OK, I live in the Netherlands not the UK, so this question is less about the primary school system and more about the long-term value of primary education i.e. will the quality of teaching during the first couple of years really matter when DD gets to secondary school and (hopefully) university?
I ask because I was sitting in a mum-and-toddler meet-up this morning and as DD is starting school in Sept '12 and all the other mums had much younger children, they were all quizzing me about how the Dutch system worked and what the options were for international schools. We had considered the Dutch state system which is excellent, essentially free, with lots of variety in terms of paedagogical approaches, but had eventually decided against it as our Dutch is simply not good enough to be able to support DD's education. So she is going to a partially-state supported (so affordable) international school taught in English which we have chosen largely on the recommendation of friends and from the "feel" of it upon visiting. It also follows the International Primary Curriculum.
One of the other mums asked me how the school we had chosen stacked up academically against the other international schools, and mentioned that she and her husband were considering moving outside the city to access a very well-thought-of international school which has a stellar academic record.
I was just a bit stunned that she was so concerned about academic standards for a four-year old who quite frankly will probably be playing in a sandpit or slapping paint on a canvas for most of the day, not discovering the Higgs bosun or a cure for cancer. I should add that there's a fairly high turnover of expats here so a lot of people choose to use the Dutch state system for primary school and switch to the international schools for secondary, it's usually not a problem getting a place, so it's not a question of having to secure a place at a good school right from the start.
I also felt a bit of an inadequate mother for not having grilled all the schools on their university numbers (although again due to the churn, few of the secondary school students have actually gone through the primary at the same school, and it would be hard to compare e.g. the British School with the ones that offer the International Baccalaureate). I am only just getting used to the whole "So what are you doing about DD's education then?" topic of conversation and feel woefully ill-prepared.
So what do you think?