Primary First

PrimaryFirst The journal for primary schools Issue 15 £5.00

“The best school is the one where the children ask the most questions”.

National Association for Primary Education

The National Association for Primary Education often comments upon current issues in education. In commenting we always have children’s interests and learning as our foremost consideration. Here are the principles which inform the position in education held by the association.

The principles underpinning the association’s work have been staunchly held for the 36 years of our existence and they embody the values which are of central importance to all our lives.

In recent years we have been confronted by powerful forces representing primary education as preparation for the world of work and values have been neglected; competition preferred to co-operation and compliance preferred to freedom. We reject this view of education and in meeting the challenge of a rapidly changing world we have the principles set out below at the heart of our work.

Intellectual growth and development occur through a sequence of concrete experiences followed by abstractions. Direct experience leads to learning in primary school.

Children pass through similar stages of intellectual growth but each in her own way, at her own rate and in her own time. Over the primary years there are massive changes in the way in which children see and make sense of the world. As they grow older they gain the ability to hold ideas in the mind and to handle symbols unrelated to immediate direct experience. However we reject targets and levels of achievement deemed appropriate to all children at the same age.

Children are innately curious and display a wish to learn right from the moment of birth. Our schools should foster this innate human dynamic and teach accordingly.

We must guard against causing it to atrophy through a process of education which divorces learning from children’s interests.

Children are learning all the time, both in and out of school. Teachers and parents should recognise the vital importance of their partnership in helping children to learn. The assessment of children’s growth and development is best undertaken by teachers in partnership with parents.

The structure of knowledge is personal and idiosyncratic and it is shaped by individual experience. Through our acknowledgement of this we help the children to move more securely towards acceptance of the commonality of knowledge held to be important in the civilised world.

Knowledge and skills are parts of an individual’s personal experience and in primary school cannot be divided into separate disciplines.

Children have both the competence and the right to make decisions concerning their own learning.

Competence is determined by the individual’s capacity to make decisions and the values implicit in decision making.

A varied and challenging learning environment stimulates exploration and facilitates learning.

In primary school the quality of being is as important as the level of learning. Knowledge is a means of education and not its only end. It is what the 11 year old IS that really counts. Young children are putting down roots and the tree of knowledge and skill will often bear fruit later.

Personal creativity is central to human development and informs all learning not least the acquisition of the core skills of literacy, numeracy and science.

Children grow into the future to the extent that they live richly today. The best way to learn is to live.

Editorial England has three times more low skilled people aged from 16 to 19 than other high performing countries in the developed world such as Finland and the Netherlands. About nine million adults of working age have inadequate literacy or numeracy skills. These are among the disquieting findings of the OECD’s study, Building Skills for All: A Review of England (2016). Small wonder that the Select Committee for Education has begun an inquiry into the fundamental beliefs and assumptions which underpin the administration of education.

It is surely time to abandon the current pursuit of examination performance at all costs. There are too few winners and too many losers and too many of the losers drop out of education altogether. Their low attainments are evidence of the failure of our system which erects barriers to learning which begins with our four year olds and continues for the next fourteen years. Every teacher knows that there is far too much for the examination and far too little for the child.

Then we should haul ourselves away from the old set piece curriculum with its tidy divisions of time and subjects so admired by ministers and start, for the first time ever, to mobilise the children’s world of E-learning and technology which opens doors to learning that otherwise remain closed. Finally the study commends contextualising learning so that it is imbedded in the realities of human lives and not simply found in the pages of a textbook. As we read these words we realise that what the OECD is recommending for the entire school system is in fact what we are trained to do in primary schools and often succeed in doing in spite of relentless official pressure to coach children for examinations.

The OECD study goes on to recommend key ways to improve. Most important of these is to focus upon the assessment of individual needs and to shape our teaching accordingly.

About us

Editorial Editorial Board

John Coe Peter Cansell, Stuart Swann, Robert Young

Primary First magazine is published three times per year by the National Association for Primary Education.

Primary First, 57 Britannia Way, Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS14 9UY Tel. 01543 257257, Email. nape@onetel.com ©Primary First 2015 No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of the publisher. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the editorial content the publisher cannot be held responsible for errors or omissions. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher.

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Choosing The Write Book...

Liz Chamberlain,

Senior Lecturer, Open University

CONTENTS The second part of David Reedy’s 2014 Schiller Memorial Lecture edited by Robert Young is published in this issue. The 2015 Memorial lecture given by Professor Peter Blatchford will appear in the summer.

05. Liz Chamberlain reports on a Book Trust project and the significant findings which resulted.

11. Learning about language when stakes are high. The second part of David Reedy’s lecture.

16. Review of the Idiot Teacher by the editor.

A book for every teacher’s bookshelf.

17. Amanda Nuttall looks to the future as she reviews Learning {RE} imagined.

20. Is Handwriting Dead? A symposium of three articles by experts.

Christopher Jarman

Rosemary Sassoon

Kate Gladstone

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27. A Premature Obituary by John Coe 29.

Casey Fluker Hunt’s Book Page

30. The effects and costs of the phonic check in primary schools. Professor Margaret Clark sums it all up and finds it wanting.

36. Geoffrey Marshall makes a cry from the heart.

This article outlines the impact of The Write Book, a Year 5 pilot project involving teachers in four different schools across England. The project aimed to improve teachers’ practical skills in developing book-based writing projects together with an understanding of how to use a high quality children’s text to inspire both reading and writing.

The key findings are discussed, alongside the highlighting of the importance of teachers finding just the right book for their pupils.

The Write Book ran from 2013 - 2015 and was a project for Year Five teachers run by Book Trust and funded by the Arts Council. It supported teachers in four primary schools to run whole-of-year-five writing projects inspired by classic or popular children’s books, enabling pupils to respond creatively to high quality children’s fiction and nonfiction texts. The teachers chose ‘The Write Book’ for their school: one that they thought would inspire children to enjoy writing. The four schools were located across the country: Southampton, in two London boroughs and in Lancashire.

The schools were similar in that they all wanted to develop a creative approach to writing to address pupils’ lowerthan-expected writing attainment.

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06 Book Trust supported teachers to create engaging writing Bookstart, Booktime and Bookbuzz and reflects studies projects based on the book of their choice. As part of the which suggest that children who own books enjoy reading package of school support, a copy of the chosen book was more than those who don’t (Clark & Poulton, 2011). The given to every child in the Year Five classes. In addition, teachers also liked the idea of knowing that they were the teachers from across the schools came together on a creating a library of quality texts to use with future classes. number of occasions which were called Teacher Inspiration In terms of project delivery, the schools all took a slightly Days to share good practice and work with well-known different approach but were agreed on a similar format for children’s writers to inspire ideas. Teachers then worked each of the two projects (one in each academic year over together to formulate a plan for the project, ran it in the two years). The projects were designed to last several classes and captured their successes and challenges in weeks, with the first week an opportunity for the children case studies. Over the two academic years of the project, to immerse themselves in the chosen text. Activities teachers developed their confidence in using books to included creating a variety of engaging inspire children’s writing and many of the writing activities including scrapbook schools continue to implement long-term reading and writing strategies using books Activities included creating journals, newspaper reports, fairy potions, writing inspired by graveyards, poems as a focus for writing. a variety of engaging and scripts for book trailers. Over the writing activities including following weeks, writing-focused activities At the first Teacher Inspiration day, the scrapbook journals, were incorporated into literacy lessons, teachers came together and spent the formed the basis of whole days of writing day with children’s author Christopher newspaper reports, fairy and craft sessions, alongside educational Edge. He introduced a series of writing potions, writing inspired visits and showcase events. The second activities using books as the starting point, by graveyards, poems and year’s project often built on the success including creating prequels, sequels, scripts for book trailers. of the first, as the teachers became more mashups and film trailers. Christopher confident at identifying creative writing and the Book Trust team supported the opportunities. Over the next two Teacher teachers in choosing ‘The Write Book’ for Inspiration days the teachers shared outcomes of their project their first project. Selecting just the right story (or nonand their children’s work; this shared experience and the fiction title) led to a number of discussions based on: the opportunity to share good practice was highly rated by the interests of the children, the units being studied in Year teachers and cited as a key benefit of the project.

Five and the expertise of the teachers, and choosing a book which had a sense of importance and excitement.

The project posed a challenge for teachers, as it required It was important for the teachers to consider the type them to draw on their own knowledge of children’s books of book their children might have enjoyed earlier, or to in order to find a suitable text to use with their classes. reflect on books which might surprise and delight them, When discussing where and how they found books, the either because of a quirky, imaginative story, immersive teachers stated that it was not always easy to find the illustration or indeed a high production value. The aim of time to research more contemporary books and that their raising the profile of discussions around texts is reflected in own canon of texts was based on books introduced in the idea that children’s literature can be a natural avenue their initial teacher training, or favourites from childhood. for encouraging and motivating young writers (Morrow, A recommendation from the research, Teachers as Readers 2005).

(2009), was that initiatives should be introduced to support teachers in extending their reading repertoire, and this was Teachers were delighted to know that every child in the one key aspect addressed by The Write Book. year would receive a copy of whatever book was chosen, and they knew that the opportunity for the children to own a book would impact positively on the children’s engagement with the project. It was important for children to feel that they were receiving a ‘special’ book and they took the books home whilst working on the project. The commitment to giving each child a book is based on a number of Book Trust’s book-gifting schemes including

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At the Teacher Inspiration days the teachers enjoyed spending time looking through new and contemporary books, as well as drawing on the expertise of the Book Trust team. The teachers were also introduced to a practical reference source which they were able to add to their schools’ learning resources, the Book Trust Bookfinder www.booktrust.org.uk/books/#/d/books/bookfinder/109,

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08 which is frequently updated to feature the best in books for children and young people.

The teachers chose a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, from both known authors and maybe some less well-known, and included one book from the new Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell.

Having chosen the right book the teachers felt confident in running projects that would support and develop the young writers in their classes. One of the positive outcomes was the expected attainment increase in the children’s writing, with each school’s data reflecting an upward trend for all their pupils. Of particular importance to the teachers was the increase in children’s confidence towards creative writing. In year two of the project, 83 per cent of children said they had enjoyed the creative writing project, and 87 per cent of them thought their creative writing had improved since being involved and, of particular note, 78 per cent of the children said they liked creative writing more as a direct result of the project. At the final Teacher Inspiration Day, the individual stories behind the data were shared, and it was this aspect that brought to life the many benefits of the project. In particular, the teachers commented on the project’s impact on specific groups of learners including pupils with EAL, quiet girls and reluctant writers. The schools had also taken the opportunity to involve the wider community in the promotion of reading and writing for pleasure by inviting parents to end-ofproject celebrations and writing workshops.

