Teacher reading to class

Medway sees

An innovative learning method aimed at driving up reading standards in the classroom is being snubbed by the county’s primaries – despite pupils continuously falling behind.

Just 23 per cent – 99 out of 437 in Kent –have signed up for the new phonics products, which use sounds to help children learn to read, offered by the Department for Education.

And only 39 have booked phonics training for their staff.

In Medway, a dismal six per cent of schools – four out of 67 – signed up for the products, making it one of the worst areas for uptake in the country, despite falling well below average in primary reading standards.

Medway saw just 79 per cent of 11-year-olds gain the level four reading benchmark in last year’s SATs exams compared to 84 per cent nationally.

Kent also fell behind with 82 per cent reaching the expected level.

Both local authorities saw boys in particular struggling to reach standards, while girls excelled.

The Government launched the phonics scheme last September, offering to help schools pay for the products and training through match-funding in a bid to drive up standards.

The sound method is internationally proven to improve reading, especially among younger children.

While the Department for Education said figures for uptake in the county were likely to go up, schools minister Nick Gibb said he was concerned at the low number.

“This is a chance for schools to gain extra funding to improve reading standards so I am naturally concerned at the number of areas where few schools have not yet taken the opportunity to do so,” he said.

“The money is available until March next year so there is still time to claim it. But every week that goes by is another week that children are missing out on the best possible teaching of reading.

“This is an open invitation to all schools to improve the way they teach systematic synthetic phonics – the tried and tested method of improving the reading of all our children, especially the weakest.”

A spokeswoman at Kent County Council said the authority supported schools in raising reading standards and provided training through its own professional development programme, which included the use of phonics in primary schools which needed to improve.

“KCC is encouraging schools to take advantage of a range of support to improve the teaching of reading, including work with other schools; training provided by a range of providers, including the local authority; and the purchase of appropriate phonic teaching material and programmes.

“At the same time, KCC is working with schools in evaluating their current provision for the teaching of phonics and reading, and encourage them to access the match funding from outside providers if the schools feels this is appropriate.”

A Medway Council spokeswoman said schools made the decision on whether to buy resources from the Government.

“We know that several of our schools are planning to book or have already booked training as part of this offer, but because they haven’t yet completed this training and claimed their funding back they aren’t included in this snap shot of data,” she said.

“In addition, many Medway schools were also part of the Department for Education’s own Early Reading Development pilot, followed by the Communications, Language and Literacy Development programme and so already have many materials from the catalogue in use on a daily basis as well as an existing bank of resources to help pupils make good progress in reading.”

Phonics products teach children to recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes and identify sounds that different combinations of letters make.