NLT policy

Literacy under the Conservatives

10 Aug 2008

Over the course of the current parliamentary term the Conservative party has been developing policy on a range of issues. This has included raising educational achievement and literacy rates across the UK. The development of these policies has taken two distinct directions, with markedly different rhetoric and styles. The primary document, Breakthrough Britain, was released in 2006 by the Social Justice Policy Group (SJPG, led by Iain Duncan Smith). The document is fully researched and comprehensive, and addresses a full range of social issues. This was followed in 2007 by the first release from the Conservative party’s opportunity agenda, a series of documents that deal with a single specific issue in a more concise way. While presenting policy in concise documents is a necessary tool for engaging the electorate, the NLT is concerned that in the quest for accessibility, the opportunity agenda loses much of the empirical foundation of Breakthrough Britain.

Following the launch of Breakthrough Britain, the NLT released a summary that covered the main points relating to literacy, and highlighted the similarities to NLT projects.¹ The broad range of expert opinion and examples of good practice used ensured that the document was based on the knowledge of practitioners and policy makers who had the greatest expertise in the field. The importance and effectiveness of family literacy was both recognised and encouraged by the SJPG. Not only were the needs of children recognised but the problems that low parental literacy skills created were also discussed.² The policy recommendation that followed this discussion -family literacy classes- is something that the NLT and others have promoted as a tool not just for improved skills, but improving relationships and community cohesion.

Through its proposals to ‘create a culture of learning’, Breakthrough Britain not only seeks to address skills, but also emphasises vital issues such as reading for pleasure and family literacy. Reading for pleasure is fundamental to educational success and has wider benefits associated with health and wellbeing; however international comparisons often show that relatively few school children read for pleasure outside of school.³ The Conservative’s acknowledgement of reading for pleasure is particularly welcome within the current educational debate, as too often focus is placed entirely on phonics and the mechanics of reading.

In contrast to the holistic approach of Breakthrough Britain, the first release from the opportunity agenda entitled Raising the Bar: Closing the Gap focuses on school discipline, phonics and the creation of new schools, announcing single policies to deal with each of these issues. Assuming the documents are released for different audiences, the change of tone is understandable; however, the failure to properly assess issues in favour of headline statements in Raising the Bar: Closing the Gap results in a significant change of direction from the SJPG’s approach.

School discipline, phonics and school building programmes are all covered in a specific and direct style, which often fails to grasp the complexities behind the issues. The section on synthetic phonics encapsulates this approach. The Rose Review4 found synthetic phonics to be an effective way of teaching reading to young children. However, the Rose Review also states that the teaching of phonics needs to be systematic and be within a literature-rich environment. This encourages enjoyment of reading and does not disengage learners from education at an early age. The prevalence of disengagement among UK school children is recognised in most major policy releases, including Breakthrough Britain. However, comparatively, Raising the Bar fails to address this issue and instead positions phonics as the sole solution to the problem of low literacy.

In addition to the narrow and simplified focus on synthetic phonics as the solution to literacy problems, Raising the bar also pledges to, “get every child who is capable of doing so reading by the age of six”.5 Indicative of the forceful rhetoric of the document as a whole, a pledge that is designed to present a solution to a problem ignores much of the issue and instead concentrates on headline promises. Failing to realise synthetic phonics place within a broad and varied programme of learning will reinforce many of the negative attitudes that school children have towards reading.

The contrasting styles of the two Conservative releases appear to show a discussion within the party about future direction on education policy. Literacy is clearly seen as a vital component of a Conservative education system, however the approach is not yet defined. The NLT would welcome emphasis on the approach of Breakthrough Britain, and hopes this will form the backbone of Conservative literacy policy. To do this, the Conservatives need to move away from sensational promises and instead concentrate on carefully considered long-term solutions.

George Dugdale, Policy Adviser

[July 2008]

Downloadable version of this piece: Literacy under the Conservatives

References

1 http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/policy/Breakthrough.html

2 Social Justice Policy Group, Breakthrough Britain, p.350

3 NFER (2007) Progress in International Reading Literacy Study: readers and reading national report for England 2006
4 Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading (2006)

5 The Conservative Party Raising the Bar Closing the Gap, p 9.

Tags: Policy, Schools & teaching

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