My mother, Wynne Harlen, who has died aged 88, was a leading figure in primary science education and assessment whose work shaped policy and practice in the field. She emphasised the importance of harnessing children’s natural curiosity, imagination and their urge to interact and inquire.
The daughter of Edith (nee Radcliffe) and Arthur Mitchell, who worked at Dowty Aviation, Wynne was born in Swindon but grew up in Cheltenham, where she attended Pate’s grammar school for girls before studying physics at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. While working in Cheltenham during the summer vacation, she met Frank Harlen. They married in 1958, soon after she graduated, and had two children: I was born in 1965 and my sister, Juliet, in 1967.
