Tag: Press Release

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 19 September 2011.

The total funding available for the Pupil Premium is set to double and will rise to £1.25bn in 2012-13.

The Pupil Premium began to be allocated to schools this year and is targeting funding at pupils from low income families who generally do not achieve as well as pupils from more advantaged backgrounds. Government funding will support them in reaching their potential and help schools reduce educational inequalities.

Children’s Minister Sarah Teather confirmed that the total funding available for the Pupil Premium will be £1.25bn in 2012-13. This is a rise from £625m in 2011-12, and will rise again each year until 2014-15 when it will be worth £2.5bn.

Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

The amount the Government is making available through the Pupil Premium will double next year and I am delighted to announce this increase. It shows this Government’s commitment to reforming funding for schools to make it fairer for the most deprived children.

It is our responsibility to close the gulf in achievement, where the poorest children are almost three times less likely to leave school with five good GCSEs than their richer classmates.

This extra funding will help tackle inequality and make sure thousands of children get the extra support they need to succeed and reach their potential.

Per pupil allocations and how the Pupil Premium will be distributed in 2012-13 has not yet been finalised. This will be announced in due course.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 19 September 2011.

The government today announced a trial to offer vouchers for parenting classes to mothers and fathers of children under five. This is part of plans to increase support for parents to help them communicate better with their children, encourage good behaviour, and prevent problems developing later on.

The trial is likely to run in three or four areas of the country. The Government hopes to encourage demand for parenting classes and reduce the stigma of asking for information, advice and help with parenting.

Around three-quarters of parents say they want more information and support to help their parenting. The vouchers will potentially benefit parents from a wide range of backgrounds, not just those who may have significant problems, like drug or alcohol abuse. Many good and able parents still need information and advice in the early years of their child’s life.

Most parents will have accessed antenatal classes during pregnancy, which provide useful guidance and support. The trial will give parents similar access to parenting classes in the first five years of their child’s life, so that support does not stop when their baby is born but is available right through to when their child starts school.

Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

The Government should do all it can, without interfering in family life, to support parents to be the best they possibly can be.

The first few years of a child’s life can be the toughest period for parents’ relationships. And these early years are also the most crucial for healthy child development.

Parenting classes can be life-changing because they give parents the skills to manage challenging situations, give their children clear and firm boundaries and help them learn the consequences of their actions. This strengthens families and means children are better behaved, more respectful and can achieve more at school.

Increasing help, advice and support before a child reaches school age also reduces the likelihood of families needing more expensive support later on. It makes moral, social and economic sense.

The Government wants to make asking for parenting support the norm rather than the exception. The Government will work with organisations with an existing track record to test the supply and demand for universal parenting classes, as well as other products and services that support families in the earliest years of a child’s life.

Evidence shows that parents are the single most important influence on their child’s development. They can have a lasting and positive impact on their children’s emotional, physical and intellectual development.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 16 September 2011.

Study finds the short check is popular with pupils

Thousands of children will receive the extra support they need to become confident, fluent readers thanks to the Department for Education’s new phonics check, an independent study today reveals.

In a pilot, 43% of teachers said they had been able to pinpoint 6-year-old pupils with reading problems of which they were not previously aware.

Those children will now be given additional support to improve. The study of the pilot also found that:

• the majority of teachers found most aspects of the check appropriate;
• most pupils found the check to be a positive experience;
• it took on average between four and nine minutes for each pupil to complete.

The check, supported by three-quarters of parents in a survey by the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, was piloted in 300 schools this summer and will be rolled out across England next year. All Year 1 pupils will be screened between 18 and 22 June 2012. The check involves teachers taking pupils through a booklet of 40 words on a one-to-one basis.

If the pilot’s success rate is replicated when it is rolled out, thousands more teachers will be able to identify children who need extra reading help.

In this year’s tests for pupils leaving primary school:

• 1-in-6 11-year-olds did not reach the reading standard expected.
• 1-in-10 boys aged 11 can read no better than a 7-year-old.

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.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

Ensuring that every child leaves primary school as a fluent and confident reader is key to raising academic standards overall and is important in closing the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds. It is unacceptable that 10% of boys aged 11 can read no better than a 7-year-old.

The new check is based on a method that is internationally proven to help children learn to read and the evidence from the pilot is clear – thousands of 6-year-olds, who would otherwise slip through the net, will get the extra reading help they need to become good readers, to flourish at secondary school and to enjoy a lifetime’s love of reading.

