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10Oct2011
Something to write home about: How can literacy transform social mobility? National Literacy Trust at the Conservative Party Conference

Posted by Becca Wright

For the last of our party conference fringe events we visited Manchester. We were joined by Nick Gibb, Minister for Schools, Gavin Barwell MP and Usman Ali, Vice President for Education for the National Union of Students. The event came a few hours after Michael Gove’s address to conference delegates, which focused on the success of academies and free schools at secondary level. The discussion at our event was geared towards early interventions. It has been a recurring theme throughout our policy events, and highlights an area where significant policy changes are required.

Our discussion began with Gavin, the MP for Croydon Central. He believes that the differences in educational attainment between children of better off backgrounds is more of an issue than ever before. 40 years ago, there was a plethora of jobs available for unskilled workers. These opportunities are no longer available, so serious interventions are needed to rectify the divergence in children’s’ rates of development. Academic attainment is linked not only to the number of books within the home, but also a child’s access to books before they begin school, and the support they receive. The starting point for rectifying these differences must therefore be early intervention. Other insights from Gavin included innovation in library provision, with services tailored towards demand, plus extended opening hours during summer holidays; the recognition that there are fundamental differences between methods to engage boys and girls; and greater availability of support for parents, particularly in the form of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) provision.

The discussion of ESOL provision was then picked up by Usman. He refers to himself semi-ironically as the NUS’ ‘token Asian’, being the first Muslim Vice President of the National Union of Students. However, his presence in the NUS represents their widening participation mission, which has a knock on effect for enhancing social mobility. How should you communicate with your children? How do you know how to encourage your children? We need to empower parents to answer these questions with confidence. The NUS sees education as a means of increasing life chances. Not just helping move people up the ladder, but providing those who have fallen off the ladder with relevant assistance to seek a second chance at education. Usman gave the example of his mother, born in a generation when university education was only for the elite. She now wants to attend university as a mature student but is put off by the debt. People who are seeking a second chance at education need to know that there will be assistance available.

The Minister’s statement focused on phonics as a skill for decoding language and building the foundations for a child to read. He stressed that a child needs to learn to read, before they can read to learn. He compared the process of learning to read to learning to play the piano; one will have to learn scales before they can read from sight. In the same way, a child must learn phonetically and understand the composite parts of words, before they will be functionally literate. He highlighted a recently launched Government initiative, offering match-funding up to £3000 (namely, for a total spend of £6000) on phonics material, from a catalogue entitled ‘Importance of Phonics’, available on the DfE website. There will also be a phonics check for children aged 6, which will last no longer than 10 minutes. The test will be a mix of real and false words, to check a child’s decoding skills.

All three members of our panel agreed that there needs to be more knowledge about what to do to improve literacy; what parents can do, what teachers can do and what a child itself can do. The wider impact of literacy courses and the advantage in gaining qualifications later in life are not well publicised. There is currently an embarrassment threshold with asking for help; which we need to work to overcome.