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Cutting Edge New Approach to Improve Standards in 3R's
Dated: 02/09/2008
Cutting Edge New Approach to Improve Standards in 3R's
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls wrote to all primary school heads today as the Government announced it will redouble its efforts to raise standards for the one in five of 11 year olds who fail to reach the expected level in literacy and numeracy at Key Stage 2 using cutting edge intensive catch up programmes.
Mr Balls said today that he would extend nationally groundbreaking schemes to help children in danger of falling behind in reading, writing and maths.
In his letter to headteachers, Mr Balls said: “I know that like me, you will want to make sure that teaching of mathematics, reading and writing extends and excites all pupils and enables them to achieve the most of which they are capable.
“We will continue to encourage effective phonics-based teaching of early reading, and we have introduced new ‘Support for Writing’ materials. We also want to help you to give children extra help early on if they are in danger of slipping behind, so to do this, we are extending Every Child A Reader, and introducing Every Child A Writer and Every Child Counts.”
While the Government has halved the number of those failing to reach the expected levels since 1997, when about six in ten achieved the expected levels in English and Maths, effort now needs to be focused on the remaining 20 per cent, with early intervention at five, six, seven and eight for over 100,000 children a year by 2011 who need one to one tuition so they are ready for secondary school.
Groundbreaking programmes providing one to one tuition to children in danger of falling behind in writing and maths are being launched by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls this month, which the Government believes could put this country at the international cutting edge in boosting attainment in the 3Rs.
Mr Balls believes that while there have been unprecedented improvements in primary literacy and numeracy rates over the last decade, more needs to be done to raise the bar over the next decade. Intervening early is crucial to stop children falling behind, which can seriously handicap their whole education and working lives.
The Government is investing £169 million on these innovative programmes over the next three years. About 23,500 children will be covered by all programmes this month rising to over 100,000 by 2011. The three schemes, either starting or being expanded from this month, are:
- Every Child A Writer (ECAW) – being piloted in nine local authority areas, a total of 135 schools and 2,500 children, from this month and will be rolled out nationally by 2011 so that it covers over 45,000 children in up to 9,000 schools and 150 local authorities. Despite the improvements in numeracy and literacy over the last decade, writing lags behind early reading improvement rates.
- Every Child Counts (ECC) – being piloted in 21 local authorities from this month and then rolled out over the next two years, so that by 2010/11 30,000 children in 1,900 schools (105 local authorities) will be covered.
- Every Child A Reader (ECAR) – being expanded after a highly successful pilot. This year over 13,000 children will benefit from ECAR and by 2010/11 this will rise to 30,000 children in 3,000 schools (and 150 local authorities) a year struggling with early reading getting extra support. A recent report from the Institute of Education found that the pilot had been a huge success, with children getting higher than average results for their age.
The DCSF recognises that whilst standards have risen sharply over the last decade - following slow progress since the war – a step-change is required to achieve the Government’s ambitious targets.
Mr Balls said: “I believe we have a historic opportunity to make a crucial breakthrough in raising standards in the 3Rs which will make a difference to children throughout their lives. We cannot sit back and accept we can do no more to stop children falling behind year after year.
“By intervening early and using the kind of personalised tuition and support through trained teachers that parents want, we’re on the verge of something truly exciting happening in our classrooms which is supported at home.
“We are going to have to make a leap forward over the next decade, building on the significant increases we’ve had since 1997, if we are to achieve the world class education system I want to see and achieve the ambitious target of having at least 90 per cent of children achieving at or above the expected level in both English and maths at age 11, which I set out in our Children’s Plan. Achieving this target would have a massive impact on the standard of education in this country and make us a world leader.”
The £25 million Every Child A Writer scheme will provide intensive support to children falling behind in writing. The Every Child Counts programme will be piloted in 21 local authority areas and is being run in partnership with the Every Child A Chance Trust, a coalition of business partners and charitable trusts, as was the successful Every Child A Reader programme. Every Child Counts, like the established Every Child a Reader programme, focuses on the bottom 5% at Key Stage 1 and will mean that children struggling with early maths are given high quality intensive specialist support from trained teachers - 30,000 children a year will benefit from the scheme by 2010. ECAW is aimed at those schools that have the weakest writing results at the end of Key Stage 1 and typically about five or six children in a school would receive one to one tuition.
This year’s Key Stage 2 results show that while performance in reading continues to rise with 86% reaching the expected level at the end of primary school, writing is the area where pupils perform less well with 67% reaching the expected level. Boys are 14 percentage points behind girls at Key Stage 2 in writing.
All schools will get new teaching materials this term to help raise standards, but it is believed that one to one tuition will be crucial in ensuring a minority of children do not fall behind. The one to one Every Child A Writer tuition will be piloted in a total of 135 schools and each local authority will select and train five leading teachers to do the tuition and support class teachers.
Teachers will focus one to one, on the common problems that children display such as sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, text cohesion and being “creative” in their writing. The Writer pilot targets seven and eight year olds, an older group than Every Child Counts which is aimed at six year olds and Every Child A Reader aimed at five year olds. Once all three programmes are rolled out nationally there will be comprehensive catch up provision so children can build up progressively key 3Rs skills, if necessary mastering reading, then maths and then writing. An example of a common writing problem is that a pupil might use ‘and’ or ‘but’ to start every sentence. Experience shows that children may be able to read texts.
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