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Rising to the Literacy Challenge – The Conservative Party Conference

7 Oct 2010

Rising to the Literacy Challenge: Conservative Party Conference

On 5 October the National Literacy Trust held a fringe debate at the Conservative Party Conference. We would like to thank Starbucks for their kind support and the panel members for their time and invaluable contributions.

The panel consisted of:

Nick Gibb, Minister for Schools

Gavin Barwell, MP for Croydon Central

Miriam Gross, Literary Editor and author of So Why Can’t They Read

Toby Young, Journalist and founder of The West London Free School

Jonathan Douglas, Director, National Literacy Trust (Chair)

Opening comments

To begin the discussion, Jonathan Douglas stated that despite a decade of unprecedented investment in the education system standards had stalled, so how would the new government rise to the literacy challenge. Nick Gibb MP spoke first saying the Government’s education policy was based on “three core principles: freedom, responsibility and fairness” and the combination of these would ensure higher standards. He also spoke more specifically about phonics, enjoyment of reading and a slimmed down national curriculum.

Miriam Gross said that while researching her recent study she had found poor literacy standards to be a “direct result” of the prescription of a “child-led” approach to learning in schools, and a lack of focus when teaching the basics. Toby Young expanded on this theme to say that many children are let down in school because they are not given the same standard of education as children at private school, and sometimes go without the cultural touchstones that allow effective progression through the education system.

Gavin Barwell also said the system had failed many students, and spoke of the long term problems of literacy problems including the 70% of children excluded from schools that have literacy problems. All four speakers agreed that the number one issue facing the education system was ensuring a system that guaranteed pupils from all backgrounds a high class education.

Synthetic Phonics

Much of the discussion focused on the specifics of teaching children to read in the first years of schooling. Three of the four speakers in particular stressed the importance of adopting synthetic phonics as standard practice as they felt it was the most effective way to teach literacy. Mr Gibb said that education professionals had overwhelmed pupils by using a mixture of whole word recognition and phonics. He felt that inconsistent teaching methods resulted in children “slipping through” the primary education system without first consolidating essential decoding skills needed for reading. 

Mr Gibb also emphasised that the need to acquire decoding “effortlessly” was absolutely vital. He also spoke of the need to screen for problems early and said for this reason the Government was planning to bring in a reading test for age six. Following a question from the audience expressing concern at overburdening children with tests, a concern that was shared by Gavin Barwell MP, the Minister agreed that a reading screen may be a more accurate descriptor of the plan.

Mr Barwell added that in order for parents to play a more active role in the development of their child’s literacy it was important to allow parents access to phonological training, or understanding of how phonics worked. The MP felt that as a parent he did not feel equipped with the technical skills to support his children’s phonological learning.

Ms Gross raised some concern about this, stating that schools had a duty to teach children to read and write effectively without relying on parents for support. Ms Gross supported Mr Gibb’s earlier assertion that teaching children how to decode through synthetic phonics at the age of five as key to achieving reading success.

School libraries and the enjoyment of reading

After talking passionately about the need to implement synthetic phonics, Mr Gibb went on to say that encouraging children to read and enjoy as many books as possible was an integral part of developing strong reading skills. All reading is valid and important and it is “the quantity not quality of the reading that makes the difference for children”.

Both the Schools Minister and Gavin Barwell spoke about the importance of parental engagement in developing this love of reading. Mr Barwell gave a personal example of a visit he received from a nursery teacher shortly before his eldest child entered nursery. When leaving the house the teacher turned to him and said “Can I just say how good it is to see all these books in your house? For me, that’s the single greatest predictor of how well a child will do in their time with us”.

Continuing on this theme the Schools Minister spoke about the school library being another central partner in achieving a nation of enthusiastic readers. Mr Gibb talked about the importance of libraries and the vital role they could play in children’s lives saying: “I would love to see a library in every school”. When questioned on how this could be made to happen the Minister admitted it ran counter to Government policy, but it was an area he would love to be lobbied on, before asserting “if people lobby, we will listen”.

Another question from the audience raised concern about how many teachers were not confident in their ability to teach reading.  The Postgraduate Certificate of Education was said to provide “minimal reading teaching” coupled with the fact that schools were cutting back on continuing professional development meant that teachers lacked the “toolkit” and support needed to teach reading comprehensively. In answering this question the minister agreed that this was a problem, and also said the country needs teachers with a deep knowledge of children’s literature. He said this currently wasn’t the case, citing research from the United Kingdom Literacy Association which found many teachers have a limited knowledge of children’s literature.

The curriculum and digital literacy

The topic of what should be in a curriculum was the third key theme to the discussion. Toby Young spoke with great enthusiasm about Ed Hirsch’s theory of “cultural literacy”. Mr Young asserted that reading comprehension requires not just formal decoding skills but also a wide-ranging background knowledge, which give you the requisite knowledge to understand society and the context of your studies. To illustrate this point Mr Young used the example of a young boy aged 11 who lived in Southwark but had not heard of the River Thames, saying that not only was this shocking, but it would mean this child wouldn’t be able to fully access any text which spoke of the Thames, for instance Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. 

Mr Young spoke about his plans for teaching at The West London Free School to be centred around a “core knowledge curriculum”, based on the “cultural literacy” theory. He felt that children needed to be equipped with cultural literacy in order to master literacy as a whole. He felt that there appeared to a “misguided generalisation” which deemed cultural literacy as “a curriculum of dead white males”. Mr Young asserted that the curriculum he had planned for his school was “a focused academic curriculum” which consists of eight academic GCSEs, including a modern foreign language and no BTECs or “soft-based” vocational subjects. He believes this will equip all the children in his school with the core skills and knowledge they will require.

In part in response to a question from Mr Young about the curriculum freedoms his school will have the Schools Minister stated that the new National Curriculum will be a hugely slimmed down document which will be available publicly in book shops and will guarantee a core offer rather than prescribing what must be taught.

Following a question about how new technologies would change the educational landscape Mr Gibb said getting young people to engage with technology was not an issue as they are becoming increasingly proficient in this area. He felt that it was more important for children to learn how to read fluently and get to grips with traditional books. Mr Barwell agreed but added the advancement of technology could have a far more profound impact on writing, and could one day lead to the demise of handwriting. This comment caused feverous discussion among the panel and the audience and was the perfect way to end such an interesting discussion.

Tags: Children, England, Families, Local Authorities, Northern Ireland, Policy, Schools & teaching, Scotland, Social inclusion, The home, Wales

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