (as well as years 9 and 11 in secondary schools). The introduction of SATs has allowed for comparison to be made between levels of pupil achievement in different schools and has led to many schools placing significant emphasis on pupils' achievement in the tests with the aim of reflecting the school in a favourable light. As well as significant changes in the school curriculum, there have also been major changes in the organisation of support for children and young people in England. Although the Plowden report committee argued for close collaboration between educational and medical services, this did not become a reality until The Children Act of 2004 and Every Child Matters (ECM) (Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 2004). ECM established a duty on Local Authorities to make arrangements to promote cooperation between agencies (including schools) in order to improve children's wellbeing. There is a growing body of literature which focuses on the voices of pupils inschools. The recent publication of an International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary Schools is a significant contribution to this field (Thiessen and Cook-Sather 2007). There have been a number of UK-based research studies which have looked at pupils' perceptions of their experiences in primary school. However, much of the literature has explored pupils' experiences through the eyes of the teacher. In many cases the literature also stresses the value of listening to young people's views and details the processes implemented by schools to develop a deeper understanding of encouraging the voice of young people (for example, Fielding 2001; MacBeath et al. 2003; Rudduck et al. 1996; Rudduck and Flutter 2004). This chapter is concerned only with those studies which have explored pupils' experiences from the perspectives of the pupils themselves, and not with studies which have reported teachers' perspectives ofpupils' experiences. It is primarily concerned with finding out about pupils' perspectives on specific areas of their primary experience; namely, the purposes of their primary education, their experiences of teaching, learning, the curriculum and assessment, and to a lesser extent the culture and organisation of their primary schooling. Some reference is also made to pupils' views on transfer from primary to secondary school and to their aspirations and preferences in respect of pupils' own futures. Very limited comparisons are made of pupils' views across different gender, social and cultural groups. These focus areas were identified at the outset of the research by those co-ordinating the various strands of the Primary Review and form the basis of this chapter. However, the chapter also outlines implications of the findings and raises more generic concerns about pupils' experiences of primary schooling in the UK. In order to gather data for this survey, in the first instance a number of key people inthe area of Pupil Voice were contacted, both UK-based and international. They were asked for any documentation, literature or references which discuss or outline what primary pupils and former pupils think of primary schooling: its purposes, culture, organisation, learning, teaching, curriculum and assessment; and pupils' aspirations in respect of these and their own futures. A specific request was made for evidence of comparisons in pupil voice across different social and cultural groups. Electronic searching (which included ERIC, BEI, IngentaConnect, IBSS and PsycINFO)initially identified hundreds of references on pupils' experiences of primary school. After a first sift of titles and abstracts, 63 were selected. These, along with references and literature from colleagues, were explored in more detail. Many of the literature sources were rejected on one or more of the following grounds:they were found to relate to secondary pupils; they were based on teachers' perceptions of their pupils' experiences; they related to primary pupils in countries other than the UK.