Memorandum submitted by Elizabeth Nonweiler
SUMMARY
— The National Curriculum has contributed
to the likelihood that children receive a broad and balanced curriculum
and are taught essential skills.
— On the other hand, the large number
of documents containing detailed directives and guidance has been
damaging for the following reasons:
— There are too many local authority
consultants and advisors who, in effect, police schools' compliance
according to their own interpretation of government guidance and
legislation. The result is a climate of oppression and a stifling
of debate.
— Teachers feel overwhelmed and confused
by the number of government initiatives and the amount of detail
included in most of them.
— The initiatives teachers are expected
to follow are seldom based on sound evidence and they are sometimes
contradictory.
— Sometimes schools use resources and
training financed by government because they are free and automatically
delivered, and not because they believe they are better than those
provided by the private sector.
— Teachers are not well informed about
teaching methods and the results of relevant research.
— I have recommended that there is
a statutory National Curriculum that sets out broad principles
of what should be taught, but that government should not be involved
in the detail.
— If schools are to be given more freedom
to decide on teaching methods, there is need for a debate about
the best way to ensure that the methods chosen are effective.
INTRODUCTION
I am a consultant and trainer in the teaching
of reading. My qualifications for submitting evidence for this
inquiry are as follows:
— I have been a teacher in England
for over 30 years, and so I have relevant experience of education
both before and after the introduction of the National Curriculum
in 1988.
— I have personal experience of local
authority advisers using excessive pressure to enforce their interpretation
of government guidelines.
— I have expert knowledge of the effects
of government initiatives on the teaching of reading:
— As a teacher of young children and
of older students with difficulties in reading, I have considerable
and varied experience.
— As a consultant and trainer in the
teaching of reading, I meet teachers from a wide range of schools
and hear about their experiences and views.
— I have studied the teaching of reading
and how it has been influenced by government action, both informally
and formally, including post-graduate courses with the Open University.
— I have recently investigated the
impact of the new government programme, Letters and Sounds, and
written a review based on my findings.
— I am an active committee member of
the Reading Reform Foundation, a group that campaigns for reform
in the teaching of reading.
INFORMATION BASED
ON MY
EXPERIENCE AND
KNOWLEDGE
1. Before the National Curriculum, I found
that there was not enough structure or consistency in the curriculum
as a whole to ensure that nearly all children received a broad
and balanced education. I believe this situation improved overall
after the introduction of the National Curriculum. With specific
reference to the teaching of reading, before the National Curriculum
many teachers, including myself, were encouraged to use fashionable
methods such as "whole language", and the result of
this was that there were unnecessarily low standards in many schools.
2. However, after the introduction of the
National Curriculum, the government began to overload schools
with initiatives in the form of detailed guidance and directives.
This has caused several problems which I shall outline below.
3. Teachers came under increasing pressure
to teach according to interpretation of these initiatives by inspectors
and local authority advisors. I have heard this anecdotally from
many teachers.
4. I also have personal experience of it.
In 2004, I was not allowed by my local authority to teach children
consistently according to the principles of synthetic phonics.
I was told I must use the National Literacy Strategy (NLS) "searchlights".
These were interpreted as meaning that some children, who had
been labelled as "visual learners", must be encouraged
to guess words from picture clues instead of being encouraged
to use phonics. I was also told that I must use the government
programmes, Progression in Phonics (PiPs) and Playing with Sounds.
These programmes have now been withdrawn by Government and replaced
by the synthetic phonics programme, Letters and Sounds. In other
words, government initiatives were used as justification for preventing
me from teaching in a way that was later promoted through new
government initiatives.
5. This pressure continues to have harmful
effects. Many teachers are now resentful and cynical about all
government interventions, and so they are resistant to those based
on good practice. Pressure to comply also stifles professional
debate in staff rooms.
6. Teachers feel overwhelmed by the number
and variety of initiatives. This became increasingly apparent
to me as I investigated teachers' responses to Letters and Sounds.
(My review is included with this submission as supplementary material.)[18]
At present teachers of five year olds are expected, either legally
or through pressure from local authority advisors or inspectors,
to take account of:
— The National Curriculum.
— The Primary Framework for Literacy,
including 12 strands, linked to Early Learning Goals, with End
of Year Objectives for each strand.
— Letters and Sounds, based on the
Rose Review, with a Teaching Programme (208 pages) and Notes of
Guidance (28 pages), including 6 Phases.
