ABSTRACT
English primary education badly needs appreciating in two senses of the word-a favourable recognition of its achievements and a sensitive understanding and appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses. Children and their Primary Schools (the Plowden Report) provided both for primary education in the 1960s. Its celebration of achievement may have been over the top; its appraisal may have been flawed in important respects; and the trends it identified may have failed to materialize, but it stands as a significant landmark in the history of primary education and one which inspired many primary teachers.
