The Importance of Teaching – #eduwhitepaper and responses

Synthetic Phonics – the answer to all our prayers?

Updated 29th November

The widely trailled Education White Paper (#eduwhitepaper) was launched yesterday to huge numbers of tweets. At one point “Michael Gove” was trending on twitter (about 6th most popular phrase on the social networking site!). It marks the biggest change to education in some time.

Rather than comment at this point, here is a handy reading list to help you find out about the changes.

The White Paper itself

http://bit.ly/dZSOqC

This is the detailed white paper in sections but with lots of long words and detail. Read this if you have time and are REALLY interested.

The White Paper as a Wordle

http://bit.ly/gJwWg5

The White paper as a presented as a wordle (beautiful word cloud). The largest words are those mentioned most. Technology is really tiny!

Fantastic and simple explanation of the White Paper

http://bit.ly/etiHdD

From Mike Baker’s blog, this is a quick and simple (5 minute) read with all the jargon stripped out. It tells you what is really going on.

A further summary (with video)

http://bit.ly/hoPQgg

Summary of the White Paper from Teacher’s TV. Also with video.

Another Summary from Gary Hollingsbee – Malling Holmesdale Federation, Kent

http://bit.ly/fHKxSo

A longer summary that seems to cover most bases. Really useful blogpost.

Responses

NAACE Letter to M. Gove 23.6.10

http://bit.ly/gyG09B

A view of ICT in the new curriculum – retrospective.

The CBI

http://bit.ly/fKWp46

Generally good but more emphasis wanted on separate sciences.

Teach First

http://bit.ly/e4STDZ

Very good as you would expect – Teach First is a big government favourite.

The National Education Trust

http://bit.ly/ed8Ggf

Again positive response focusing on teacher training in schools.

The Local Government Association

http://bit.ly/eIohUJ

Broadly positive but caveats about pupil funding and provision for all students.

The Unions

http://bit.ly/eY6ky2

As mixed bag, worried about the role of teachers and their pay (obviously).

The SSAT

http://bit.ly/dE335s

Postive but really only talks about their own role and impact of white paper on that.

The Russell Group

http://bit.ly/gH1OYq

Worried about moving teacher training into schools and away from universities.

Catholic Education Services

http://bit.ly/eaVhOL

Concerned about moving teacher training into schools.

Further responses

University of Cambridge – Faculty of Education

http://bit.ly/dJgI47

Concerned about their role and how funding will work for teacher training.

Institute of Directors

http://bit.ly/ebBptv

Broadly in favour but worried about lack of focus on Numeracy and opportunity for schools to offer competing qualifications.

Conservative Home

http://bit.ly/frnPLV

Very positive blog from Conservative Home … but you’d expect that!

Jim Sweetman Blog

http://bit.ly/fAOaNt

… And a different view from Jim Sweetman. Well argued.

Phonics_Games

Updated 1st December 2010
White Paper focuses clearly on phonics
Section 4.16 makes explicit reference to ’systematic synthetic phonics’.

http://bit.ly/gOnSoF

There is also reference to funding in the Economic Impact Assessment:

37. We will invest to support phonics teaching in primary schools to increase significantly the number of children who develop secure reading skills as early as possible in their education. THe potential cost to Government of match-funding phonics products and training would be up to a maximum of £50.7m if the 16,900 primary schools with children in Key Stage 1 sought resources at the maximum level of £3,000. We would propose to fund half the eligible schools in each of the two years 2011-2012 and 2012-2013.

Two dissenting voices come from the NUT and NASEN who suggest that isystematic phonics isn’t necessarily right for ALL children and a different strategy might be more sensible in some cases.

http://bit.ly/e8bMkx
http://bit.ly/glCI1Z

END OF UPDATE 1st December 2010

Recent stories in the BBC and others indicate that there remain issues with the teaching of reading in English schools. 15% children at age 7 and 20% of children at age 11 are not reading at the ‘expected’ level for their age.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11735317

This has prompted more directives from Nick Gibb and Christine Gilbert at Ofsted about the teaching of reading with a clear and unswerving focus on synthetic phonics.

This works for me and having seen a move from ‘real books’ in the 80s and 90s; to the ’searchlights’ model of the National Literacy Framework; and finally a move back to synthetic phonics I personally think that this is the right way for the pendulum to be swinging at the moment.

However, as with all educational movements it seems prudent to review its success in light of the same government statistics.

2007
Letters and Sounds (a synthetic phonics approach to learning to read) became the favoured approach of the government in 2007 following the Rose Review of the previous year. There was much gnashing of teeth by some literacy experts who were concerned that children would be readers but not ‘in love with reading’. I personally think there are two stages to the process here and broadly agree with Jim Rose’s approach.
% of children at ‘expected’ level in reading at age of 7 = 83.7%

2008
% of children at ‘expected’ level in reading at age of 7 = 83.8%

2009
% of children achieving ‘expected’ level in reading at age of 7 = 84.4%

2010 …
… when government and Ofsted call for teaching of synthetic phonics in schools … again:
% of children achieving ‘expected’ level of reading at age of 7 = 84.8%

So we have 1.1% more children achieving the expected level since synthetic phonics was adopted as the ‘national way to read’. It’s good but is it the success we were expecting four years after Letters and Sounds was introduced into English schools?

My anecdotal evidence from tutoring and working with children of various ages says that spelling is the real beneficiary of synthetic phonics but as far as a love of reading, well that’s down to the books you are introduced to once the decoding has been secured.

Key Stage 2 results in 2014 will be the best judge of how synthetic phonics works but from next year we should see a real upswing in Key Stage 1 results if Letters and Sounds is all its cracked up to be and synthetic phonics works.

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Synthetic Phonics – the answer to all our prayers?

Updated 1st December 2010
White Paper focuses clearly on phonics
Section 4.16 makes explicit reference to ’systematic synthetic phonics’.
http://bit.ly/gOnSoF
There is also reference to funding in the Economic Impact Assessment:
37. We will invest to support phonics teaching in primary schools to increase significantly the number of children who develop secure reading skills as early as possible in their [...]

The Importance of Teaching – #eduwhitepaper and responses

Updated 29th November
The widely trailled Education White Paper (#eduwhitepaper) was launched yesterday to huge numbers of tweets. At one point “Michael Gove” was trending on twitter (about 6th most popular phrase on the social networking site!). It marks the biggest change to education in some time.
Rather than comment at this point, here is a handy [...]

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