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The press release issued by the Department for Education on 23 November 2010.

The 2010 Ofsted annual report published today shows that while generally across the schools sector the number of inspections this year resulting in an inadequate rating has doubled, academies have bucked the trend using their freedoms to raise standards across the board with more than ever being rated as outstanding.

Commenting on the report, Education Secretary Michael Gove, said:

This report shows us the real picture of our schools revealed by the new, more rigorous inspection regime. A worrying 576 schools, up from 360 last year, are either in special measures or have been given a notice to improve, with the number rated as inadequate in the last year twice as high as the year before. Even taking into account the new inspection system, this is simply unacceptable. No parent wants to send their child to a failing school and they shouldn’t have to.

There are also concerns in safeguarding, children’s homes and fostering. Whilst the vast majority of professionals in this area do an incredible job in very difficult circumstances delivering high-quality care, there are some areas that can be improved. The Munro review will look at child protection to help professionals get the support they need so that they are able to spend more time with children and families and less time on paperwork.

The report shows that solid leadership, high-quality teaching, freedoms over the curriculum and strong governance all add up to high standards and rapid improvements. Academy schools which have these freedoms have bucked the national trend and have seen an increase in the numbers getting the top Ofsted rating despite the new tougher inspections. That’s why our White Paper this week will outline further plans to make these freedoms a reality in as many schools as possible.

There has been a marked improvement in children’s services inspected and the best foster homes, children’s centres and social workers are turning around the life chances of some of society’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable people. There is a lot we can learn from and I’m determined that we will free up both the education and the children’s sectors so that professionals can learn from the best, adapting delivery to their local needs rather than having to follow a set system dictated from Whitehall.

Key points on academies in the report include:

• Academies are bucking the trend with 26 per cent being rated outstanding compared to 13 per cent of secondary schools nationally.
• The percentage of academies judged outstanding has increased since last year and the percentage judged inadequate has decreased despite the more demanding inspection framework. This is the opposite trend when compared with all schools.
• Academies are continuing to achieve big year-on-year above-national-average increases in their GCSEs, including English and mathematics results, which highlights the excellent progress they are making.

Commenting on the quality of teaching, Michael Gove said:

The biggest factor in raising standards in schools is the quality of its teachers. The best education systems in the world consistently draw their teachers from the top tier of graduates by academic ability and select them carefully to ensure they are taking only those people who combine the right personal and intellectual qualities.

There is consensus amongst the highest performing countries that the most important thing we can do for teachers is train them well and then throughout their professional career. Too much teacher training involves either teachers being told how to comply with government criteria, or what John Bangs called quite rightly ‘death by PowerPoint’.

Teachers need to learn from other teachers. I have been impressed by arguments that the way to ensure we have good continual professional development is by getting teachers to observe superb practitioners of the craft and to learn from them. Today’s Ofsted report is a ringing endorsement of this, highlighting how schools with outstanding teaching frequently have senior school staff monitoring lessons which allows others to learn from the best teachers. That’s why our White Paper tomorrow will outline plans to give schools more flexibility to do this by removing restrictions on the time heads and other senior staff are allowed to monitor lessons.

But this has to start right from the outset with initial teacher training, and the Ofsted report is also clear that teachers need more practical classroom training to back up their theoretical training. Our White Paper will also outline plans to ensure trainee teachers spend more time in hands-on learning in the classroom.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 22 November 2010.

All children will be given a phonics-based progress check in year 1 so teachers can identify those not at the expected level in reading and in need of extra support, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced today.

Mr Gove said too many primary school children were failing to reach the expected standard and that the short, light-touch test would be designed to assess how well year 1 pupils could read simple, decodable words. He added that the screening check would be based on systematic synthetic phonics as it was internationally proven to drive up basic reading skills from a young age.

Mr Gove said it would be administered by pupils’ teachers and would be designed to

• confirm whether individual pupils had grasped the basics of phonic decoding by the end of year 1
• identify those pupils who needed extra help, so the school can provide support.

Today the government is launching a public consultation to ask teachers, parents, professionals and the public to submit views on how the check might work. It will be piloted in summer 2011 and will take place nationally from summer 2012. To help schools select an effective synthetic phonics programme, the government has published the core criteria that define the key features of such programmes.

Michael Gove said:

A solid foundation in reading is crucial to a child’s success as they progress through primary school, into secondary school and then in later life.

But, in spite of the hard work of teachers and pupils, too many children are currently not reaching the expected reading levels at age 7 and age 11.