Such findings are encouraging and exciting and following the final Inspiration Day, The Write Book’s evaluation identified eight key findings. These provide a useful starting point to some of the current and key debates for teachers about reading and writing. In particular, there continues to be an on-going concern about primary pupils’ writing attainment (Ofsted, 2009; Fisher, 2006; Ofsted, 2005), together with an annual surveys suggesting that children often report that they do not enjoy writing (Clark, 2014).

This is often characterised by an apparent reluctance amongst boys to choose writing as something they do for pleasure.

The Write Book’s findings are grouped into eight themes and are discussed below. In particular, they focus on the children’s quality responses to the books, how books can be used as hooks, and the noted increase in teachers’ confidence in sourcing quality children’s literature.

Children enjoy writing more, and write better, when they’re inspired by a high quality book they’ve loved

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Immersing children in the book chosen for each project for relatively long periods (up to 40 hours), meant that they learned more about the plot, setting and characters, and in the case of non-fiction, about the nature of displaying information in different and creative ways. As each child had their own copy of the chosen book, there was the opportunity for them to take the book at their own pace, to mull over passages or to consider the design and layout of the pages, as well as taking them home to read and share with family members. The different books all offered something unique to the reader; whether it was through an illustrated front cover (An Unfortunate Series of Events), the ways in which the text and image combined to create a new reading experience (The Wolves in the Walls), or through the familiarity of a popular TV character (Dr Who Character Encyclopaedia). In addition, there is evidence to suggest that when children are exposed to high quality texts that provides the stimulus for their writing, they benefit both academically and socially (Paquette, 2007).

All encouraged the children to go deeper into the text.

Subsequently, teachers reported that the children’s writing improved because they had a connection with a text they could easily and more importantly wanted to respond to. This was also a key finding from one of Book Trust’s previous writing projects, Everybody Writes, in that in order for children to write well, they must have a real reason to write and an authentic audience to write for.

Book choice is key in encouraging children’s creative response At the start of the project, the teachers shared their concerns about knowing which books they might choose to inspire their children. Therefore, boosting teacher confidence around making good book choices was a key aim of the project. Teachers from Heaton Park Primary School were inspired by the ideas shared at the first Teacher Inspiration Day and the writing possibilities that could be generated from using Coraline by Neil Gaiman, and they adopted this text for their first project. Though teachers were more confident in choosing their own books for the second year’s projects, the element of expert recommendation, particularly in person from authors or Book Trust staff, was a real success of the project. The teachers enjoyed being shown inspirational and quality texts by enthusiastic experts who could talk about how they might readily be used creatively in the classroom. As a result, teachers became more confident in discussing books and more adept at considering the kinds of writing opportunities different texts could offer.

Children love having more time to read and write at spooky stories, inspired by Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. One school school involved the whole school by staging an alien visit, As other studies have shown (Bearne et al, 2010), children with staff and children reporting on strange and mysterious sightings inspired by Professor Astro’s Cat’s Frontiers of want more time to write in school. Alongside their Space. The final celebration of the project involved the teachers, children often feel under pressure to think of wider community as parents came into school to take a good ideas for writing and to then turn those ideas into tour around the children’s curated space-themed areas. a final product, all within a one-hour lesson. When The Write Book children were initially asked what they did not Teachers value the opportunity to talk to enjoy about writing, they reflected the same concerns, knowledgeable experts about new releases and ‘I don’t like that we do not get enough time for creative contemporary children’s books writing.’ and ‘The only thing I dislike is sometimes, we At the first Teacher Inspiration Day, teachers delved into are not given enough time for me to put everything the books that the Book Trust team had brought along and I want to in full detail.’ As the project developed, and began to discuss and debate the usefulness of the different certainly noted within the second year’s projects, the texts. On initial reading, some books teachers became more confident were engaging and seemed like in blocking out a morning or an The Year Five teacher from they would make an ideal text, but afternoon for the children to write. as the discussion turned towards Claremont Primary School spoke Whilst at the beginning, this was a possible writing opportunities, about the impact having time little intimidating for some, as there the book choices shifted. This first was a worry that this might be too to write had made on one afternoon was devoted to looking much time, teachers soon saw the previously disengaged girl: through the books and the Book benefits of children writing for longer.

Trust team were on hand to offer ‘Knowing that she can write Bower (2011:1) reflects this ‘… when their guidance and expertise. It was children are given the opportunities to at her own pace over time has evident that teachers would like to engage more deeply with texts, they given her the confidence and self engage in quality book conversations can use this power to find a voice, belief that that she is a writer.’ more often, but they are often both oral and written.’ As always, it worried about the lack the time is one particular child who provided available for them to do so, or their the greatest insight. The Year Five own perceived lack of expertise. Therefore, a legacy of teacher from Claremont Primary School spoke about the the project was the creation of the Write Book Toolkit, impact having time to write had made on one previously which has two practical sources of support for teachers: disengaged girl: ‘Knowing that she can write at her own information on how to organise author visits to schools and pace over time has given her the confidence and self the online Book finder resource.

The Book finder addresses belief that that she is a writer.’ the time issue for teachers as it enables them to locate Children enjoy writing when it’s taken beyond the suitable books using key terms and age range, and having classroom or involves an intriguing event chosen a book there is then a link to the book synopsis.

One of the most popular elements of the previous Using books as inspiration for writing works well with Everybody Writes project, which in many ways informed lower achievers and reluctant writers the initial planning of The Write Book project, was the Whilst the Write Book project was intended for all children, idea of a whole class or school event taking place beyond teachers reported the greatest success coming from the classroom to provide the stimulus for writing – in the more vulnerable groups, including those less willing to school grounds, in community settings or as part of a write. Key to this was that the children had time to get school trip. The Write Book projects took inspiration from to know their books, which highlights the importance of ideas shared at the first Teacher Inspiration Day, and made the element of book ownership within the project. The plans to take children out of their classrooms. There was teachers’ knowledge of the children also allowed them to a celebration assembly that took place in Epping Forest choose books that they knew they would enjoy, or was as part of A Midsummer Night’s Dream inspired writing a connection with popular culture, which was certainly project, whilst others visited the local graveyard to write

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the case of the Doctor Who Character Encyclopaedia. The children’s prior knowledge quickly became apparent and the barriers to writing were lessened for those less likely to want to write.

Using ‘books as hooks’ encourages creative learning and helps embed reading and writing for pleasure deep into the curriculum

you with your ideas’. This led to the final outcome for both children and teachers in that, Using high quality books to inspire and emulate writing encourages children to think of themselves as writers, which must surely be the aspirational outcome of any project which hopes to capture the imaginations and creativity of young writers both within our classrooms and beyond the classroom walls.

One of the original aims of the project was for teachers to make links across subjects and to embed reading and writing throughout the curriculum. For some teachers this was a pedagogical shift, in that they were able to begin to see the benefits of using a book as a starting point for other subjects, e.g., for a science topic on space. In addition, learning outside the classroom became a new approach to learning for one school, as the children’s writing around their Coraline project and looking at intriguing doors in the community (and the popular cemetery visit) was so compelling and it led to a noticeably higher quality in writing than in previous writing projects. The use of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a ‘Write Book’ also allowed children to hear the words of Shakespeare as intended, by hearing it spoken aloud through their own performance leading to a celebratory assembly in the forest.

For more details on The Write Book including the project evaluation and Teachers’ Toolkit for running your own Write Book project:

Whilst the other seven project outcomes led to a discussion about writing and the pedagogy of writing in primary classrooms, one of the key findings of the project focused on the children themselves as developing writers. This was reflected throughout the project and in the children’s reflections, ‘If I need an idea I know I can think about the other books I’ve read and adapt them’, whilst another child’s intention is to, ‘read lots of different types of books – picture books and on-picture books – at first they can help

Bearne, E., Chamberlain, L., Cremin, T. & Mottram, M. (2010) Teaching Writing Effectively: Reviewing Practice, Leicester, UKLA. Bower, V. (2011) ‘Enhancing children’s writing’, Creative ways to teach Literacy, London, Sage.

Clark, C and Poulton, L. (2011) Book ownership and its relation to reading enjoyment, attitudes, behaviour and attainment, London, National Literacy Trust.

Clark, C. (2014) Children’s and Young People’s Writing in 2013, London, National Literacy Trust.

Cremin, T., Bearne, E., Mottram, M. & Goodwin, P. (2009) ‘Primary teachers as readers’, English in Education, 42 (1), pp.8-23.

Fisher, R. (2006) ‘Whose writing is it anyway?’, Cambridge Journal of Education, Vol 36, No 2, pp. 193 - 206.

Ofsted (2005) English 2000-2005: A review of inspection evidence, London, Ofsted.

Ofsted (2009) English at the Crossroads, 080247, London, Ofsted.

Morrow, L. M. (2005). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write (5th ed.). Boston, Allyn and Bacon.

Paquette, K. (2007) ‘Encouraging Primary Students’ Writing through Children’s Literature’, Early Childhood Education Journal, (35), 2.

www.booktrust.org.uk/programmes/primary/the-write-book The toolkit contains links to Book Trust’s Book finder, information on how to arrange a writer visit, fun workshop films from children’s authors Tony Bradman and Sarah McIntyre and six free and exclusive one hour writers’ workshops to run in your classroom.

Thank you to the schools who took part in the Write Book project and whose work and responses are shared in the article.

• Heaton Park Primary School in Bury, Lancashire • Sandringham Primary School in Newham, London • Claremont Primary School in Cricklewood, London • Swaythling Primary School in Southampton, Hampshire Further reading:

Dr Liz Chamberlain is a Senior Lecturer in the Education and Language Studies Faculty of the Open University where she is Head of Qualifications for the Education Studies (Primary) degree. Liz is a Trustee of the United Kingdom Literacy Association and Chair of its International sub-committee.

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‘Learning about language when stakes are high‘ Part one: Focus on Language, Reading Development and Testing – this was published in the previous edition of Primary First (October, 2015)

Part two: Part two: Focus on Language Development and Knowledge about Grammar – in the second part of the lecture David Reedy examined productive ways of approaching the teaching of grammar in the primary years and its contribution to the development of writing skills.

The Christian Schiller memorial lecture 2014 by David Reedy

Knowledge about language and grammar – beyond labelling.