— The Statutory Framework (54 pages)
and Practice Guidance (114 pages) for the Early Years Foundation
Stage (EYFS), including 6 Areas of Learning and Development with
28 "Aspects".
— The Foundation Stage Profile Handbook
(127 pages) and Profile Scale Booklet, including 13 assessment
scales with 9 points, based on "Stepping Stones" and
"Early Learning Goals", making 107 points in all. The
Profile Handbook includes the statement, "To complete the
Foundation Stage Profile scale booklet by the end of the reception
year, you need to record each item that the child has achieved
in each scale. Each point should be considered separately".
Teachers of children in Year 1 are likely to
be asked to use:
— Reading Recovery, promoted by government
under the umbrella of Every Child a Reader.
as well as
— The National Curriculum.
— The Primary Framework for Literacy.
These details are incomplete, but I am too confused
and exhausted by them myself to explain them further.
7. Government initiatives are seldom based
on the results of proper research, but apparently on compromise
between the views of different influential "experts".
I believe this was so in the cases of the NLS, PiPs, PwS and Early
Literacy Support (ELS).
8. Now there are initiatives and guidance
that contradict the recommendation of the Rose Review to use synthetic
phonics for the initial teaching of reading. I have given two
examples below.
9. Letters and Sounds is based on the recommendations
of the Rose Review, but the Government is funding and promoting
Reading Recovery. In spite of its propaganda, Reading Recovery
is still based on flawed methods that contradict the recommendations
of the Rose Review. Reading Recovery is for children in Year 1
upwards, who have not grasped how to read. To me, it is a scandal
that government promotes and funds Reading Recovery for the children
most in need of help.
10. The teachers of children affected by
the Statutory Framework for the EYFS are also affected by Letters
and Sounds. Some local authority advisors use the emphasis on
play in the EYFS to put pressure on teachers to abandon all direct
teaching, while others use Letters and Sounds to put pressure
on teachers to begin a programme of direct teaching of reading.
11. Here is a small collection of quotes
that show the confusion felt by practising teachers. I gathered
these when writing my review of Letters and Sounds:
— On one hand we are told to let them
play and our role is to scaffold, but at the same time we are
being told to get them reading vowel digraphs during the first
term in F2. Look at EYFS and Letters and Sounds, they are clearly
not out of the same stable ...
— Is phonics part of literacy or not?
... I don't understand the new framework.
— Just to clarify, 20 minutes Letters
and Sounds a day and then 40 minutes CLL (Communication Language
and Literacy from the EYFS) activity per day? It's all driving
me a bit crazy, so much to fit in and a lot of pressure from others
to do stuff in the EYFS.
12. When the Government provides materials
and training financed by taxpayers and delivered free to every
school, schools may choose methods and training because they are
free, and not because they believe they are the most effective.
13. For most of my teaching career I knew
very little about how to teach reading effectively, in spite of
my roles involving the teaching of reading. I have found an extraordinary
lack of knowledge amongst teachers as a whole. In order to make
good professional decisions, teachers need to be informed about
teaching methods and the results of research. Money spent on implementing
directives and guidance might be better spent on funding more
independent reviews and research, relevant independent publications,
independent practical research, and training to inform teachers
of the results.
14. Since the National Literacy Strategy
was introduced, many school inspectors have based their judgements
partly on the degree to which schools follow government guidelines
and partly on the results of non-standardised statutory tests
(SATs). If schools were to be given the freedom to choose which
methods to use, they would have to be accountable for the results.
In my view, it would be better to judge schools' teaching of essential
skills using standardised tests. I am not sure whether the availability
of test results would be enough to ensure effective teaching,
or whether action for poor results would need to be taken by local
authorities or central government.
RECOMMENDATIONS
— There should be a National Curriculum,
setting out broad principles of what should be taught, and schools
should be expected to follow this curriculum.
— There should be no further statutory
requirements with respect to the content of the curriculum.
— Guidance, resources and training
to support the implementation of the National Curriculum should
not be provided free by government, but by the private sector.
— Government should encourage professional
debate about how to implement the National Curriculum by ensuring
that teachers are informed of the results of reviews and research.
— Schools should be free to choose
teaching methods, but also accountable for the effect of the methods
they use to teach essential skills. Government should encourage
debate about the best way to achieve this.
March 2008
18 Not printed. Back
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