Professor Robin Alexander, head of the Cambridge Primary Review says the current system of primary education is 'squeezing the curriculum' and suggests we need to ask whether formal schooling should start later. Of course, with the Rose Review already having kicked the government's next round of educational reform into action, it is questionable what impact it will have on government policy, which is why the Cambridge Primary Review rushed out their interim report earlier this year.

In asking 'What is primary education for?', the report Children, their World, their Education: final report and recommendations poses the same fundamental question as the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jenson, who is opposed to the opening of new faith schools in Australia until the Church has addressed this crucial question. Reporting on the impact of faith schools is very much confused in part because there is such a broad range of schools that are supposedly 'faith-based' but there is no accepted definition of what is meant by faith based schooling. For instance, should faith schools serve the Christian community, by providing an environment in which the children of believing parents can be nurtured in the faith, or should they serve the whole community, as part of the mission of the Church? As Dr Jenson says, we 'must ask what is the goal of schooling, and must have an answer which differs from and is far better than the alternatives,' warning that unless we are knowingly theological 'we will not succeed in being any different from secular schools, especially after one or two generations.'

As we in the UK anticipate a possible change of government following a general election in about seven months' time, with new opportunities for community groups to establish new schools, these are crucial questions for us all - ones that the Jubilee Centre has been asking and continues to explore together with our partners. Watch out for a new report on this subject next spring! In the meantime, I offer the following food for thought that I recently stumbled upon:

'[Much of the church] fears that if the young person, especially in adolescence, is permitted to become acquainted with the world and its lures, he is sure to be lost. This prediction is, in all its intended realism, a lack of faith and a surrender to determinism. If the Gospel cannot call people out of the world, it is no Gospel. If what we preach to our young people cannot call them out of the world, then we must ask ourselves if what we are preaching is the Gospel. If placing people in a context of choice where it is possible to choose the wrong is unwise, then God himself made the first mistake when he created Adam and the worst mistake when he let people kill his Son. At the bottom of it all, this pessimism means placing oneself fully on the level of the world. It means agreeing with the world that all human development is determined by physical and psychological necessities; agreeing with the world that Christian faith is a matter of behavior patterns and of truths to be passed on; agreeing with the world that there is no miracle of resurrection, no miracle of faith, no Holy Spirit.' [John Howard Yoder, 'Christian Education: Doctrinal Orientation,' in Concern for Education (ed. Halden Doerge, forthcoming, Cascade Books)]

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