I am going to start the second area that I want to examine, grammar knowledge, with another quote from Schiller (1948). It is about mathematics but you can substitute grammar and it still makes complete sense.

Young children grow in their power of using number through experience, doing and living through actual experiences (using the generalisation of language), and finally they grow to perceive the idea of relationships between numbers, and the generalisation of mathematics. (p.14) If we substitute grammar it comes out something like this: Young children grow in their power of using grammar through experience, doing and living through actual experiences (using the generalisation of language), and finally they grow to perceive explicitly the idea of relationships between words and sentences.

It is by using language in real contexts that children develop their use of grammatical structures, sentences, and parts of text which go together to make meaning, whether in writing or when you’re reading. And then this implicit understanding can be made explicit and help children to understand what a language user does to make meaning clear to others.

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12 Even if children can answer this question, and from If we look at the new national curriculum for Primary what teachers tell me almost all of them can, we need Schools in England, English is by far the biggest section. to ask what the educational consequences are for the It has two extensive appendices - one for grammar and teaching which enables them to do so. What are the one for spelling - which lay out exactly what it is that intended educational outcomes here? It’s not about putting teachers and children should know, and understand, and grammar to use and helping children to understand how be able to label in terms of grammar. Some of these are it informs their choices as a writer to pretty straightforward , particularly For me, the problem with these make their writing more effective. for 6 and 7 year olds; sentence, It is solely about labelling and word, capital letter, noun, verb for endless lists of grammatical identification as an end in itself. example, but as we go slightly terminology is that they serve further up the age range, there to complicate matters. Native This question is based on the previous are terms such as subordination by speakers of a language can use all National Curriculum. The new National subordinate clauses which need to Curriculum is more challenging. On of the grammatical forms that are be understood by 8 year olds and listed in the curriculum as a matter the DFE website you will find some then we begin to see an obsession sample questions for the more of course. What becomes the with pronouns ! Terms for 10 year challenging test to be introduced in challenge is labelling them. olds include modality, cohesion, 2016. Here is one: ambiguity, ellipsis, reflexive Which of the sentences uses pronouns, and relative pronouns. There are seven different the word ‘before’ as a preposition and which as a types of pronoun and I don’t think I’m alone in not being subordinating conjunction? able to remember the names of all seven without looking • We left the cinema before the end of the film them up.

• The train ticket is cheaper before 9:00 in the morning In my experience, when you talk about grammar, • I brush my teeth before I have breakfast particularly, with teachers they get a bit nervous and start thinking, “I hope he’s not going to ask me about what a reflexive pronoun is because I haven’t got a clue.” But as soon as you point out that reflexive pronouns are pronouns such as yourself, myself, ourselves and so on they realize they happily use them all the time. It is the terminology that is the issue, not the use of the grammatical form.

For me, the problem with these endless lists of grammatical terminology is that they serve to complicate matters. Native speakers of a language can use all of the grammatical forms that are listed in the curriculum as a matter of course. What becomes the challenge is labelling them. And that is exactly what the recently introduced grammar test for 11 year olds in England does. It asks children to label grammatical forms.

This is a sample question from the 2013 test: Which sentence contains two verbs? Tick one.

• The lambs played happily • The cows sleep in the field • The puppies growl and bark • The horses eat grass and hay

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Before we decide which of these sentences has a preposition which is a subordinating conjunction, let’s read the sentence, We left the cinema before the end of the film. That’s a story in itself, isn’t it? Why on earth did we leave the cinema before the end of the film - was it rubbish? Or were we shocked and horrified by it? That’s a much more interesting question to consider than whether it has a subordinating conjunction. Let’s read the next one.

The train ticket is cheaper before 9:00 in the morning.

Where is that railway line. I wonder? Where do you go where the train tickets are cheaper during the rush hour? I think we need to know.

The last sentence is even stranger, I brushed my teeth before I had breakfast. Why would you do such a thing?

So, I’m completely distracted now from worrying about identifying and naming conjunctions.

Grammar teaching and the development of language What can educators do to counter such daftness? Well, firstly we can make the educational argument, based on evidence, and this is as clear here as the evidence about the phonics check.

The preeminent person in the field in this country is Debra Myhill, Professor of Education at the University of Exeter.

Professor Myhill has conducted a considerable amount of research into grammar teaching, and how grammar teaching can be productive and help young people to get better at using language. This is what she says: The grammar test is totally decontextualised; it just asks children to do particular things, such as identifying a noun.

But 50 years of research has consistently shown that there is no relationship between doing that kind of work and what pupils do in their writing.’(TES, 5 April 2013) Recent research, particularly Professor Myhill’s, suggests that there is a way of teaching about grammar that does make a difference. Eve Bearne and I have written a book called Teaching Grammar Effectively in Primary Schools (published by UKLA). In our book, drawing on Professor Myhill’s work amongst others, we outline an evidence-based process regarding the explicit teaching of grammar in context which is flexible. It starts with reading and investigation; looking at a text and reading it, thinking about it, responding to it, and then beginning to investigate how particular grammatical features are utilized in order to make that text do its job well. Then the next stage is explicit teaching, drawing attention to the grammatical feature, and applying the appropriate terminology. After that there is discussion and experimentation then, finally, using that knowledge and understanding gained to make controlled writing choices, or to deepen understanding of what an author has done in their writing. So, how can we do that?

Here is a simple example. Let us take a straightforward sentence: The boy went down the road.

We could ask children to think of alternatives for the word ‘went’ which would be a bit more descriptive of how the boy went down the road. Children might suggest skipped or staggered or sprinted.

If we change the verb to skipped, we can then ask what is the effect on the reader. First of all the reader has a much clearer picture of how the boy is moving. In addition the reader begins to make inferences about mood. If the boy is skipping then perhaps he is happy. He might be looking forward to an exciting event or something good has just happened. Children can choose different verbs and role

play being the boy, investigating the effect on movement and mood as they do so, deepening their understanding of how choice of verb creates particular effects and meaning when they are writing.

Writing is about choices. This kind of activity helps children to understand the implications of the choices they make in their writing when they are choosing verbs. Seven year old children (and older) really like this activity where they think about different verbs that could go into a sentence like this one, then role play their sentences and think about the difference a different verb choice makes on the reader. This leads to thinking about the choices that a writer has when even just a simple thing as changing the verb in the sentence makes such a difference to meaning and mood. As a result, the children are able to make informed writing choices in the verbs they use, and in addition, the insights have been engendered in an interesting, playful way.

Here is another, more advanced, example. This is a passage from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places. The first few doors they tried led only into spare bedrooms, as everyone expected they would; but soon they came to a very long room full of pictures. And there they found a suit of armour; and after that was a room all hung with green, with a harp in one corner; and then came three steps down and five steps up, and a kind of little upstairs hall and a door that led out onto a balcony, and then a whole series of rooms that led into each other and were lined with books – most of them very old books and some bigger than a bible in a church. And shortly after that they looked into a room that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has a looking glass in the door. There was nothing else in the room at all except a dead bluebottle on the window sill.

“Nothing there!” said Peter, and they all trooped out again-except Lucy.

Read the passage and consider your response to it - both in terms of meaning as well as what you think about it as a piece of crafted writing.

Initial reactions to this from teachers include such statements as:

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14 I am not sure the author would do very well in KS2 writing SATs - he’s got a preposition at the end of a phrase, and he’s got too many sentences beginning with and.

In a close reading of this passage, one of the things that stands out is a lot of breathless action as the four children hurry around the house going from room to room and that there are so many ands. We then have to ask the question why. Why has C.S Lewis chosen to do that and what is the effect of these ands?

A lot of the received wisdom that teachers draw on about using conjunctions is that when writing one should vary the conjunctions one uses. Certainly, to be judged as reaching an acceptable standard by the age of 11 children would be expected to use a range and teachers would probably underline the ands in the passage with a recommendation for a bit of redrafting! However I think this is a very useful passage for demonstrating how a particular writer has chosen to do the exact opposite of the received wisdom for a particular effect. The effect created for me as a reader of those ands and the length of the third sentence, is an image of an excited group of children rushing from room to room.

By looking at such passages with children, in the context of reading and reflecting on whole books such as The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe we can help children to understand how authors vary words and sentences to create effect and how the sentence structure influences the meaning. In this example we have the repetition of ands emphasizing the rushing from room to room, seeing the contents in every room, but still quickly moving onto the next one.

But also there is that really long third sentence, followed by a shorter one, and then again a slightly shorter one.

Why has the author chosen to do this? I think it is to subtly draw attention to a particular room, and to say, “Look, you might not realize it as you read this quite quickly, but actually, we’re going to come back to this room.” Thus looking closely at this extract as a whole, and considering aspects of the grammatical choices the author has made the compound and complex sentences as well as the use of conjunctions - we can help them to understand that the composing of writing is essentially about choices. Writers make particular choices to create particular effects on the reader and to achieve the purpose of their writing.

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When discussing passages in this way it is enormously helpful to have a precise vocabulary, and that is where grammatical terminology comes in. We can use terms such as conjunction, compound and complex sentences which enables us to talk and think about what those choices might be. Thus we begin to think about how an explicit knowledge about grammar is quite helpful to us as readers and writers. We experience the effect through reading and discussing text and reflecting on the effect that text has on me as a reader, and then consider how I can use this grammatical understanding as a writer.

Writing and the centrality of choice It is the supreme expression of being an individual; to make a choice. Being able to choose depends not only on having the opportunity to choose, it depends on having the capacity to choose. You cannot choose between the Fifth and Sixth Symphony of Beethoven if you are familiar with neither. (Schiller, 1965, p.70) Schiller is clear about the centrality of choice and, of course, making informed choices is absolutely central to what it is to be a writer. But the second part of this quote is equally important in the insight it gives us about the writing process. What we need to do as teachers is to ensure that children develop not only the understanding that it is about choice, but having the capacity to make those choices. We do that by ensuring children look closely at texts themselves, and learn from what writers do. We offer them a language to talk about writing - a metalanguage – to explore what they might do themselves as writers and then that understanding can inform the choices young writers make in their own writing.

We learn through experience, but we don’t learn by merely being exposed to experience – like a flash photograph. Learning comes when we turn over an experience in our mind; we begin to think about it, and usually we want to tell somebody about it – usually a friend – to explain, relive it, select from it, evaluate it and gradually absorb it, assimilate it, digest it – until it has become part of ourselves.

