ABSTRACT
A vast amount of literature could have been included in this survey and we have had to be selective. After a brief introduction, setting the work in context, the chapter reviews key empirical studies of primary school teaching and learning which are widely regarded as central to the field, pre-and post-National Curriculum; these include particularly Galton et al.’s successive studies (1980 and 1999) and the Bristol ‘PACE’ project (an ESRC-funded longitudinal study of the introduction of the National Curriculum throughout the 1990s). These pivotal investigations are augmented by other individual studies exploring the impact of assessment and the impact of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies.
