ABSTRACT
Currently (1999) I feel uncertain and uneasy about New Labour’s policies towards primary education, but it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why. The government has placed education as one of its highest priorities-that’s fine. It is devoting a large amount of ‘new’ extra money to the education servicethat’s long overdue. It is recognizing the vital importance of the early years and of primary education in a way that previous governments over the past quarter of a century have signally failed to do-that’s excellent. It is promoting higher standards in literacy and numeracy-that’s appropriate since standards can always be, and should be, higher in these core areas of primary education. It is promoting literacy, numeracy and information and communications technology through well-funded national strategies-that’s sensible. It is attempting to overcome social exclusion-that’s essential, though the claims and demands made on schools’ contribution to this are likely to prove farfetched.