(Schiller, 1975, p.94) This final quote from Schiller emphasizes the importance of talk at the heart of learning and therefore an effective pedagogy, a crucial insight which links with more recent research by Robin Alexander on dialogic teaching and Neil

Mercer’s work on exploratory talk. Schiller is emphasizing that it’s not just about experience. It’s actually being able to talk about, reflect on and learn from the experiences that have been going on.

Overview: towards principles, evidence and professional trust Thus back to my original title. What I have tried to demonstrate is that when stakes are high this undermines the well researched processes which are most effective in learning about language. We therefore need a fundamental review of the testing regime. This isn’t a new insight. This policy issue and what needs to be done was powerfully put by the Cambridge Primary Review after the 2010 general election in one of its policy priorities: Abandon the dogma that there is no alternative to SATs. Stop treating testing and assessment as synonymous.

Stop making Year 6 tests bear the triple burden of assessing pupils, evaluating schools and monitoring national performance. Abandon the naïve belief that testing of itself drives up standards. It doesn’t; good teaching does. Initiate wholesale assessment reform drawing on the wealth of alternative models now available, so that we can at last have systems of formative and summative assessment – in which tests certainly have a place – which do their jobs validly, reliably and without causing collateral damage.

That statement is even more relevant now than when it was formulated 4 years ago. The collateral damage continues to mount.

Finally what do I think is the legacy of Schiller? The key for me is the stress on children’s experience being at the centre of the education project, the centrality of talk at the heart of pedagogy, and the rejection of easy

answers and apparently simple solutions. Significantly, the trust in teachers to make a difference through their own decision-making, their expertise and experience of working with children, rather than seeing teachers as merely technicians. Schiller emphasized all of these and it is good to reminded of them and know that we continue to struggle for an education system based on principles and evidence which stretch back in a great tradition.

References Alexander, R. (2008) Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Teaching, 4th edn. Cambridge: Dialogos.

Alexander, R. (ed.) (2009) Children, their World, their Education: Final Report and Recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lewis, C.S. (1950) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Geoffrey Bles Myhill, D.A., Jones, S.M., Lines, H. & Watson, A. (2011) Re-thinking grammar: the impact of embedded grammar teaching on students’ writing and students’ metalinguistic understanding. Research Papers in Education 2 (27) pp.1-28.

Reedy, D. and Bearne, E. (2013) Teaching Grammar Effectively in Primary Classrooms. Leicester: United Kingdom Literacy Association.

Schiller, C (1984) In His Own Words. Moulton. National Association for Primary Education.

David Reedy is a co-Director of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust (CPRT) and an educational consultant with a particular interest in the area of literacy. (See http://cprtrust.org.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2014/06/POLICY-PRIORITIES-BRIEFINGrevised-2.pdf) Formerly Principal Primary Adviser for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham he is currently General Secretary of the United Kingdom Literacy Association.

David Reedy is a co-Director of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust (CPRT) and an educational consultant with a particular interest in the area of literacy. He is currently General Secretary of the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) and was Principal Primary Adviser for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

Christian Schiller ~ In his own words In response to many requests a reprint of the Schiller book in its original paperback format is available from the National Association for Primary Education ~ £4.95 + £1.00 P&P

Moulton College, Moulton, Northampton, NN3 7RR Tel: 01604 647646

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Reviews...

Learning {Re}imagined

by Graham Brown-Martin Published by Bloomsbury Academic

The Idiot Teacher by Gerard Holmes

A review by Amanda Nuttall

Published by Faber and Faber, 1952

Perhaps teachers no longer have personal libraries, the ephemeral and quickly forgotten digital book may have pushed them aside. But for those who cherish books as old friends and guides and want them there on the shelves to provide reassurance at times when noisy modern life demands all our attention this book is recommended. It’s a history book. The story of a school, Prestolee, and a brave head teacher, Teddy O’Neil, who took on the establishment of his day and ran a school which put the children first until his retirement in 1963.

The book is a reminder of how far we have come in the last 50 years and also how much further we have to go. The old order which Teddy O’Neil confronted and which he changed; “fold arms, hands on heads, sit up straight and listen, marching from the playground into school and canings if you got your sums wrong” has disappeared but too much remains and is actively encouraged even today by those who seek to turn the clock back.

O’Neil said, “The passing of examinations is not education. Ask her something which she does not know and see if she can find out.” Ring any bells? All you good people who are busy preparing the children for their next dose of national testing. Ring any bells?

This is an honest book, an historical document written in the language of its time and at times the words fall somewhat quaintly on our ears. Look beyond this at the ideas and practice of education which O’Neil pioneered and which helped to transform so many of our primary schools. The book will help you to meet today’s challenges and, if you are strong enough, to go on with his work.

Here he is again: “I believe the ability to find out and the desire to do so matter more than any limited load of information a child can carry, remember and repeat.” And that was written before technology put all the world at our fingertips.

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A review by John Coe

Recent years have seen a particular kind of ‘reimagining’ of primary schools in England: a new National Curriculum, the introduction of baseline assessment for children at the beginning of their very early school experiences, increased accountability for schools, and a greater emphasis on ‘rigorous’ assessments have all altered the purpose and direction of teaching and learning.

However, in this climate of rapid change what remains constant is the challenge of what and how to teach, considering the increasingly complex needs of learners in the 21st Century. In his book, Learning {Re}imagined, Graham Brown-Martin explores how some of these needs are being met as he presents us with alternative iterations of teaching and learning through the lens of digital technologies and the connected society.

The book does not simply inform or present new ideas; rather, it takes the reader on a journey around the world: from Ghana and India, where providing access to inexpensive technologies such as eReaders and mobile phones is transforming education; through England, America and Lebanon, where tablet computers are inspiring new ways to think about teaching and learning; to Qatar where technologies are being used to reach a ‘lost generation’ of children with special educational needs. The journey is paused at particularly salient points to invite the reader to stop a while and reflect on some of the issues around assessment, creativity, learning environments and the delivery of education.

The ‘big questions’ are brought to the forefront: What is education? What is the purpose? What is important?

For me, this prompted my own journey of reflection: to consider how schools and learning have been ‘reimagined’ in England so many times, and to question the distinct orientations of education which have dominated in recent years.

The industrial drivers of the 19th century saw a new approach to schooling which heralded the introduction of mass education for all, not just the privileged few. Whilst this increased accessibility to education phenomenally, the industrial model resulted in a highly regulated and regimented system driven by an apparent need for cheap, mass education which instilled obedience and a sense of ‘place’ for children. The ideologies involved in the spread of mass schooling can be seen in the quotation from politician Robert Lowe, largely responsible at the time for compulsory schooling in Britain, “We do not profess to give these children an education that will raise them above their station and business in life”.

In the 20th century, more ‘imaginative’ and progressive orientations of education, such as Montessori’s and Reggio’s European models of early education, led to attempts in England to steer education in a different direction. The influential Plowden Report in 1967 created a major space for ‘reimagining’ education which was underpinned by an appreciation of the natural growth of the child and the importance of creativity and the arts. Sadly, the political influences on education from the 1980s onwards have forced through another ‘reimagining’ of the English system, whereby there has 17

18 been a strong insistence at central policy level that the main purpose of education is to service the needs of the economy with schools viewed once more as a key component in producing ‘human capital’. The cultural norms and expectations established in early orientations of the education system remain endemic today, leading some educators, including Sir Ken Robinson, to alert us to the potentially enormous implications that 21st century challenges will have on such an ‘industrialised massconforming system of education’.

Dramatic changes in all areas of life have altered our understanding of the purpose of education and what a 21st century school might look like. The incredible pace of change means that over the past 30 years we have experienced ‘revolutions’ which have affected, in particular, our use of technology and it’s relation to knowledge and information, our social relationships and interactions, and the media and politics (Dalin and Rust, 1996). All of these changes have resulted in increasingly complex relationships between young people, the perceptions of social ‘norms’ and an education system which still revolves around the traditional principles founded two centuries ago. These big world changes require different approaches to learning which involve young people in problem solving, communication of ideas and creativity rather than the passive absorption of facts and regurgitation of a pre-determined set of knowledge. As Brown-Martin points out, “We are now on the precipice of what some call the third phase of the Industrial Revolution. The demands for economic development are ever more present and transformation revolves around the new technology platforms of digital data and surveillance, placing new and uncertain demands on human capital formation.”

This leads us to consider school change in its broader and longer term contexts – with the use of digital technologies being just one aspect worthy of examination. There are particular reasons here that demand exploration: firstly, that too many children ‘fail’ in school or are disengaged with education, and as such schools could do more to successfully educate all children and young people; and secondly, that schools are a 19th century invention and the modifications made to its basic form are still inadequate to prepare children and young people for citizenship, family life and work in the 21st century (Thomson, 2007).

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As educators we need to be alert to the potential for ‘disconnect’ between young people living in a modern and rapidly changing society and the education they receive. If current norms of schooling are at great odds with the new ways of our world, or the nature of young people and their lives, then major transformational change is called for. If we consider the primary National Curriculum, where do we find the connections and relevance to children’s daily lives right now, never mind the preparation for an unseen and unknown future? 100 years ago education was oriented to provide the essential skills for people to function according to the needs of society: good handwriting, grammar and spelling to communicate with paper and pen; mental arithmetic, multiplication tables and written methodologies to aid computation; knowledge of the British Empire to support communication overseas. If these subjects and skills are still stalwarts of the education we are providing our children, then we are equipping them to survive in a society which doesn’t even exist anymore.

In the current climate of competition between schools, high-stakes testing based on a narrow selection of testable knowledge and an increased focus on monitoring and accountability, it may be difficult for some teachers to see where the spaces and opportunities lie for them to be involved in the ‘re-imagining’ of education. The case studies presented by Brown-Martin, however, demonstrate that in pockets around the world some educators are engaging in re-evaluations of what learning and teaching might look like, and using digital technologies as a catalyst to re-structure and re-purpose education. John Schaar, political theorist, tells us, “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity then changes both the maker and the destination.” It is the responsibility of teachers and schools, then, to work together to shape and hold that vision of the future for education, to truly begin to meet the needs of our 21st century learners.

Amanda Nuttall is Associate Principal Lecturer at Leeds Trinity University. After thirteen years experience in Leeds schools teaching all ages of primary pupils Amanda joined the university in 2013. Her research interests include the gender attainment gap in reading and writing with particular reference to boys in deprived communities.

