ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the key changes in the curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, accountability and school structures, and reflects on less tangible aspects such as how these changes were perceived. It provides an overview of these four decades of change, from 1976 to 2015, in relation to primary education. The chapter suggests lessons for those concerned with policy and practice, if primary education is to escape from the enduring legacy of elementary education. Since 1997, primary education has been increasingly driven by the demand to raise children's scores in English and mathematics, resulting, to some extent, from the international comparisons in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The result is a focus on what S.J. Ball calls 'performativity' and is linked to accountability mechanisms where Ofsted judgements are heavily influenced by the data. The importance of primary education continues to be downplayed, with primary schools' role often seen as mainly to ensure that children are 'secondary-ready'.