This study finds that the check will be of real benefit to pupils but takes just a few minutes to carry out and is a positive experience for most children.

High-quality academic research from across the world shows that the systematic teaching of synthetic phonics is the best way to teach children to read, especially those aged 5 to 7.

The main findings of the study, carried out by the Centre for Education and Inclusion Research (CEIR) at Sheffield Hallam University for the Department for Education, are that:

• 43% of pilot schools were able to identify pupils with phonics problems of which they were not already aware.
• all aspects of the check were seen as appropriate by at least 74% of teachers.
• Three-quarters of pilot schools said the check assessed phonic decoding ability accurately. Most schools interviewed in the pilot also plan to use the results to inform their teaching and planning.
• Most teachers and pupils understood the purpose of the check correctly.
• More than 90% of teachers said the content of the check was suitable on most levels.
• 83% of teachers said the number of words was suitable; 80% said the type of vocabulary was suitable; and 74% thought the non-words used were suitable.
• The check took on average three hours for schools to prepare for the check, and 12-and-a-half hours to administer it.
• 65% of schools found the resources used to administer the check “straightforward” or “very straightforward” to manage.
• 89% of pilot schools said the guidance provided to them by the Department for Education was ‘useful’ or ‘very useful’.
• Pilot schools wanted detailed results of the check. Almost all 97% wanted pupil-level results and 88% wanted commentary on national-level results. Some 90% of schools wanted benchmarking data to help them set appropriate expectations for their pupils.
• The experience of the check was positive for most pupils. Some 62% of pilot schools felt the experience had been positive for all pupils, while 31% said it was neither positive nor negative.
• The check took on average between 4 and 9 minutes to complete per pupil.

Nick Gibb added:

Overall the report provides sufficient evidence to roll out the check nationally next year. There are also some helpful suggestions from teachers, and we will consider making some amendments to the check when it is introduced for all Year 1 pupils next summer.

The Department for Education is also launching a catalogue of approved phonics resources for teaching pupils and training teachers. Primary schools with Key Stage 1 pupils will be able to claim up to £3,000, if they match that funding, to spend on these approved materials.

Schools will decide which of the resources will help them to deliver high-quality phonics teaching for their pupils and will be able to buy products and training with the match-funding any time up to March 2013.

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 try new words working from sound alone, whereas those using analytic phonics are more dependent on having prior knowledge of families of words.

High-quality research evidence

In Clackmannanshire, Scotland, a seven-year study of the teaching of synthetic phonics to 300 children found they made more progress in reading and spelling than other children their age.

A 2005 Australian report, Teaching Reading, said:

The incontrovertible finding from the extensive body of local and international evidence-based literacy research is that for children during the early years of schooling (and subsequently if needed) to be able to link their knowledge of spoken language to their knowledge of written language, they must first master the alphabetic code – the system of grapheme-phoneme correspondences that link written words to their pronunciations. Because these are both foundational and essential skills for the development of competence in reading, writing and spelling, they must be taught explicitly, systematically, early and well.

The US National Reading Panel report of 2006 said:

Systematic synthetic phonics instruction had a positive and significant effect on disabled readers’ reading skills. These children improved substantially in their ability to read words and showed significant, albeit small, gains in their ability to process text as a result of systematic synthetic phonics instruction. This type of phonics instruction benefits both students with learning disabilities and low-achieving students who are not disabled. Moreover, systematic synthetic phonics instruction was significantly more effective in improving low socio-economic status (SES) children’s alphabetic knowledge and word reading skills than instructional approaches that were less focused on these initial reading skills… across all grade levels, systematic phonics instruction improved the ability of good readers to spell.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 15 September 2011.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

I am today announcing that the Standards and Testing Agency (STA), a new executive agency of the Department for Education, will commence operating on Monday 3rd October. The STA will be responsible for the development and delivery of all statutory assessments from early years to the end of Key Stage 3.

This work was previously carried out by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency, which – subject to the will of Parliament – will cease its final remaining functions in March 2012.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 12 September 2011.

All schools are now able to vary their school day to benefit their pupils.

Up until this September, if a local authority maintained school wanted to change its lunchtime, for example, by five minutes or extend its school hours, it had to go through a bureaucratic process which in some cases took up to three months. Foundation, foundation special, voluntary aided schools and academies were free from these restrictive regulations and so could already vary their school day.