NAPE Dates for your diary To reserve your place: Email: nationaloffice@nape.org.uk Ring: 01604 647 646

Curriculum Festival Oxford Brookes University - 24th to 26th May The 25th will be a NAPE conference with the title, “Tools to tell a tale”. Pie Corbett. David Mitchell and Tim Rylands will be introducing a range of ideas and techniques in using technology to enhance literacy.

The Schiller Memorial lecture entitled Against the Odds will be given by Duncan Bathgate, Head of Bealings School.

Inspiring the Curriculum Leeds Trinity University - 24th June Keynote conference speakers Ruth Merttens and Tait Coles will be supported by workshops provided by leading practitioners in offering the excitement and challenge which is typical of successful primary education.

Computing and EdTech Kassam Stadium in Oxford - 20th October There will be a range of exciting presentations and workshops accompanied by a trade fair of over 50 exhibits to assist schools in providing and using computing resources to support learning.

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Is Handwriting Dead?

by Christopher Jarman

If handwriting is not dead then it is certainly lying down and faking things very well indeed.

I have three grandchildren between the ages of 14 and 24 and only the youngest, who has a journalist father, uses a pen to write by hand.

So in my family descendants only one out of three is at ease with handwriting. For most young people today it is a smartphone or tablet with which they communicate. In years to come unless all their texts and emails are herded somehow into the cloud, there may be no paper trails or any sign that they ever lived or thought.

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Recently, a man lost in the Australian bush wrote HELP in the sand to communicate with any aircraft that might fly overhead. It would have been deadly if he could not write.

In the future, autobiographers searching for clues to the private inner nature of a famous subject will have to be content with any relics of social media scraps or the digital archives of newspapers and magazines.

There is no guarantee that any of these will be left remaining after a couple of violent electrical storms or the terrorist hacking of central digital stores. Yes of course archives writen on paper can be destroyed, but in the past they were scattered in homes and institutions all over the place and have often survived in a way that centralised digital records may not. It is not a coincidence that during world war two, aircraft were placed in ‘Dispersals’ so that in the event of an attack those dispersed had more chance of surviving.

I am not concerned with any style of handwriting, but in the necessity to be able to write legibly and speedily in order to be a full member of society. It is possible that schools concentrating on teaching some particular form of joined up handwriting which became boring and fruitless to the pupils has something to do with its demise. It has become a subject which is notoriously difficult for many teachers to teach.

Thus it has often slipped further and further down the hierarchy of the curriculum by default. Personal writing by hand can be beautiful and expressive. It does not have to be boring or a chore. When did that idea happen? One has more power being able to write directly on paper, wood, or in the sand, without a keyboard or electricity. If handwriting is really dead, why is graffiti expanding with the popularity of pizza and skinny latte? It would seem that many youngsters actually yearn to write, but already don’t know how to do it very well. I believe that the lack of handwriting may well be a glitch in history, because a loss of the huge power of writing is such a hindrance to human desires that it will come back. In what form, we may not be able to forecast yet.

There is always the functional argument that people will always want to jot down shopping lists or reminder notes, but they are not communicating with anyone else. The social need to communicate is culturally more important. Even before writing developed, early man was drawing and making marks by hand to share experiences.

Christopher Jarman is a former head teacher, primary adviser and teacher trainer. He is a prolific author, publishing both fiction and non-fiction, and is a specialist with regard to the teaching of handwriting. His teaching scheme, The Development of Handwriting Skills is currently in use in many primary schools.

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Is Handwriting Dead?

by Rosemary Sassoon

Inevitably the usage of handwriting will decline, but that does not necessarily mean that it will disappear. It is such a basic human need to make one’s mark. Perhaps one day there will be a two tier society where one part can only communicate by the keyboard and the other will have wanted and succeeded in acquiring the skill of handwriting.

The quickest way to kill handwriting is to stop teaching it. Perhaps that is where the thinking should start.

Although the National Curriculum is absolutely clear in requiring the teaching of handwriting there is a very real danger that hard pressed schools do not devote sufficient time and attention to the vitally important skill. Furthermore, there are very few opportunities for the in-service training of teachers to supplement the one or two sessions offered in the crowded year of professional training.

This needs to be thought of from both angles not only from the teacher’s. From the pupil’s angle somehow the subject needs to be made simpler and somehow more palatable to acquire. Some children will always find that attaining the skill is difficult, while many more will find it a tiresome and unfulfilling one. They can too easily develop a real distaste for writing if teaching is too didactic, or they are constantly criticised for poor or untidy writing. This can prove a lasting problem. How can it be made easier to learn and more relevant to their future lives? These pupils will form the next generation who may well be those who further influence the demise of handwriting.

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Much of the problem is caused by the lack of proper teacher training. Too many lessons consist of handing out the same photocopiable sheet to a whole class, whether some pupils are past needing it while others are not yet ready. Pupils are set to copy an arbitrary model, with the emphasis on neatness. Handwriting is the most immediate way of communicating, straight from the mind via the hand to the paper.

Surely legibility is the first priority, and it is time that consideration should be focused on pupils developing, as soon as possible, a personal script that suits their hand and their character.

to actual letters may be needed. No one taught this better than the great Marion Richardson in the 1930s The current practice, adopted in some schemes, and some schools, of teaching joining from the very beginning, often even before the correct movement of individual letters is automated, is not a good idea.

Children need to be taught how to join individual letters but to join every letter to the next all at the time, is not necessary. Adults do not do it, and joining is only a matter of keeping your pen on the paper when proceeding from one letter to the next, lifting it every few letters to let the hand to move comfortably along the line.

Of course this is not the whole story. There will always be those who struggle and need more help, and there are the problems of posture, penhold and perhaps pain later on. This means that teachers need even more guidance However, none of this touches on the real problem of how to convince pupils and others that there will be a place and a need for the written trace in the future. How can we make them understand what will be lost if we throw away the

most immediate and personal form of communication?

It will come down to us all along with teachers and parents to save the written script. Discuss it with your pupils whatever their age, encourage and praise their efforts whatever their standard. Later on perhaps help them to design a signature and understand what making their mark really means, and what a deprivation the loss of the skill might mean to all of us.

Let me just pose a final thought. If we completely lose handwriting, will the lack of input from actually forming the letters adversely affect how some young children learn to read?

Rosemary Sassoon trained as a designer and scribe and has spent most of her life concerned with letterforms in some way. Currently she lives in New Zealand. In 1980 Rosemary became deeply concerned about the educational and medical problems experienced by children as they learn to write. She has written many books on the subject including Handwriting the Way to Teach It and Handwriting Problems in the Secondary School both published by Sage.

With time getting shorter and shorter, in an everchanging curriculum, it is all the more important for teachers to have an understanding of essentials. In handwriting you are training the hand to perform the correct movement of letters, not just to copy the shape. This involves the motor system. This means that once a movement is automated, correctly or incorrectly, it is in permanently. The correct movement of individual letters (point of entry and direction of stroke) is the most important thing to teach. This can best be done by dividing the letters into stroke related sequences. Taught thoroughly, one by one, from the very beginning, and half the battle is won. Capital letters can later be divided in the same way, and joins, even later on can be separated and taught from the easiest to the more complex. Experienced teachers have often told me that they teach the crossbar join from the letter ‘t’ in the word ‘the’ first. That seldom appears in schemes.

It must be accepted that not all children are ready at the age of four or five, to make the precise movements to form letters. Patterns as a preliminary 23

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Handwriting: STILL HERE

by Kate Gladstone

If technology kills handwriting (whose murder by keyboard has been regularly forecast since 1871), why do over 50,000 YouTube videos teach handwriting of innumerable forms: often to adults?

Searching Google for blogs on handwriting instruction and improvement reveals over 89,000,000 entries - many by adults improving their own and/or others’ handwriting: often providing samples of their efforts. Here is an example: www.hintsandechoes.wordpress.com/tag/italic-cursive/ This is odd, if handwriting is dead, dying, or unimportant.

More and more software (for tablets, smartphones, and newer laptops) accepts onscreen handwriting. Many notetaking apps hide or eliminate the keyboard, and Google now includes “Google Handwrite” for writing searches onscreen with a finger. (More on this, and how to activate it: www.tinyURL.com/GoogleHandwrite ). Software designers do not add such complex and sensitive features without public demand. (As a handwriting teacher, I hear increasingly from computer users wanting to write clearly enough for the machine to decipher.)

If handwriting approaches death, why do sales of handwriting supplies (such as pens and sticky notes) climb faster than inflation and population growth?

If student handwriting cannot matter, why do examinations increasingly require timed handwritten essays? Each year, I receive desperate calls and e-mails from parents - and from students, aged ten and up, who realize they must answer not just correctly, but decipherably and rapidly, by hand - a skill they know they were never taught, although their teachers and school administrators knew exam requirements.

If workplace handwriting cannot matter, why do I hear from people in trouble because information they scribbled for colleagues or employers cannot be read? Sometimes, one must write on the fly: a supervisor gives an assignment when you are far from your gadgets, or you are lost and must follow complex spoken directions to your goal, or your profession - journalist, therapist - requires watching a client, not a keyboard.

Research establishes that handwriting onscreen outspeeds typing onscreen (at least for writing at work, often while one must stand or walk), that handwriting on paper is faster still -

If handwriting is no longer done, why is it abundantly done generally badly - by doctors? So much handwriting continues to come from doctors that America’s largest pharmacy journal prints the very worst examples as its monthly puzzle-page: www.pharmacytimes.com/publications/issue/ departments/can-you-read-these-rxs

www.xploretech.com/news/write-this-down-handwritingtrumps-typing-on-rugged-tablets — and that notetaking with pen and paper leads to better retention of material than notetaking via keyboard: www.pss.sagepub.com/ content/25/6/1159

In the USA, the situation is extreme. For seven decades, handwriting has been presented to American schoolchildren as a jumble of mutually incongruous, highly accident-prone handwriting forms, requiring immense struggles to achieve bare adequacy. Thirty or forty years ago, while cumbersome

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models typically remained unquestioned, efforts required for their mastery became educationally unfashionable instead, children were to acquire such complex, execrably constructed models by “picking them up,” “incidental exposure”: in other words, neglect. (Classroom handwriting instruction was often cut to five or ten minutes a week.

This is ludicrously insufficient, particularly when more than one kind of handwriting is demanded: with the first kind clumsily designed, then rapidly supplanted by a dauntingly ornamented, seemingly unrelated variety requiring very different forms and motions.)

