1. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) welcomes the opportunity to respond to the evidence check. This submission focuses on Every Child a Reader and Making Good Progress.
Every Child a Reader
2. The Every Child a Reader (ECaR) programme is the latest in a long line of intervention programmes managed by the National Literacy Strategy (NLS). Before considering ECaR in detail, it is worth considering the evidence base for the National Literacy Strategy itself.
3. The NLS advocated consistently, until fairly recently, both a whole word and a phonics method of teaching reading, requiring the teaching of both decoding skills and the development of a sight vocabulary. The research rationale was never made explicit to teachers, however, and many would have been unaware of the reasons for this approach. Equally, few would be aware that when devising the Strategy, programmes and practices from around the world were considered. The NLS’s shared reading approach and types of texts studied, for example, were heavily influenced by the Australian “First Steps” programme.
4. Arguably the most significant piece of research that was used to inform the NLS “Framework for Teaching” was the evaluation of the National Literacy Project (NLP). The NLP was introduced in 1996 as a model of teaching and professional development intended to raise standards in literacy, drawing on other similar international programmes that had a proven track record. The independent research evidence used to push for the NLS[1] only appeared, however, several months after the implementation of the NLS framework in September 1998. Such post-hoc justification cannot be described as evidence-based policy making.
5. Similarly, the publication by Government of the evidence base for the NLS[2] took place a year after its implementation, limiting any meaningful critical discussion of its merits. This publication was accompanied by a number of references to research reviews which supported the approach taken to the teaching of reading by the NLS. Most of this evidence, however, came from the USA rather than the UK. Reviews which reached different conclusions were not included. With such an unstable evidence base on which to proceed with a major national initiative, the focus of the Committee’s enquiry is welcome, if long over due.
6. In addition, a key feature of the NLS was the evaluation carried out by a team at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISEUT). An evaluation is no substitute for research to inform the development of a funded national initiative. The various intervention programmes which have sprung from the NLS, as well as whatever replaces mainstream literacy teaching support when the Strategies are discontinued, should incorporate future research, in collaboration with schools and higher education institutions, to ensure growth.
7. ECaR is informed, in part, by the well-respected and much-evaluated Reading Recovery programme developed by Marie Clay in New Zealand, which aims to reduce literacy failure in education systems through early intervention. This has been subject to a large number of national and international evaluations of its effectiveness since it was first established in 1976 – 77 and has been the focus of an annual national monitoring programme since 1984. In addition, it is a structural feature of Reading Recovery implementation to report annually on the progress and outcome data for every child receiving tuition. This information is used to monitor effectiveness, ensure a high quality of delivery, and to continuously assess and re-adjust the design of the implementation
8. The ECaR project was first run as a pilot scheme by the KPMG Foundation between 2005 and 2008. Its main aims included securing sustainable investment for widespread implementation of Reading Recovery and exploring how intensive support in reading could be provided in the most cost-effective way nationally.
9. In the ECaR programme, children in Year 1 and 2 who are struggling to learn to read and to write may be offered a programme of interventions, of which Reading Recovery is one element. Unlike the “pure” model of Reading Recovery, not all children receive individual tuition from specially trained teachers, only those who are experiencing the most difficulty. The rest are typically taught by support staff, who will have received some training from the specialist Reading Recovery teacher in school. ECaR may also be delivered to groups of children, rather than on a one-to-one basis. Whilst this obviously addresses the brief regarding cost-effectiveness, it ignores the particular benefits identified in the research literature by these two central features of Reading Recovery.
10. Another key difference between ECaR and Reading Recovery is that, for the latter, nominated teachers undertake a year-long in-service course run by a Reading Recovery tutor in their area. During fortnightly sessions throughout the course, teachers are trained in the use of specific Reading Recovery teaching procedures, while working daily with a minimum of four children. Although ECaR teachers also undertake a year’s Reading Recovery training in England, they are expected to cascade their training to other colleagues, including support staff, who will be responsible for the delivery of other ECaR intervention programmes.
11. There is certainly a substantial body of research literature which suggests that the most effective interventions are those offered to children in their first years of schooling. The NUT supports the longer-term strategy of ECaR, of identifying children who are failing to make acceptable progress at the end of Year 1 and providing intensive support to help them “catch up”. The NUT has serious concerns, however, that the programme “is designed to get a child with their needs back to age appropriate expectations” and that children are identified as suitable for Wave 2 ECaR if they are “just below national expectations”, with Wave 3 designated for children who are either “struggling” or “lowest attaining”.
12. The Government’s concept of “age appropriate expectations” is worrying in relation to ECaR because of the age of the children who will be subject to it. Due to developments in neurophysiology there is now increasing evidence to support the view that up to the age of eight, children develop at markedly different rates or, as some more experienced teachers might describe them, some children are “late bloomers”. It is essential that a clear distinction is made between those who genuinely do have cognitive difficulties and those who simply require a little more time.
Making Good Progress
13. Making Good Progress (MGP) contains potentially radical proposals for the future of assessment and personalised learning. The NUT believes, however, that, despite the DCSF’s assertion in the initial Making Good Progress consultation document, that “the issues … should be the subject of a larger and wider agenda which should involve debate across the school system”, any potential for such adebate is diminished by its insistence on maintaining a high stakes approach to assessment and accountability. The NUT is not aware of and has not seen any research evidence which the DCSF may have used to establish the MPG framework.
14. The nature and purpose of summative assessment has been the subject of intense debate for 20 years, as the initial consultation document itself acknowledged. Research evidence has overwhelmingly concluded that the current high stakes system of testing and assessment undermines children’s learning. That successive governments have chosen to ignore, not only overwhelming research evidence, but developments in assessment in Wales and Scotland, is simply a failure of evidence informed policy-making.
15. MGP seems to be based on the DCSF’s extraordinary assertion that the “framework of tests, targets and performance tables have helped drive up standards in the past decade”. There is no evidence that such a framework has achieved this objective.
16. The establishment of MGP was driven by the DfES’s concern that “the rate of progress… has slowed in the past few years”. Again, it is unclear why the Government thinks that improvement takes place consistently and incrementally.
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[1] Sainsbury M et al, ‘Evaluation of the National Literacy Project’, NFER, 1998.
[2] Beard R., “NLS:Review of Research and Other Related Evidence”, DfEE/University of Leeds, 1999.