Under the changes, which came into effect on 1 September 2011, the same freedoms are now extended to local authority maintained schools.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said:

We want to give teachers and heads more power over how they run their schools. It shouldn’t be central government or detailed regulation that determines the time a school day starts or the length of the school lunch break. Academies have already benefited from this freedom and used it to help their pupils with catch up lessons or extra-curricular activities. We want all schools to benefit from this freedom if they choose to do so.

Supporting the changes Russell Hobby, general secretary of the NAHT, said:

Longer school days can be one of the most powerful ways of bringing about school improvement. Carefully planned changes will be fine; heads are very aware of the needs of parents and their working lives.

Many academies have taken advantage of this freedom to vary their school day to provide extra-curricular activities or additional learning.

• ARK Academies across England have a longer school day both at primary and secondary level. At secondary level, this provides 31 hours of teaching per week, which allows for targeted catch up where needed as well as wider enrichment, extension and ‘masterclass’ activity – for example achieving the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) as an on-line course in the extended day flexible time.
• At the Milton Keynes Academy, students have a 30-hour week, with lessons from 8.30am – 3.20pm each day. This gives them five hours of extra learning per week and allows for all students to receive the equivalent of an hour of both literacy and numeracy every day.
• The West London Academy has extended the school day with an additional four hours teaching time per week.
• The Harefield Academy in Hillingdon, London, has used the freedom to structure the school day differently to accommodate its day boarders – young people who arrive very early and don’t go home sometimes until seven or eight at night. These are youngsters who have a particular talent in their sporting activity. During the day they have extra coaching and after school they catch up with their lessons; they do their homework, have their tea, and then they do more training.
• The JCB Academy in Staffordshire has hours that are more like business hours than normal schools and sixth form colleges. The curriculum encourages a structured and effective use of time, meaning that there should be very little – if any – homework in years 10 and 11 (sixth formers will have some homework, but probably less than other schools).
• Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation of Academies across London maximise learning and teaching time by extending the length of the school day.

Schools will still be expected to consult and to take account of the views of all interested parties before they implement any changes to the school day. They will be advised to consult and serve reasonable notice on their local authority, parents, pupils and staff, but free from national regulation being imposed on them.

The press release issued by the Department for Education on 8 September 2011.

Free schools, the cynics say, are cuckoos in the nest. They’re greedy interlopers, swallowing up the resources which should properly go to the existing family of schools.

The only children who’ll benefit, they say, are the rich. Because it’s the sharp-elbowed middle classes who’ve barged their way into these schools.

It’s a powerful argument. Which, nevertheless, has nothing to do with the facts. Free schools have been created to save children from being poorly served by other local schools, whether through poor standards or a desperate lack of places.

And the people behind them are crusaders for social justice who deserve all our thanks. Their principal opponents – like Tony Benn’s daughter, the Hon Melissa Benn, or Alastair Campbell’s partner Fiona Millar – tend to be well-connected media types from London’s most privileged circles.

But the free school I’m opening today in Enfield serves children from some of our least privileged neighbourhoods. Woodpecker Hall has been set up by a modest but inspirational headteacher who has devoted her life to helping children in need.

Patricia Sowter took over her first school, Cuckoo Hall, when it was in special measures and risked closure because it was so bad. Now it is one of England’s best, doing far better than the national average.

Two-thirds of pupils leave at age 11 performing as well as most 14-year-olds, though the school has twice as many pupils from poor homes as the national average.

Patricia has already helped turn round schools elsewhere in London and in Cambridgeshire. Now, under the Coalition, she is launching a new primary. So 450 more children can benefit from her traditional teaching, strong discipline and wonderful, loving, pastoral care.

Patricia’s is just one of 24 free schools opening this week, many set up by inspirational teachers like her. Sajjid Husain Raza, the son of a bus driver from Bradford who read science at Oxford, has gone back to his home town to open one for underprivileged children ambitious to follow in his footsteps.

In Norwich, a group led by another great teacher, Tania Sidney-Roberts, is launching one that will open from 8:15am to 5:45pm, 51 weeks a year, to give hard-pressed working parents a better deal.

By allowing teachers, not bureaucrats, to run schools, we have given the people who know most about education the chance to make an even bigger difference.

And by opening superb schools that bring smaller class sizes, longer hours and inspirational teaching, we force complacent local authorities to raise their game and improve all schools.