Thirty years of such teaching (or anti-teaching) have produced a generation whose members can seldom read (let alone write) the laborious cursive they (supposedly) learned at age seven or eight (which is decreasingly taught or used anyway). It is notorious in the USA that Americans under thirty-five can hardly ever read cursive of the hitherto conventional American kind (100% joined letters, and so on): making life unprecedentedly annoying for parents, college professors and employers. If handwriting dies, surely it dies fastest under such conditions - yet handwriting continues apace, despite teachers often acting as if they wished to hasten its death.

American teachers, bizarrely, often care less about whether their handwriting instruction actually works than about feeling good because they teach handwriting. One said, incredibly: “I feel handwriting must continue, especially in cursive as I feel we have always had it in America, because I feel like a true teacher when I teach the

handwriting I grew up with. When I look at handwriting that is different from American, but obviously faster, clearer, simpler to do - such as some of those handwriting books you showed me from England and other places - I feel sick and confused, as if everything I knew had disappeared. I feel this is not handwriting. It is obviously better in some objective, factual sense, but that doesn’t make it actually better, or even as good. Calling it real handwriting would feel like murdering my teachers, or murdering handwriting itself.” Such irrational attitudes (and the anti-teaching they create and support) would kill handwriting, if anything could - but handwriting, however dysfunctional, survives. Even the warped state in which it usually survives is making some teachers (and others) sick of the nonsense which has warped it. Having seen handwriting survive the worst imaginable treatment, they begin to realize it deserves better than off-target traditions diluted by ludicrous neglect.

Some of these awakeners are teachers or parents — most are neither, but are survivors of anti-teaching: finally discovering what was done to them, therefore seeking (like the bloggers I cited earlier) not just to keep our handwriting alive, but to make it worth keeping alive.

Kate Gladstone lives in Albany NY. She is an experienced and expert teacher of handwriting and has worked right across the US providing much needed assistance to people who have unreadable writing - in particular members of the medical profession. Kate has pioneered the design of instruction via educational software.

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Widely recognised as a leader in its field Widely recognisedas asaaleader leaderininitsitsfield field Widely recognised (and economically priced) (and priced) (and economically economically priced).

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DEVELOPING DEVELOPING HANDWRITING HANDWRITING HANDWRITING SKILLS SKILLS SKILLS

A Premature Obituary

TeachersResource Resource Book Book with with full full set set of of 12 Teachers Teachers Resource Book with full 12 workbooks copybooks for set of 12 workbooks andand copybooks workbooks and copybooks under fives upwards. for under fives upwards for under fives upwards The Resource Book contains 150 pages on

The resource Book contains 150 pages on the resource history ofBook handwriting, to doon and The contains things 150 pages the history of handwriting, things to do and interesting facts about the subject. are the history of handwriting, things toThere do and interesting facts about the subject.

There are 51 51 photocopiable copy the pages. interesting facts about subject. There are 51 photocopiable copy pages. photocopiable copy pages.

by John Coe

The (£55.00 NAPE members) includes: The complete complete set set costs costs £65.00 £80 (£72.00 forfor NAPE members) andand includes: The complete £65.00 (£55.00 for NAPE members) and includes: Resourcebook bookfor forteachers teachers–- available available separately separately at at £30.00 £30.00 each each 1.1. AAResource 1.

A Resource book for teachers – available separately at £30.00 each Sixcopy copybooks books–- available available separately separately at at £4.00 £4.50 each each 2.2. Six 2. Six copy books – available separately at £4.00 each at £4.00 each Sixphotocopiable photocopiable workbooks books available separately 3.3. Six work –- available separately at £3.00 each 3. photocopiable work books – available separately at £3.00 each Six P&P on all orders £5.00 for orders up to £50 and £8.00 for larger orders.

Many of our children are convinced of this because the digital screen dominates their world of reading and communication. They are seldom separated from computers and the powerful phones and tablets they hold in their hands are taken into classrooms whenever we allow it. The technology is young and so are they and because the two are growing up together the speed and the dexterity of their keyboarding is astonishing to see. It is totally understandable that many of our children consider handwriting as profoundly unimportant.

All prices include post and packing All prices include post and packing For a sale or return pack contact: For a sale or return pack contact: NAPE at 01604 647646 For a sale or return pack contact: or NAPE at 01604 647646 NAPE at 01604 647646 FREEPOST or or NAPE MID 24319 FREEPOST FREEPOST Moulton NAPE MID 24319 NAPE MID 24319 Northampton NN3 7BR

Moulton, Moulton, Northampton NN3 7BR Email nationaloffice@nape.org.uk Northampton NN3 7BR

But is it? Perhaps from the standpoint of mature years we might at least be cautious about the abandonment of a human activity which for five thousand years has been at the heart of civilisation. It is interesting that both Finland and the USA have hedged their bet. Finnish schools will

Email nationaloffice@nape.org.uk Email nationaloffice@nape.org.uk

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From next September Finland will no longer require its primary schools to teach handwriting.

The USA followed a similar path when the Common Core Standards initiative was offered to all states and carried with it the opportunity to abandon the teaching of handwriting. Is this the final triumph of the computer keyboard?

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be able to teach handwriting if they choose and although 45 American states have accepted the no handwriting line, ultimately the choice remains with the schools.

The position in the UK is that the now declining national curriculum continues to require the teaching of handwriting with the emphasis correctly placed on Key Stage 1. How far that teaching has survived the heavy political pressure to deliver good performance in national testing is open to question, research is needed. Governments have a somewhat naive belief that what they specify should be taught is invariably received by the children. What actually happens in every primary classroom is directed by one person only... the teacher.

So in this fast changing world in which the grip of the computer grows ever tighter and the children, let alone governments, question the relevance of handwriting what should we do?

First we must consider the evidence of the value of handwriting to our lives as adults. Few would doubt the universality of experience, almost every day we write by hand to communicate with others or to keep a note for ourselves. And if we wish to retain what we read, there

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There is much neurological research which confirms that the physical act of shaping the letters imprints data and understanding on the mind.

Children are helped in the vital task of learning to read.

Again there is sound evidence that shaping the letters helps the young writer to grasp alphabetic discourse. (1) This is why the experience of making patterns and correct letter shapes is such a vital element of early education.

Handwriting which demands the interplay of hand, eye and mind is a complex task. Research confirms the cognitive gains which accrue to the individual when learning to write (2) and there are many primary schools which have shown this to be true through the handwritten personal books which children make to record their experience and their interpretation of that experience.

Schools attest that attention to clearly legible writing pays off in many other fields of learning. (3) Learning to write requires concentration and careful attention to detail and these are desirable traits that children carry over to every aspect of their work. It should be noted also that learning how to learn is a vitally important part of the primary curriculum and handwriting plays its essential part.

Purely pragmatically we should consider the educational process that a majority of children will meet in secondary education. Taking lesson notes and answering examination questions almost always require handwriting which is legible not only to the writer but to the teacher. Already there are accounts of children who, never having been taught to write, can only print and, even worse, they cannot read handwriting. Research indicates that a high proportion of such pupils have lost marks because their examination answers are impossible to read.

Perhaps technological advance will perfect a perfect marriage of handwriting and type... a programme which can read one’s personal writing and convert it to typing on the screen. The stylus and the finger across the screen are leading us in that direction.

For the present the choice by teachers should be based on the sure knowledge that the children’s lives and their future are enhanced by the undoubted gains which handwriting brings: improvement in motor and visual skills, hand and eye co-ordination, spatial awareness, hand and finger dexterity, cognitive function and brain development.

Not least in importance must be our awareness that not to be a part of our culture which includes the ability to write by hand would diminish the children... we must make sure that they never lose such a vitally important part of living.

References 1. Longcamp, M., Boucard, C., Gilhodes, J-C., Roth, M., Nazarian,B. and Velay, J-L. Learning through hand - or typewriting influences visual recognition of new graphical shapes: Behavioural imaging evidence. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 20. 5 802-815 2. James, H.J., and Engelhardt, L. The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience Education 2012 Dec 1 (1) 32-42.

3. Graham, S. and Santangelo, T, A meta - analysis of the effectiveness of teaching handwriting. Presented at “Handwriting in the 21st Century: An Educational Summit.” Washington DC January 23 2012

The Book Page by Carey Fluker Hunt Ask adults what they remember about learning to read and you’ll get some mixed results. But question them about the books they loved as children, and things will be different. From The Faraway Tree to Milly Molly Mandy via TV tie-ins and Dad’s tractor catalogue, their responses share an emotional depth that can be very moving.

Take some time to think about the special books that linger in your memory. What drew you to them? What did they offer your childhood self that made them so important?

And if you could return to them, now, with your adult eyes and heart and brain, what would you discover?

Maybe they were ephemeral, and didn’t really matter all that much. But maybe you’ll find that they’re a part of you; that they built you, piece by piece, into the adult you’ve become.

Whether you read voraciously or only ever watched TV, the stories you encountered when you were young will have marked you forever. And it’s not just the stories.

From poetry and biographies to manuals, dictionaries and comics, they’ll have shaped your world and peopled it; shown you other lives and points of view and helped you to connect. In short, they’ll have given you the words you need to think and talk and write and be.

So what should our role be, now, as adults working with young people? How can we help children to meet, explore and fall in love with the best books on the planet?

There are thousands of titles in print, and hundreds more appear each year. We need guides - people who know their stuff and love to share - but in a world of internet spending and funding cuts, it’s hard to get our hands on honest, real advice. Bookshops are closing at an unprecedented rate and our libraries are crumbling. Add this to a curriculum that squeezes reading-for-pleasure to its very margins and it’s no wonder that teachers and parents are struggling.

But if we’re convinced that books and stories really matter, that they have the power to affect children’s development, that the benefits they bring are lasting and immense, then shouldn’t we be doing more?

I think we should, but I think we need to act collectively.

The UK produces some of the best books in the world, and some of the best ‘book people’. Think of the dynamic and

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warm-hearted people you know, who spend their lives getting books into the hands of children and encouraging a lifelong love of reading. But their influence is piecemeal in a system that doesn’t prioritise quality reading-for-pleasure experiences. Our government must raise the status of these ‘book people’ and fund them properly. And we need to put books at the heart of each and every classroom in the country.

I can hear the politicians squawking as I write. But just for moment, can we pretend that this is possible, and that all we need to do is get on with it?

Forget the reading theories and the party ideologies. Forget the ticky boxes and the complex strategies. Let’s read with children, for the sheer pleasure of it - as well as all the other benefits that sneak in there and work their magic and let’s shout about it, loudly, so that everyone can share what’s going on.

