Rebecca Jane Watson

• BA (Hons) History
• Landmark in Education: Bridget Plowden’s Report on Children and their Primary Schools, 1967

Bridget Plowden’s inquiry and 1967 report on Children and their Primary Schools reshaped primary education and recast the debate about early years schooling, and education policy more generally. This project will explain how the report came to mould state primary education at a time when it was both undervalued and underfunded. There will be reference to the current system and how the report influenced it by creating a learning environment based on child-centred learning, and the need for and benefits of education through discovery.  It is made possible by Plowden’s hitherto unconsulted papers having been deposited in the Robinson library.

Funding Source: Newcastle University