The PACE (Primary Assessment, Curriculum and Experience) project aimed to study the impact on English primary schools of the introduction, following the 1988 Education Reform Act, of the National Curriculum and its associated assessment procedures. Questionnaires and interviews with heads and infant teachers in forty-eight schools in eight varied areas, provided background data for a closer focus on nine schools. Children as well as teachers in primary school classes were interviewed. These randomly selected pupils formed a cohort who have taken part in the subsequent years of the study. New assessment procedures were also observed and analysed as they were introduced. The project consisted of three phases: phase 1 (SN:3486) was carried out in 1990-1992, phase 2 (SN:3470) in 1993-1994 and phase 3(SN:3969) in 1995-1996. Pupils of the original cohort, continued to be observed and interviewed, as did their teachers into year 6 (phase 3). In addition, teachers and heads in the wider sample of schools have again been interviewed; in this phase both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 teachers provide material on the degree and kind of change experienced in primary schools during a period of unprecedented innovation.