Of course, there’ll need to be a plan, but we could always look to Michael Pollan for help. He’s the diet guru whose directive to eat food, not too much, and mostly vegetables strikes me as refreshing in a world of overload, and I’d like to propose that we adopt a similar approach.

1. Share books 2. As often as possible 3. Mostly good ones I’ll be back next issue. In the meantime, here’s something delicious to put at the heart of your classroom and enjoy.

Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver makes an exciting and whollyabsorbing read-aloud for 8-12’s, as well as an interesting starting-point for project work. Set in an imaginary Stone Age the book follows the fortunes of Torak, an orphaned boy, and Wolf, the cub that he befriends. Paver has always been fascinated by practical anthropology and during the writing process visited tribal communities to find out how they live.

The ideas she gleaned make Torak’s way of life seem very real, and as for the story – well, there’s enough magic and suspense and forever-friendships to satisfy any Harry Potter fan, and lots more besides. Try ‘dipping in’ and tempt your class with the beginning of chapter xx, then let them pick it up alone, or ‘go the whole hog’ and read the entire book aloud.

Carey Fluker Hunt is Creative Development Manager at Seven Stories ,the National Centre for Children’s Books based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Everything the Centre does celebrates children’s books, their creators and their readers. Carey writes in a personal capacity.

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The effects and costs of four years of the phonics check in primary schools

by Margaret M Clark

Introduction

Background

The phonics screening check has forty words, 20 pseudo words and 20 real words, to be read aloud to a teacher.

Since 2012 this has been administered in June to all children in Year 1 in England, aged five years nine months to six years nine months, and since 2013 again in Year 2 to children who failed to reach the pass mark of 32 out of 40. Each year the first 12 words have been pseudo words.

The pass mark has remained the same for all four years.

For the first two years it was revealed to the teachers in advance. In 2014 and 2015, with no explanation given for the change, it was revealed only after the completion of the testing, but before the results had been submitted. The results for 2015 were not available for the final research report from NFER funded by the DfE and published in June 2015, but were released in September 2015. As in previous years the DfE has published a number of tables with a breakdown of the results; yet again in 2015 with no table showing the important information of pass rate by month of birth. Each year I have requested and received a table with this information.

In Learning to be Literate: insights from research for policy and practice (Clark, 2014). I analysed the evidence for one best method of teaching reading, in particular synthetic phonics, the findings from the first two years testing, criticisms of the check and the two interim reports of the NFER three year research commissioned by the DfE. The revised edition of the book in 2016 will include information form the NFER final report, the results for 2015 and information on further expenditure by the DfE on phonics.

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There is a growing focus on pseudo words in classrooms in England as a consequence of the phonics check. In a series of articles I raised concern as to what perception of the critical features of written English this gives young children and their parents, including children who failed the check, even though they could already read with understanding. I expressed hope that research would report the voices of children and their parents; disappointingly there is still no such evidence. I noted the large gap in percentage pass between the youngest

and oldest children, a fact that is still being ignored by DfE. Yet over a third of the youngest boys were reported as failures within their first year in school. I drew atten tion to Sir Michael Wilshaw`s reference in his 2014 annual Ofsted report to the phonics check as one of the causes of improvements in primary schools. Already before the General Election in May 2014 the education minister Nick Gibb, one of the strongest advocates of synthetic phonics, was claiming not only that there was evidence for its success in improving reading standards but outlining further expenditure on synthetic phonics.

I suggested we should reserve judgement until the final report of the NFER three year research funded by DfE. On 19 October 2015 in a speech in The House of Commons Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Education, added her voice in support of this policy to quote from Column 680 of Hansard: `We have a relentless focus on academic standards, with 120,000 more 6 year olds on track to become confident readers thanks to our focus on phonics…`

DfE claims that, since the assessments were introduced in 2012, the proportion of year 1 pupils achieving the phonics standard has increased year on year and that in 2015, `77% of pupils met the expected standard of phonics decoding at the end of year 1. This compares with 58% in 2012`. This is no surprise as it has become a high stakes test, and there has been a focus in classrooms on achieving a pass on the check, including work with pseudo words. However, in the Press release on 24 September 2015 Schools Minister Nick Gibb went further claiming that the results show the focus on phonics is ensuring more children are becoming `confident inquisitive and fluent readers`, and `the minister said the introduction of the phonics check in 2012 helped to replace “ineffective methods” of teaching that meant children were being “denied the joy of reading”(Press release `Focus on phonics vindicated by results`, GOV.UK 24 September 2015).

I, and NFER, expressed concern at the spike in percentage of children achieving 32, the pass mark, in contrast to

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32 those scoring 31 during the first two years of the check, when the pass mark was known in advance to teachers.

In the final NFER report, to quote: `The spike implies that some pupils have been misclassified` (Walker et al 2015: 23). NFER estimated that 46 per cent, rather than 58 per cent of pupils would have been recorded as passing but for this `misclassification`. Although the pass mark has not been revealed in advance for the last two years, it has remained the same, and is known before the results have to be returned. In 2015, there is still a sharp increase in percentage of children scoring the pass mark with 1% scoring 31 (a fail) and 4% scoring 32, not a normal distribution on a test.

I enquired from the DfE as to the status of two of Nick Gibb`s proposed new initiatives on phonics with funding implications announced before the election, as he remained education minister in the Conservative Government elected in May 2014. The final report of the NFER three year research into the phonics check, held up because of the imminent General Election, was released in June. Here I will consider the NFER report, the results of the 2015 testing on the phonics check and recent further expenditure.

The phonics check evaluation: NFER Final Report This report provides an overview of participating schools` phonics teaching practices and explores whether there is any evidence that the introduction of the check has had an impact on the standard of reading and writing.

It also highlights changes in schools` practices since the introduction of the phonics check. The most recent round of data collection was immediately after the administration of the check in June 2014. Many of the findings were anticipated in the two interim reports. A cautionary note is sounded on page 7 that the study design did not permit a comparison group and that the phonics check was introduced as an addition to a number of phonics policies already in place.

Attainment in literacy: An important new finding in this final report is that it was possible to make a comparison of national results on the phonics check with results for the same pupils one year earlier on the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and one year later, at the end of key stage 1.

The evaluation did not find any evidence of improvements in pupils` literacy performance, or

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in progress, that could be clearly attributed to the introduction of the PSC. However, no conclusive statement can be made because of the methodological limitations (Walker et al. 2015:8).

Thus, there is still no research evidence that the check has affected the standard of literacy.

Phonics teaching practices and views on phonics teaching: The most frequently reported change in 2014 was an increase in the pace of phonics teaching and an increased focus on pseudo words. For those children who had not met the standard in 2013, the most frequent type of support was to continue with synthetic phonics teaching, rather than different approaches. Unfortunately the focus in the research was specifically on changes in phonics teaching practices and teachers do not seem spontaneously to have commented on the effects of the check on wider literacy practices in their classrooms.

On page 66, it is stated that, `there is little evidence to suggest that many schools are teaching, or have moved towards a position whereby they are teaching, systematic phonics `first and fast`, to the exclusion of other word reading strategies` as expected by the government. Almost all schools may be committed to teaching phonics, but they do not see this as` incompatible with the teaching of other decoding strategies`. It is a pity that questions were not asked of teachers to check whether they were clear on the distinction between synthetic phonics, that advocated by the government, and analytic phonics as their answers reveal that many teachers were not clear of this distinction.

Views on the value of the check: The evidence was that literacy coordinators were less favourably disposed to the check than teachers, and that fewer than 30 per cent agreed that the check provides valuable information for teachers, feeling that the check results do not reveal anything of which teachers were unaware.

Evidence from the case study schools suggests that there were differences between teachers in the criteria used to stop testing. For example some teachers would have ceased if the child became distressed, or distracted, others if a child got several words in a row incorrect (page 55). This could have meant that a child who refused to try pseudo words, which were the first twelve words, would not have had an opportunity to try

the real words later in the check. I learnt of an autistic child, who refused to attempt the pseudo words, but then went on to read all the real words correctly, still inevitably failing the check. Some teachers would have been unaware of this as they might have ceased the test before the child attempted the real words. My attention has since been drawn to research indicating that autistic children may score lower on tests of pseudo words than real words (Henderson et al, 2014). It is unfortunate that the guidance to teachers is not clearer, and that no diagnostic information is available from the check, for example on contrasting scores on real and pseudo words, since only pass/fail is recorded. You pass if you score 32; you fail if you score 31!

very worrying`. Her view is that, `children`s experience of reading instruction in their schools is still based on chance and not necessarily informed well enough by science and leading-edge practice`.

Communication with parents and carers about the check: There is disappointingly little information on this aspect. Although some parents/carers in the case study schools were interviewed there is no indication as to how many were interviewed, how they were selected, the questions they were asked or the answers they provided. There is little information on the type of information that was given to parents about how to support their children.

Two researches were funded by the DfE, the first at Sheffield Hallam University in 2011 to undertake a pilot study in 300 schools to help plan the administration of the check: the other the three year NFER research discussed here.

Typologies of schools and results on the phonics check: Four typologies were identified from those schools most supportive of both synthetic phonics and the check to those less favourable. A strong enthusiasm for synthetic phonics and for the check amongst teachers tended to be associated with higher phonics attainment as measured by the check but not with an improved performance in reading and writing assessment at the end of KS1. (italics added).

*Using the Freedom of Information Act I established that ÂŁ46 million was spent on matched-funding by schools and the DfE over an eighteen month period for commercial material and training in synthetic phonics and which schemes had been purchased. Many schools would have purchased further commercial materials and training packages before or beyond that period.

Final conclusion: On page 67: There were no improvements in attainment or in progress that could clearly be attributed to the introduction of the check, nor any identifiable impact on pupil progress in literacy for learners with different levels of prior attainment.

See also the NFER blog by Matt Walker, `The truth about the Phonics Screening Check` 6 August 2015. Following this information an article by Debbie Hepplewhite appeared online in SEN Magazine on 23 July 2015 under the title `Phonics: politics and practice`. She expresses concern that, `To date not all schools apply the systematic phonics teaching principles in full, which is

Expenditure on the Phonics Check and related initiatives over the period 2012-2015 It is possible to estimate the costs of only some aspects of the phonics check. Under the Freedom of Information Act I have requested some information not previously in the public domain. I acknowledge the help I received from DfE and the detailed answers prepared for me. The answers to these queries are indicated below with an asterisk.

One aspect that NFER was required to consider was the check`s value for money. However, only very limited aspects of the costs were covered, mainly the schools` estimate of the in-school costs.