We are determined to raise literacy standards in our schools, especially of those not achieving the expected level – a light-touch phonics-based check will provide reassurance that children in year 1 have learned this important skill, will enable us to pinpoint those who are struggling at an early age and will give them the help they need before it is too late.

It will be impossible to drill for and will be a true gauge of a child’s reading skills.

Parents want to know how their children are reading and this will tell them.

On phonics, Schools Minister Nick Gibb, speaking on a visit to Elmhurst Primary School in Newham, London, said:

There is more to reading than phonics – but there is also a weight of evidence that systematic synthetic phonics, taught in the first years of a child’s education, gives children key building blocks they need to understand words, underpins children’s attainment of a good standard of reading and can inspire a lifetime love of reading.

The government is determined to raise the standard of reading in the first years of primary school so that children can master the basic decoding skills of reading early and then spend the rest of primary school reading to learn.

The fact is that alternative methods have left too many young people with poor literacy levels, especially among children of more disadvantaged families, and we are determined that every child can read to their full potential.

Provisional figures released earlier this year showed that in 2010:

• 15% of 7-year-olds failed to reach the expected level (level 2) in reading at key stage 1
• 19% of 11-year-olds did not achieve the expected level (level 4) in reading at key stage 2.

England has also slipped down the international table for reading in primary schools. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) of 10-year-olds saw England fall from third out of 35 countries in 2001 to 15th out of 40 countries in 2006.

Shahed Ahmed, the Headteacher of Elmhurst Primary – one of the schools where the check will be pre-trialled, said:

At Elmhurst Primary School we firmly believe that the best way to teach how to read in the early stages is through a rigorous, systematic, engaging phonics approach. I believe that all schools would benefit from taking this approach. It’s important that schools know for young children how good their phonics knowledge is.

An end-of-year-1 phonics check would encourage all schools to teach early reading properly through phonics, and they would then know then the strengths and weaknesses of their pupils.

Ruth Miskin, a leading authority on teaching children to read, said:

Despite numerous well-meaning initiatives over recent years, we still have 20% of children who are unable to access a secondary school curriculum. However, there are many determined heads who ensure that every child learns to read by 6- or 7-years-old. There is no reason why this success cannot be replicated across the whole country.

This reading check will help all headteachers focus their efforts upon the children who are most likely to slip through the net. If we catch these children early, they will have an equal opportunity to make the most of their education and lives.

Ofsted will inspect the teaching of reading and phonics in schools and the impact on pupils’ results, and on 14 November 2010 it published a report showing best practice in the teaching of phonics. The information provided from this test will allow Ofsted and schools to have a better conversation about each school’s teaching of phonics.

The government has also revised the core criteria that define the key features of an effective systematic synthetic phonics programme, to help schools in selecting a suitable programme. Publishers of products have been invited to submit new self-assessment forms for their products, assessing them against the new criteria.

Jan Tyson, headteacher at Turnfurlong Infants School in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, said:

Systematic synthetic phonics is key to teaching children reading and writing. It provides them with strategies to decode words, which is especially important because English is such a difficult language to learn with the many different ways to make the same sounds from different letters or combinations of letters.

How phonics works

Phonics focuses on sounds rather than, for example, having children try to recognise whole words.

In analytic phonics, words are broken down into their beginning and end parts, such as ‘str-‘ and ‘eet’, with an emphasis on ‘seeing’ the words and analogy with other words.

In synthetic phonics, children start by sequencing the individual sounds in words – for example, ‘s-t-r-ee-t’, with an emphasis on blending them together.

Once they have learned all these, they progress to reading books.

The ‘synthetic’ part comes from the word ‘synthesise’, meaning to assemble or blend together.

Children who learn using synthetic phonics are able to have a go at new words working from sound alone, whereas those using analytic phonics are more dependent on having prior knowledge of families of words.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 18 November 2010.

Responding to reports that 80 per cent of local authorities cannot guarantee they will fund their children’s centres at the same level in the next financial year as in the current year, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

We have ensured there is enough money in the system to maintain the network of Sure Start services. We have secured funding for free childcare for three- and four-year-olds as well as the most disadvantaged two-year-olds. As councils make their spending decisions in the coming months, I hope they recognise the priority the Government has placed on early education.

We know high-quality Early Years support can have a lasting impact on children’s lives, so we will expect local authorities to channel resources at those who will benefit most from the excellent support children’s centres can offer.