*I learnt that the phonics partnership grants whereby the DfE was offering ÂŁ10,000 to a number of primary schools in England to become partners in promoting synthetics phonics in neighbouring schools announced before the General Election in May 2015 was going ahead. In his Press release on 14 August 2015 Nick Gibb announced the names of the schools, stating that the grants would be to develop models to improve phonics teaching that have potential to work for other schools. Head teachers have questioned this further ÂŁ80,000 expenditure on phonics on http://schoolsweek.co.uk. *Another proposal made before the election was that the phonics check might be extended and applied to children in Year 3 who had still failed the check in Year 2. To quote from the DfE reply to my query:

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Next summer there will be a voluntary pilot in 300 schools to extend the check to Y3 pupils who have not met the standard. This will be an opt-in pilot, so schools will not be forced to take part. This pilot will inform future decision-making on the screening check. Further details on the pilot will be released in due course, with schools signing-up in the new academic year ( DfE 29 June 2015).

This will cost a further £95,911. *Under the Freedom of Information Act I sought information on the costs of aspects of the phonics check between 2012 and 2015. I was informed that some of the information I requested is `reasonably accessible` in the evaluation report STA published on Gov.UK that sets out various costs: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonicsscreening-check-evaluation-final-report. This refers to the NFER final report.

The DfE replied to my other questions that: a) Over the years 2012 to 2015 the cost of the materials was £266,250. Only Year 1 children were tested in 2012. b) Distribution costs over the four years were: £718,500. c) Collation of results costs were: £101,000. This final figure only includes costs up to June 2015 and only refers to DfE expenditure.

literacy acquired by teachers trained in England.

The voices of the children and their parents?

How will this greater emphasis on phonics in the early stages, the isolated nature of much of their tuition in phonics, the new emphasis on pseudo words and the phonics check itself influence children`s understanding of the nature of literacy and attitude to reading? We need to interview children, those who passed the check, any who could read but failed the check, those who were required to re-sit the following year. To this I now add any children who are reluctant to read pseudo words but can read real words. Disturbingly in spite of the cost of this initiative, there is no diagnostic information, nor have we evidence of any effect on literacy attainment. Yet the government remains committed to the retention and indeed possible extensions of the phonics check and related initiatives.

References Clark, M. M. (2016) Learning to be Literate: insights from research for policy and practice. Revised Edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. First Edition 2014.

Henderson, L. M, Clarke, P. J and Snowling, M. J. (2014) `Reading comprehension impairments in Autism Spectrum Disorders`. L`année psychologique: Topics in Cognitive Psychology.114: 781- 799.

Hepplewhite, D. (2015) `Phonics: politics and practice`. 23 July 2015. http//www.senmagazine.co.uk.

d) The DfE had no information on costs to schools other than in the NFER report.

Walker, M. (2015) `The truth about the Phonics Screening Check`. The NFER Blog. 6 July.

e) The only payment to an external advisor recorded was in 2013 of £11,750 to University of Reading, `contracted to review the words and pseudo-words in the phonics screening check to validate their suitability`.

Walker, W., Sainsbury, M., Worth, J., Bamforth, H. and Betts, H. (2015) Phonics Screening Check Evaluation. Final Report. Research Report June 2015. National Foundation for Educational Research. Department for Education. This is downloadable from www.gov.uk/government/ publications.

Clearly these costs are only `the tip of the iceberg` as they do not take account of materials or training courses purchased before or after the match-funding initiative, other costs to the schools in administering the phonics check, or to local authorities in collating the results from schools. There will also have been considerable costs to institutions involved in training teachers, as they are required to give synthetic phonics a high profile. There appears to be no data on this expenditure, or on the effects of this requirement on the understanding of

(2015) Phonics screening check evaluation: Final report Technical appendices.

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Dr, Margaret Clark is Emeritus Professor at Newman University. Her varied career includes teaching in Scotland, Research Officer for the NFER, work as a Clinical Psychologist and teaching at Jordanhill College of Education. In 2015 Margaret won the UKLA Academic Book Award for her selfpublished Learning to be Literate: insights from research for policy and practice. A revised edition will be published by Routledge later in 2016.

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What is Education about?

by Geoffrey Marshall

I’m desperately concerned for our children, both now and in the future. Few question what is happening in our schools. The establishment seem to be agreed that, minor quibbles aside, all would be well if only the state sector could be like the private schools.

But within my lifetime many of our primary schools were the best in the world and visitors came from across the world. Innovation and initiative were welcomed and expected and education was an instinctive discipline, the foundation of our thinking. Each school built its own identity upon who was there and where they were.

People and place were what made them.

Children are expert learners. They have to be and they show it from birth. It’s what they do, with parents and teachers to help them. Schools should be where learning is enjoyed and celebrated for children to ‘grow in abundance,’ as Christian Schiller memorably put it.

Learning is a process which requires skills, just like any other process, skills which are improved with practice, founded upon choosing. Making wise choices is the most difficult of skills as we all know and it is fundamental to learning. Adults, knowing something of the available options, are there to help children choose but always within their capacity to choose.

Children’s learning begins by observing and contemplating first hand, concrete experience. With all the immediate reactions upon meeting something new there will eventually come one along the lines of ‘So what shall I do about it? How shall I respond?’ This is the beginning of choosing and of learning. It is the task of the adult to follow the child, ready to talk through the possibilities. Being alongside, reading the child, then becomes a prime skill of the teacher.

I know this is a simplistic description of learning and of being a teacher but it is sufficient to set it apart from

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today’s model of good practice. The teacher I have described is a world away from the super being, master of a problem class of youngsters, awed by his ability to impose and to instil the required information. The Secretary of State now promises a hit squad of ‘excellent teachers’ to show failing schools how to do it. But clearly, instilling information is not practising learning.

One is absorbed in helping a child to grow, the other is ingraining information.

I remember teaching a class of children who could be ‘difficult’: you needed to control to survive. Teachers still need to do that because in most schools children would rather be somewhere else only they know they will need a job when they leave and passing exams will help.

Teachers should not be blamed for what they have helped to create in schools today though many are happy enough to see themselves as the one who tells you what to know and how to pass exams. They are after all servants of the state employed to do that. They have become a function of targets, inputs and outcomes reducing the magic of learning to a set of instructions and measurements. There is no place here for children’s intuition, for choosing an alternative medium or discipline, or for simply doing something else. Their masters see no need to meet and learn about children, how they grow and think: they are immersed in sheaves of paper, sending them across the land to ensure all children everywhere perform to a standard in the way the Minister wishes.

What is it the Minister wishes? Looking back over the years you might think it difficult to know, but overall the message is the same. The Minister wants what is best for the politician; Education is a means to an end which is whatever the Cabinet decides it is. So it could be sex education, numeracy, racism, literacy, social mobility

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Teachers have to ensure that children know all about these because society requires it. Above all though, the nation wants young people fit for work, flexible to the needs of the employers’ market.

Education is no longer an unconditional ‘good’ like health.

I can speak of a time when my purpose was all about the rounded growth of the person, me with the doctor, the healthy mind and the healthy body. They go together in the makings of a person. Thank goodness the doctors’oath protects us. Their only concern is our health, not what it’s for. Education is too wide in its references to be described as being ‘for’ anything, rather it is an elemental aspect of life. Would anyone suggest that living is ‘for’ something?

Education is a process promoting a full life, one that makes the most of the experiences it offers. Inflating ‘training for a job’ to being its main purpose has been the triumph of capitalism these last fifty years Parents know that their children are unhappy at school.

It is not a place where they can follow their interests, especially when that might disrupt the routine of the day. Parents remember their school days where they learnt that school is to be endured for the sake of the future. So they feel guilty yet remain zealous supporters of what happens. Why is that? It’s because they know that the tests and the targets are all a means to an end which is otherwise unobtainable, so the children must manage as best they can. Many parents translate their responsibilities into an almost hysterical determination to grab a place in a ‘good’ school which makes no bones about its purpose being to give a ticket to the next stage on the treadmill. So finding a ‘good’ school is as easy and simplistic as reading the football scores and is done with the same intention. What’s top and how to get in?

It ought to be a monstrous crime to seize a young child barely out of babyhood and deliberately proceed to process it in a calculated programme preparing for an unpredictable future which can be of no interest to a young mind which by nature is only interested in the here and now. There can be no more effective way to confuse the mind of a child than to make it perform to a purpose which it doesn’t understand. But when there is a real need perceived and designed by children, they will achieve the most astonishing results, the envy of adults and such as only they can create.

What would happen if we went with children instead of against them, if we followed them, studied them, and helped them to become what they have the abilities to become? Children are devoted to learning. It’s what they do. We should be reading their needs, showing choices and helping them to respond to the concrete first hand experiences they meet. What would happen if children were given the fundamental right of a civilised life and encouraged to grow by developing their ability to make appropriate choices within their capacity to choose?

What would it be like if progress were measured by the growing sophistication of the choices made? Just suppose teachers became trusted professionals, expected to decide what has been achieved and what next should happen. What if knowledge became a product of the process of learning rather than the first requirement?

The NAPE I-Spy Programme ...a complete range of over 50 titles are available

Then as they matured children would begin to understand that their work leads naturally into subject disciplines each of which is of course embedded and was extracted from a concrete experience. They may well become a specialist but still their work will depend upon making wise choices, which of course is the foundation of democracy. How long must we wait before this is allowed to happen?

The National Association is delighted to make I-Spy books available to all schools.

The books are invaluable in enhancing and illuminating learning out of school.

Key Features • The complete range of over 50 titles are available • Priced at just £2.00 per book - 20% cheaper than list price (Min order quantity 10 per title) • Orders need to be paid for in advance by credit or debit card • Please note that the minimum order quantity is 10 per title to enjoy this special rate.

• Teacher Guides available on-line to assist in activity planning with project ideas, curriculum advice and higher level thinking - these guides will be made available progressively.

• Special I-Spy notebooks at 5 for £1 on qualifying orders, whilst stocks last.

• Post and Packing free on orders more than £30 • Next day order fulfilment received before 12pm

Post and Packing free on orders totalling more than £30.00. Next day delivery if orders received before 12 pm.

Geoffrey Marshall was a head teacher in Kent where the schools he led were recognised as embodying high standards through the use of teaching methods matched to the nature and in particular the creativity of children. He spent a year as a student working with Christian Schiller.

National Association for Primary Education

For further information and details of how and where to purchase please visit:

www.ispymichelin.com/nape-24-w.asp PrimaryFirst

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